Women are being failed by a criminal justice system that does not understand stalking and has become ‘complicit’ in allowing cases to escalate, a damning review has found.
London victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman’s report found that two-thirds of stalking suspects in the capital had offended before.
It also found that 80% of reports made by victims are intially recorded as domestic abuse or harassment rather than stalking.
Data suggests one in five women in the UK will fall victim to stalking, as will one in 10 men.
‘Victims have been failed for far too long by a criminal justice system that is still struggling to identify and understand stalking,’ she said.
Ms Waxman is calling for wholesale reform of stalking laws, saying the report shows ‘too many stalkers are able to evade justice’.
‘Confusing legislation is hampering the police’s ability to build strong cases, enabling stalkers to act with impunity and leaving victims at risk.’
Emma Lingley-Clark, Interim CEO of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, said the findings show the need for ‘urgent action’ from all agencies to ‘improve the response for stalking victims’.
Stalking is a pattern of fixated and obsessive behaviour that makes the victim feel scared or harassed.
It can involve repeated behaviours and can last a long time.
One in five women and one in ten men experience stalking, according to stalking victims charity the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.
The 1997 Protection of Harassment Act targeted all forms of harassment, including stalking.
Then, in 2012, the law was amended to make stalking a specific offence.
Stalkers face ten years in prison if convicted of stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress.
Stalking Protection Orders were introduced in 2020 to give police new powers to stop stalkers.
A third of the victims had a prior acquaintance with their stalker. Many victims are stalked by ex-partners.
The ordeal can take over someone’s life. According to researchers, 50% of stalking victims curtailed or stopped work because of the abuse.
Victims do not tend to report the stalking to the police until the 100th incident.
In 2021, the Metropolitan Police recorded 1,000 cases per month, compared with 200 cases per month in the year to April 2020.
The Home Office said the rise in reported cases was a result of changes to the way police forces record the crime.
In 2022, 6% of reported stalking cases in England and Wales ended up in charges being brought.
In comparison, in 2014 and 2015, 37% of reports resulted in charges.
A third of all reported stalking cases are dropped due to difficulty obtaining evidence.
Of all the cases that end up in court in England and Wales, 66% end in conviction.
In April, former safeguarding minister Laura Farris issued new statutory guidance to police forces to apply a lower standard of proof when issuing SPOs.
That meant that there would be fewer barriers to issuing an SPO.
‘Previously the police would have to meet the criminal standard which is beyond reasonable doubt.
‘We’re lowering that now, so they only have to persuade a judge on the balance of probabilities, a kind of 50-50 test, that a Stalking Prevention Order is appropriate,’ Farris told Sky News.
‘We must continue to treat stalking with the utmost gravity. Having doubled the maximum sentence, and introduced a new civil order to protect victims, we know there is more we must do,’ Farris added.
Emma Lingley-Clark, Interim CEO of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, said that the charity welcomed the announcement, but warned that more needed to be done.
‘There is an urgent need to increase the use of SPOs across the country and improve understanding amongst police officers given the extremely low uptake and lack of knowledge within police forces currently,’ she said.
Discussing the cases of former Met Police officers David Carrick and Wayne Couzens, Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe said ‘we must be better at identifying escalating predatory behaviour’ before people go on to commit more serious crimessuch as rape or murder like those two former officers did.
Among the escalating offences they named were flashing, stalking and abuse.
The mother of murdered university student Libby Squire said gateway offences should be met with longer prison sentences.
Lisa Squire told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that treatment for offenders should be enforced and ‘we should unpick their thinking and change their thinking’.
Her 21-year-old daughter was abducted, raped and murdered while walking home from a club in Hull in 2019 and she has been campaigning for earlier intervention and harsher punishments ever since.
Married father-of-two Pawel Relowicz was jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years after being found guilty of her rape and murder.
Relowicz, a Polish butcher, had been carrying out a campaign of sexually motivated crimes in the student area of Hull, peering through windows to watch young women and breaking into their homes to steal intimate items.
Ms Squire said: ‘We have been conditioned to accept it, we accept these lower-level offences happening to us, and it’s “oh, nobody was hurt”.
‘They don’t get long sentences – it could take two or three years to get to court and they might get a six month or eight-month sentence, or suspended, so (victims ask) is it worth it?’
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