At the height of the harassment, talkback radio host Schwarz would receive up to twenty calls in twenty minutes, in a sustained campaign that lasted months.

Schwarz might be a big, burly footballer, but he was fearful for himself and his family.

"He threatened my producer who's a female, and once that happened I just realised enough was enough. I felt intimidated and uneasy. I didn't know what was going to happen," he said.

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As the harassment continued, at the forefront of Schwarz's mind was his dad's murder. His father, Heinz Schwarz was shot dead in a motel bed in 1981.

"My dad got murdered through someone who had made idle threats, and those threats ended up being played out," Schwarz said.

He was just eight-years-old at the time, and asleep in the bed next to him. The attack left him traumatised for years.

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"I think until the age of seventeen I always thought someone was going to come through the window," Schwarz said.

He found solace in football, but when the stalking began in October last year, those haunting memories resurfaced.

The man behind the obsession was Steven Robert Elworthy - a regular caller to Schwarz's radio program.

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Schwarz invited Elworthy to be part of his Grand Final show in 2008. He was unable to do another show as he fell ill, and says that "as a result things got nasty."

So nasty in fact that Schwarz was forced to take out an intervention order.

Radio listeners were unaware and Elworthy continued to call under a fake name - ignoring the intervention order and calling Schwarz more than 155 times between October last year and June this year.

Under Brodie's Law, introduced in Victoria earlier this year, Elworthy was charged with criminal stalking.

Late yesterday the father of one was sentenced to six months' jail. His lawyer said his client gives his deepest and unreserved apology to Schwarz and his family.

• Brodie's Law - www.justice.vic.gov.au

This reporter is on Twitter at @LyndaKinkade