Stalking victims to be given more protection under new measures
Stalking victims will finally be told the identity of their abusers under new guidance being proposed by the government, as ITV News' North of England Reporter Kelly Foran reports
Victims of stalking are to be given better protection including the right to know the identity of their online stalkers, in new measures announced by the government on Tuesday.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has committed to using “every tool available” to give victims more power.
The changes come following a warning earlier this year from a group of watchdogs who said police are failing to protect stalking victims in too many cases.
New “right to know” statutory guidance will "empower" the police to tell victims of an online stalker's identity at the earliest opportunity, the Home Office said.
The new guidance was inspired by former Coronation Street actress and Talk TV host Nicola Thorp, who was a victim of stalking and online abuse.
Ms Thorp was stalked and abused online for months by a man who set up almost 30 social media accounts to send her violent misogynistic messages.
Police said they could not reveal the identity of the offender even after he was arrested.
Ms Thorp only learned his true identity when his 30-month prison sentence and lifetime restraining order was handed down in court.
"For too long, stalking victims have been at the mercy not only of their stalker, but a justice system that failed to protect them," she said.
"These new measures will empower victims to regain some much-needed control of their lives and police to bring abusers to justice."
Other measures announced by the Home Office include Stalking Protection Orders – which can ban stalkers from going within a certain distance of their victims, or contacting them – being made more widely available.
The new approach will see courts able to impose such orders after a conviction even where none was in place before a trial, contrary to the current process where one has to have been in place already.
This will stop offenders from contacting their victims from prison, the department said.
If someone is acquitted, courts will still have the power to apply protection orders directly if there is enough evidence to suggest that the person is still a risk to someone, the Home Office added.
Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips told ITV News she has been stalked "a number of times" and that she'd continued to be harassed by a perpetrator even after they were put behind bars.
"Once as a teenager, which people dismissed at the time as somebody just being amorous towards you, and I have to say, I've heard that from a lot of younger women who've suffered from stalking over the years," she said.
"But also as a woman in the public eye, I've had people become obsessive about me. People who've ended up in prison for their obsessive harassment of me - very rarely charged with stalking actually - who unfortunately have then gone on to continue to contact me, and harass and stalk me from prison.
"So some of the announcements the government are making today are directly to address some of the issues like that."
The government has also promised a review of stalking legislation to determine whether the law could be changed to support police to better identify stalking and arrest offenders.
Other changes include defining stalking in statutory guidance and setting out a framework in law to help support services work together to ensure no-one is failed by vital information falling through the cracks.
The Home Office said it will publish new data on stalking offences to inform policy and policing decisions, and set out national standards on stalking perpetrator programmes to ensure consistency across England and Wales.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "We will use every tool available to us to give more power to victims and take it away from the hands of their abusers.
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"This starts with empowering police to give women the right to know the identity of their online stalkers, strengthening stalking protection orders and ensuring that the police work with all support services to give victims the protection they deserve."
The government has also committed to accepting or partially accepting all of the recommendations launched in response to a so-called super-complaint raised two years ago by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust on behalf of the National Stalking Consortium.
The complaint set out concerns including how there had been flawed investigations, instances where stalking was not being properly identified, officers “minimising or trivialising” such behaviour and the risk of victims being seriously hurt or killed not being recognised.
Emma Lingley-Clark, interim chief executive of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, said: “We hope these changes will begin a transformation of the way all agencies work together to improve the recognition and management of stalking and better support those affected by this devastating crime.”
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