\n<\/p>\n
Young people may not even realise they have been victims of stalking, the Crown Prosecution Service has said as it launched a scheme to tackle a rise in offending.<\/p>\n
The number of stalking offences charged by the CPS in England and Wales reached a record high last year of 7,168. More than 80% of these were flagged as relating to domestic abuse, meaning most victims were stalked or harassed by someone they knew.<\/p>\n
Part of the four-year stalking action plan included exploring how a \u201cspecific policy statement\u201d for children and young people could help them recognise the behaviours they encountered or displayed, because many may not be familiar with what constitutes stalking.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people are growing up in this digital world, so they\u2019ve got more access to both friends and strangers than any other generation has before,\u201d said Olivia Rose, the CPS\u2019s national stalking lead. \u201cAnd what might seem quite innocent at first can then escalate into stalking.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes victims, and offenders, are unclear about what those boundaries are and when they\u2019re crossed from. Some people might not recognise when they\u2019ve been a victim of stalking,\u201d she added, \u201cbut equally, sometimes an offender may not obviously understand, and be able to spot when their own behaviour has crossed that line into criminality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rose said it was important to educate victims to spot the signs and report stalking to the police, but also to educate younger offenders to understand when their behaviour was escalating into stalking.<\/em><\/p>\n Lisa (not her real name) met her partner when she was 15, and they were together for two decades. After she left him, he started stalking her.<\/p>\n He would turn up at the family home, and bombard her with emails, calls and messages throughout the day and night. He tried to hack into her email account, set up fake social media profiles to contact her, and even accessed their child\u2019s Facebook account to view her social media posts.<\/p>\n Lisa was eventually locked out of the email account she had had since she was 12, which she said \u201csounds such a small thing but it was quite a big thing for me\u201d and was \u201cquite gutting\u201d, because she had \u201cemails on there from my nan who had passed away\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI had dating profiles set up in my name [by him],\u201d she said. \u201cHe put me on swingers\u2019 websites, you name it, he put me on it, and he put my phone number on there, so I\u2019d wake up in the morning, and I would be greeted with videos and pictures that I\u2019d never wanted to see in all my life.<\/p>\n \u201cI was extremely suicidal because I just felt like the only way of being able to escape him and be free from him would be to end my life,\u201d she said. \u201cI just literally felt absolutely petrified to be in my own home. I didn\u2019t feel safe to be in my home at all. And it just left me extremely suicidal.\u201d<\/p>\n Her stalker was eventually jailed for two years and eight months. However, the stalking had had such an impact on her life, she said, that she still had nightmares and flashbacks, and never wants to be in another romantic relationship. She spends her \u201cwhole life looking around\u201d because she is \u201cscared that somebody is going to be following me\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole thing has moulded me,\u201d she said. \u201cFor half of my life, I\u2019ve been in this relationship, and it hasn\u2019t been nice from the get-go.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t think of anything worse than to be in a relationship,\u201d she added, \u201cbecause I don\u2019t ever want to run a chance of being with somebody like him, or to end a relationship and it not be ended.\u201d<\/p>\n The conviction and jailing of her stalker was \u201cmassively, hugely\u201d important. When she heard, she said, she broke down in tears, \u201cbecause it meant the whole world and more\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cJust to know that he hadn\u2019t got away with it again, and that there was some sort of justice there,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think I was going to get any justice for myself at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Rose said offenders were using technologyto stalk, monitor and control their victims.<\/p>\n As well as social media and messaging apps, perpetrators were using GPS trackers, banking apps, and shopping and reselling apps. The CPS was working with tech experts \u201cto spot and tackle those digital stalking patterns\u201d, Rose said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really trying to get ahead of the curve,\u201d she added. \u201cWe\u2019re really fighting to understand, well, actually, if they\u2019re doing this, what could follow?<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s why it\u2019s really important for us within the stalking action plan that we\u2019ve got those experts on board,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause we are not experts.\u201d<\/p>\n Other measures in the plan include working with police to ensure officers and prosecutors can spot the patterns of control and trauma response that underpin stalking, and improving transparency through the introduction of stalking-specific data flagging.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s how we\u2019ve been able to identify that the number of cases prosecuted had increased year-on-year,\u201d Rose said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s something that the charities really wanted us to have, and we just weren\u2019t able to give them that sort of detailed information, which we can now.\u201d<\/p>\n In the UK, the National Stalking Helpline is on 0808 802 0300 or email via their inquiry form. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, resources are available at stalkingawareness.org, and you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Young people may not even realise they have been victims of stalking, the Crown Prosecution Service has said as it launched a scheme to tackle a rise in offending. The number of stalking offences charged by the CPS in England and Wales reached a record high last year of 7,168. More than 80% of these<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[15932,2173,364,5799,9559,2933,801],"class_list":{"0":"post-48713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-cps","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-people","11":"tag-recognise","12":"tag-stalking","13":"tag-victims","14":"tag-young"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}