2.21 Stalking

1. Introduction – what is stalking?

The police and CPS have adopted the following description of stalking:

‘a pattern of unwanted, fixated and obsessive behaviour which is intrusive. It can include harassment that amounts to stalking or stalking that causes fear of violence or serious alarm or distress in the victim’. Statutory Guidance – Stalking Protection Orders: Statutory Guidance for the Police, Annex A: Understanding Stalking (Home Office)

There is no such thing as a ‘typical’ stalking perpetrator or a ‘typical’ stalking victim, but stalkers may often target people who are particularly vulnerable, including adults with care and support needs. Stalking disproportionately affects women and girls, but men and boys can be victims too. Stalking affects people of all ages and from all backgrounds, and it can have a devastating impact on victims.

Stalking behaviours often have the same characteristics as other forms of abuse, including domestic abuse, rape and other sexual offences, harassment, and so-called ‘honour-based’ abuse. Stalking behaviours can be an extension of coercive control, when an abusive intimate partner relationship has ended and / or the perpetrator and the victim are no longer living together (see Domestic Abuse chapter).

Different perpetrators will engage in different types of behaviour depending on their motive and what they hope to achieve from pursuing their victim. The relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, as well as the context in which the stalking behaviour takes place, can also vary. In many cases the victim and perpetrator will be known to each other.
Fear of serious harm or death does not have to be present for the perpetrator’s behaviour to amount to stalking, or for the victim to feel they have to make significant changes to their daily activities.

There may be a combination of online and offline stalking behaviours committed by the perpetrator.

The perpetrator’s behaviours may appear to others as ‘harmless’ and within the law, particularly if considered as isolated incidents rather than as part of a pattern of behaviour. However, behaviours may amount to stalking depending on:

• the context of the behaviour;
• the motivations driving the behaviour; and
• the impact on the victim.

Stalking perpetrators can manipulate practitioners, agencies and systems, using a range of tactics to continue their contact with, and control over the victim, including:

• deliberately targeting adults who might be vulnerable;
• manipulating an adult’s mental health (for example, making them think that they are ‘going mad’);
• using the system against the victim by making counter-allegations against them, or making false reports to organisations or claiming to be the victim of the stalking behaviour themselves;
• attempting to frustrate or interfere with a police investigation into their behaviour;
• using threats in order to manipulate the victim. For example, by telling the victim that they will make a counter-allegation against them; that the victim will not be believed by the police or other agencies; that they will inform social services; or contact immigration officials where the victim does not have permission to be in the UK.

2. Identifying Stalking Behaviours and Supporting Victims

Prevention and early support are key principles of adult safeguarding, therefore adults with care and support needs should receive clear and simple information from practitioners about what stalking is, know how to recognise the signs and what to do if they need help.
Stalking can include:

• following someone;
• going uninvited to their home;
• hanging around somewhere they know the person often visits;
• watching or spying on someone;
• sending unwanted gifts, flowers, cards, emails or texts;
• becoming friends on social media and then repeatedly mentioning the adult in posts or leaving comments on posts they have commented on.

2.1 Action to take

Adults who are being stalked should be supported to:

• report it and tell others;
• collect evidence and keep a diary (e.g. keep any messages or unwanted gifts, write down details of when the stalker was seen nearby);
• complete a risk assessment using the Risk Screening Checklist;
• contact a specialist agency for support and advice:
  • Suzy Lamplugh Trust / national stalking helpline ;
  • Paladin National Stalking Advocacy Service.

All adults have the right to feel safe in their own homes. Stalking is a criminal offence and should, therefore. be reported to the police.

3. Criminal Offences

3.1 Stalking

The Sentencing Council defines stalking as persistently following someone. It does not necessarily mean following them in person, and can include watching, spying or forcing contact with the victim through any means, including social media.

If a person is convicted of stalking under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 the maximum sentence is six months’ custody. If the stalking is racially or religiously aggravated, the maximum sentence increases to two years’ custody.

3.2 Stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress

Stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress is a more serious offence. It involves two or more occasions that have caused the victim to fear violence will be used against them or had a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities, even where the fear is not explicitly of violence. Evidence that the stalking has caused this level of fear could include the victim:

• changing their route to work, the hours or days they work or their employment to avoid contact with the stalker;
• putting additional home security measures in place;
• moving home;
• suffering physical or mental ill-health.

The maximum sentence is 10 years’ custody. If racially or religiously aggravated, the maximum sentence is 14 years’ custody.

4. Stalking Protection Orders

4.1 Overview

Stalking Protection Orders are civil orders which can be requested by the police. The threshold for starting criminal proceedings does not need to be met for a Stalking Protection Order to be made – providing a way for early police intervention in stalking cases. No previous conviction for stalking offences is needed to apply for an order.

The use of Stalking Protection Orders should be considered as part of local adult and / or child safeguarding and public protection procedures.

When the threshold to start criminal proceedings has already been met, a Stalking Protection Order is not an alternative to criminal prosecution for stalking offences but can be used alongside prosecution for such an offence. This allows for protection to be put in place for the victim even if the criminal case results in an acquittal, or where a criminal prosecution is not pursued.

Stalking Protection Orders may be used in a domestic abuse context where appropriate.

The police should consider applying for an order where it appears to them that:

• the alleged perpetrator has committed acts associated with stalking;
• the alleged perpetrator poses a risk of stalking to a person; and
• there is reason to believe the proposed order is necessary to protect the other person from that risk. (The person to be protected does not have to have been the victim of the acts mentioned above.)

The ‘risk of stalking’ may relate to committing physical or psychological harm to the other person and / or physical damage to their property. This includes acts which the alleged perpetrator knows, or ought to know, would not be welcomed by the other person even if, in other circumstances, the acts would appear harmless in themselves.

Interim Stalking Protection Orders are intended to make it quicker to obtain an order when there is an immediate risk of harm, for example in cases where there are concerns about suicide or serious violence, including murder, but where further information or investigation is required to meet the criteria to obtain a full Stalking Protection Order or when the court is unable to provide the full order in time.

4.2 Conditions of an Order

The conditions of an Order could include banning the alleged perpetrator from:

• entering certain locations or defined areas where the victim lives or frequently visits;
• contacting the victim by any means, including by telephone, post, email, text message or social media;
• contacting or interacting with the victim through other people, for example friends or family;
• making reference to the victim on social media either directly or indirectly;
• making vexatious (upsetting) applications to the civil court (including the Family Court) which reference the victim;
• recording images of the victim;
• using any device capable of accessing the internet;
• physically approaching the victim (at all, within an area agreed as part of the Order, as outlined on a map); and / or
• being involved in any kind of surveillance of the victim.

The conditions of the order could also include positive requirements for the perpetrator to:

• attend an assessment as to whether they are suitable for treatment;
• attend an appropriate perpetrator intervention programme;
• attend a mental health assessment;
• attend a drugs and alcohol programme;
• give their devices to the police (for example, phones, laptops and mobile phones);
• provide the police with access to their social media accounts, mobile phones, computers, tablets and passwords / codes; and / or
• sign on at a police station.

4.3 Breach of an Order

A person who, without a reasonable excuse, breaches a Stalking Protection Order or an Interim Stalking Protection Order commits a criminal offence.

If the name used by or the address of a person, who is subject to a Stalking Protection Order / Interim Stalking Protection, changes during the duration of the Order, they must notify the police of that within three days; failing to do so is a criminal offence.