Police fail many victims of stalking, watchdog reports

Police are trivialising stalking and letting victims down, watchdogs have warned, as figures show one in five women are targeted.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

A major new report, launched in response to a supercomplaint against police lodged two years ago by the antistalking charity Suzy Lamplugh Trust (SLT) on behalf of the National Stalking Consortium, found “clear evidence” that victims were being let down.

In their super-complaint, the groups warned some victims were being left at risk of being seriously hurt or killed as they struggled to have their cases taken seriously. The 159-page police watchdog response published yesterday found police had “overtly minimalised or trivialised” stalking behaviours reported to them in 46 of the 470 stalking and breach of protective order cases they reviewed.

This included victims not being believed or taken seriously or feeling victim-blamed or shamed by officers. One victim explained: “I was told keep collecting the evidence and then being told as I’m reporting stalking – continued stalking – ‘well he’s not actually done anything wrong yet, he’s not actually doing anything’ … which completely skews and twists how you think about what you’re reporting.”

The watchdogs found it “especially concerning” that in some cases they reviewed, police “had not identified risk of serious harm or homicide to a victim”. It comes after official data from the Office for National Statistics showed one in five women and one in 11 men in England and Wales have been a victim of stalking.