Iain Burgess was convicted at Kingston Magistrates Court last Wednesday of harassing Margaret Bird, the society's honorary secretary, on numerous occasions.

This was Mr Burgess' second trial in a long running dispute which has cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds. A judge annulled his first conviction because the memorandum from the magistrates court cited a wrong section of the Harassment Act.

The dispute started when Mr Burgess, the debating society's former minutes secretary, queried £15 missing from the society's accounts four years ago.

After being thrown out of the society Mr Burgess used to stand outside Kingston Baptist Church in Union Street when the society held its meetings on Thursday nights.

Ex-chairman Margaret Rhodes said: "It was scary. For a woman on her own on a dark winter's night to find a man loitering there was not nice."

Mr Burgess is not allowed to enter Kingston town centre from September 1 to March 31 each year on Thursday evenings from 7pm to midnight. He was ordered to pay a £150 fine and £100 costs.

He said: "This is a new piece of legislation being used by people who thought they could shut me up about fraud.

"I am interested in the structure of corruption: how did the Metropolitan Police and the CPS get dragged into this?"

He plans to appeal against his conviction and said: "This doesn't throw me at all."