Stalking Protection Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure and privilege to take part in this debate on what could hardly be a more important subject, one literally of life and death, as has been said. I join hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on bringing the Bill to this point. Stalking is an horrific and devastating crime, which causes unthinkable suffering to its victims. It is also an unusual crime, in that the onus almost always falls heavily on the victim to provide the evidence to demonstrate that a crime has taken place and to support their case against the stalker. In few other areas of criminal law is that function left so heavily to the victim.

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was introduced to deal with many of the problems that have been covered in the debate, but it did not specifically name the offence of stalking. Sadly, it soon became clear that that Act was insufficient to deal with the scale and nature of the problem. The 2012 reforms that amended the Act and created the two new offences were an important and valuable step forward. The results can be seen in the number of prosecutions since the new offences came into force at the end of 2012.

At Christmas, West Midlands police launched a seasonal campaign on the crimes of stalking and harassment. The force campaigned to encourage victims to seek help by confiding in loved ones and reporting abuse to the police. The findings are as stark as they are horrifying. Of the cases reported, 57% were domestic-related. Much like other Members have said, victims typically suffered between 70 and 100 incidents each before they reported the harassment and stalking to West Midlands police.

The campaign coincided with the case of a West Midlands policewoman who had been the victim of harassment by an ex-partner. In support of the campaign’s launch, she said:

“When I reported it to police it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders—and when an officer came around to my house, and realised the extent of the harassment,”

they wanted to arrest her ex-partner immediately. But, of course, things are rarely that simple in criminal law. The police have to build a case to be confident that they can bring charges.

The time taken and the burden of having to meet that level of proof often means that victims of stalking are left suffering further harassment, the consequences of which can be enormous. As the policewoman said:

“It felt as though he still had a hold on me and even months after we’d split up I could still sense him there. I used to dread opening letters and parcels in case they were from him—and I couldn’t enjoy my birthday or Christmas as he’d send gifts and notes saying how he wasn’t going to let me go. I felt on edge all the time.”

That type of behaviour, and its effect on victims, is exactly the kind of thing that the new civil protection orders in the Bill are designed to tackle.

In the past year, West Midlands police have received 290 reports of stalking, but only 61 people were charged, with others being cautioned or agreeing to out-of-court resolutions. That highlights the scale of the problem that makes the Bill necessary. We need new and more flexible measures and sanctions to deal with stalking, but although we need them to be simpler options, it is important that we make sure they are not taken as the easy option.

Civil protection orders must not replace prosecutions, so it is important that the CPS and other bodies continue to apply existing laws as fully as they can and as strongly as the law allows. This is not about replacing those prosecutions, but about the many instances of inappropriate, unwelcome and unacceptable behaviour that might not yet have escalated to that criminal threshold; about the early intervention that can change behaviour and change lives; and about protecting hundreds of thousands of men and women by preventing that stalking and harassment from spiralling into even more serious crimes. Applied properly, these orders could make an enormous difference to many lives, and that is why I am pleased to support the Bill today.