A lorry driver who trawled for women on dating site Plenty of Fish has been convicted of stalking.

Neil Craig, 41, left two women he dated "alarmed and fearful" after he bombarded them with texts and messages and turned up uninvited at their homes after they tried to end their relationships with him.

Amanda Thomson, 42, told a court how he once refused to let her call her ex-husband to look after her two children when she collapsed and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance.

Craig also insisted on being put down as her "next of kin" even though he had only known her for a few days, she said.

When Ms Thomson went to the bank on behalf of someone at work, he stood so close to her at the window the cashier told him off and said: "You need to get rid of him".

Stirling Sheriff Court heard Ms Thomson and another woman, Lorna Gilchrist, eventually called the police to rid themselves of his attentions.

Ms Gilchrist, 35, said she met Craig on Plenty of Fish and began dating him in April 2014 but after a "three to four-week honeymoon period" things started to go wrong.

The project manager from Glasgow said: "Obviously in my job in the construction industry I have a lot of male contacts. He'd want to know if I'd had a previous relationship with them.

"He tried to delete contacts off my phone. One day he tried to phone me 20 times in two hours."

She added: "By the time things came to an end I was scared of him. Sometimes he would say it was OK, sometimes he'd be angry. I've never met anybody so manipulative in my whole life.

"At one point I felt brainwashed. I didn't feel like I was actually myself, I felt like a totally different person."

On June 15, 2014, she finally called the police after she found him sitting uninvited outside her home.

She said: "I thought he was never going to leave me alone. He just wouldn't accept it when I said I didn't want to see him any more."

Craig's behaviour led to her having anxiety medication and seeing occupational health staff at work.

Ms Thomson said she met Craig, also through Plenty of Fish, towards the end of 2014 when she was "quite naive" having come out of a marriage and having not had a boyfriend for some time.

She said: "The only way I can describe him is as attaching himself to me. He was constantly texting, an unusually high amount. They were quite pushy texts - he wanted more than I was giving him."

The healthcare worker from Allan Park in Stirling, said on top of the bank and hospital incidents, Craig had even told her off for holding his hand "wrong". She said: "He said it wasn't a tight enough grip."

He eventually seemed to accept their relationship was over, said he was disappointed and admitted he "may have had too many issues".

It started up again when he put a long letter through her door saying he had been "pouring over horoscope charts" looking for similarities in their signs and claimed they showed they were "soulmates".

She told prosecutor Adrian Fraser she blocked his texts but began seeing him sitting in his car outside her house so agreed to meet him again to try to get rid of him.

Ms Thomson said: "I went and picked him up. I wanted to get the message through to him once and for all that I didn't want anything more to do with him.

"He said he wanted to go to the car park by Waitrose. I said to him 'this is over'. I remember thinking 'this isn't getting through to him'.

"He wouldn't get out of the car. I had to pick my son up from school but he still wouldn't get out. I thought I'd have to agree to stay with him - I wanted away from him."

Craig, of Braehead, Stirling, was found guilty on Thursday of stalking Ms Gilchrist between May 16 and June 15 2014 by attending uninvited at her home and refusing to leave when requested, and repeatedly contacting her by text, email and phone and repeatedly leaving voicemails.

He was also found guilty of stalking Ms Thomson between January 5 and 19, 2015, by repeatedly sending text messages, Facebook messages, and voicemails, repeatedly leaving correspondence at her home, refusing to alight from her vehicle when requested to do so, loitering outside her house, and making derogatory comments. He had denied the charges.

Sheriff William Gilchrist said: "The issue is not whether he intended to cause fear and alarm but whether he did, and whether he should have known his behaviour would have that affect.

"He did send abusive texts which at the very least would be expected to upset the recipients. I am satisfied that there were occasions that both ladies showed upset, and that would have been apparent to him."

Solicitor advocate George Pollock, defending, said Craig had an offer of a new job and wanted to move to England.

Sheriff Gilchrist deferred sentence until February for reports.

He said: "I want to explore whether there's any need for any form of supervision."