Speaking on Tuesday at Newcastle Crown Court, her flatmate Maxine McGill said: "Alice reported it [the package] to the police, it was 101 she called and it was the telephone operator she spoke to.
"She said she felt palmed off, she was asked the question 'what do you want us to do about it?'
"She said: 'I don't know, that is why I am calling because I was told that if anything further happened I was to get in touch'. She said basically it was a waste of time."
Five days later, Dhillon scaled a wall and climbed through a window to confront Miss Ruggles. He went on to slash her throat from behind using a sharp knife he had stolen from the kitchen, the court heard.
The court was told he fled leaving her to bleed to death on the bathroom floor. When the flat was searched a tribal-style ornamental mask that had not been there before was found on the floor of a bedroom.
Miss McGill, who gave an emotional account of the moment she found Alice's body at their flat in Gateshead, said Miss Ruggles had become a shadow of her former self.
She told the court that Miss Ruggles had split with Dhillon after discovering that he had been cheating on her with a number of women he met via the Tinder dating app.
Miss McGill said that he refused to accept the relationship was over and bombarded her with messages and threats. He also reportedly contacted her friends and family, said he would post sexual images of her online, hacked her social media accounts and drove from his Edinburgh barracks to her flat to intimidate her.
Miss McGill, a manager at Sky, said the effect on her colleague, who worked as a site coordinator for the broadcaster, was marked.
She told the court: "Alice became an introvert, visibly shaking with anxiety, she became skinny, she lost so much weight, she was pale and nowhere near as outgoing as she used to be.
"I heard a voicemail he left her. He was explaining that he did not want to kill her and he was calling just to prove to her that he wanted to be there for her.
"But I remember him using the words or phrase "kill you" six or seven times in that message.
"Alice had become very frightened of him and had started to say to him "you are making me think you want to hurt me.
"She was very worried after the breakup that Harry was accessing her Facebook, Whatsapp and Snapchat. He was very aware of Alice's actions and who she was interacting with on social media."
She said that Dhillon also bullied her during their relationship, which began in October 2015 when he spotted a photograph of her on a mutual friend's Facebook and ended in the summer of 2016.
Miss McGill said: "I remember one occasion in particular when Alice was in the shower but Harry needed to use the toilet.
"She was taking longer than Harry wanted so he made her get out of the shower and stand in the kitchen until he had used the bathroom and then allowed her to finish her shower."
Despite her fears over Dhillon, Miss Ruggles appeared to be on the verge of starting a new relationship with Mr James.
Miss McGill said: "Mike made her very happy, she told me that. I knew she was visiting her sister in Germany for a couple of days and she came back a different person to the one who left. She left a shadow of her former self and when she came back I started to see the real Alice again because she had met Mike.
"She had a great couple of days with her sister and Mike. It was a strong bond between two people. They got on like a house on fire and she said the banter between them was unreal, that's how she put it. She said she felt she could just talk to him about things."
Unknown to either Miss Ruggles or Mr James, Dhillon was allegedly using the advanced technical skills he had learnt as a signaller in the army to monitor their relationship.
He hacked both their social media accounts so he knew they were in touch and he sent a message to Mr James telling him that Alice was "playing" both of them, the court heard.
He is also said to have fabricated an entire conversation on Whatsapp that purported to be between himself and Miss Ruggles, and appeared to end with her telling him "I love you".
Miss McGill told the court: "Harry contacted Mike through Facebook messenger advising him that he and Alice were supposedly still in a relationship and still in love and he told Mike to back off.
"That affected Alice because she really liked Mike and she was worried she would not see him again. That consumed her for a while but he got back in touch because he felt as strongly as Alice did and she was back to her giddy, happy self."
Miss Ruggles and Mr James arranged to meet imminently on the weekend he was due to return to the UK on leave, but Dhillon allegedly killed her before they continue their plans.
Miss McGill wept as she told how she found Miss Ruggles' body at their flat. The door was locked from the inside and she said she felt such panic for her friend's safety that she climbed a perimeter wall and hauled herself through a window, she said.
Visibly shaking, she told the jury: "I was looking through my phone when Alice came into my eyeline. She was lying on the bathroom floor, it stopped me in my tracks and I ran to her.
"The first thing that I noticed was the amount of blood, it was everywhere. At first I thought she had fallen and hurt her head but I could see there were signs of a struggle.
"She was lying on her front with her face turned to the side, her legs looked broken."
She added: "I knew when I saw her that she was dead, she was changing colour, there was no response from her and there was so much blood."
Dhillon denies murder and the trial continues.
This story was originally published by The Daily Telegraph.
