A serial stalker who threatened to sexually mutilate TV vet Trude Mostue is facing life in jail unless he can be cured, a judge warned yesterday.

Construction worker John Maynard, from York, is so anxious to receive psychiatric treatment that he has already cashed in assets to pay for it himself, Teesside Crown Court was told.

The 55-year-old had numerous convictions in England and Germany for terrorising women, and just months after his release from a five-year prison sentence, he was making shocking calls to women, including Miss Mostue.

Maynard rang her Bristol practice last April, claiming to be a friend. He said: "If when I meet her I will kill her", before threatening to sexually mutilate her, said Christine Egerton, prosecuting.

He was arrested after making a phone call from a public box in King Square, York.

Maynard admitted five charges of harassing Miss Mostue and four other women, including a Miss Cleavage entrant, a managing director and a shop assistant.

He admitted putting Miss Mostue in fear of violence by harassment between April 13 and May 20 last year.

He denied two charges of making threats to kill seven women last July and October and the charges were left on the court file.

Dan Cordey, defending, said a psychiatrist had concluded that Maynard could be cured.

The judge, Recorder David Robson, directed the doctor to appear before him at the next hearing.

He said: "There is no doubt that without psychiatric treatment this man will continue to be a serious danger to women because, although he has not physically damaged anybody, he has caused enormous mental stress and alarm."

He also said that he needed to know whether Maynard was such a risk that the only option would be an indeterminate sentence.

Mr Cordey said Maynard, who asked for three more offences of making obscene phone calls from a call box in Easingwold, near York, be taken into consideration, was anxious to pay for any treatment himself.

Maynard was remanded in custody