Stalking

Sandra Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am at a disadvantage as I do not have the Welsh experience of the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and I have great difficulty pronouncing the constituency of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), but I want to add my thanks to him for the leadership he has provided on this issue in the House, and to express my sadness that he does not intend to stand at the next election. He will be greatly missed in this place.

I wish to record my thanks to Harry Fletcher and Laura Richards, who have achieved such rapid results both in legislation and in the difficult task of attracting funding for Paladin—the national stalking advocacy service which, as we know, was launched in July this year. They have, as the right hon. Lady said, also been a great support to the all-party group.

It will not surprise Members that in my contribution I shall briefly compare the situation in Scotland and in England and Wales, and look at the behaviour and treatment of perpetrators and the work and experience of the national stalking helpline, if time permits. I pay tribute to my constituent Ann Moulds, who endured years of torment from a stalker. She has been at the heart of campaigns to raise awareness of stalking at both national and local level and founded Action Scotland Against Stalking. This is a voluntary organisation which was set up to campaign for victims of stalking to be protected through the introduction of specific anti-stalking legislation and to help progress the rights of victims within the criminal justice process. It is obviously a sign of progress that we now have legislation across the UK to deal with stalking, and Ann Moulds has played an important part in helping to bring these laws about.

As we heard, in Scotland in the first 30 months of the legislation more than 1,400 charges were reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, of which 1,046 resulted in the commencement of a prosecution, with around 460 convictions. I am informed by the Crown Office that 315 cases are still in process. Given that the legislation is relatively new, I give it two cheers. The numbers are positive, as we have heard, compared with the situation in England and Wales, where the population is much bigger. It is useful to look at how the legislation is being implemented in both places to see what lessons can be learned.

As hon. Members have said, the reported detection rates for England and Wales suggest a clear lack of effective implementation of the stalking legislation. One of the biggest issues is the lack of statistical data to establish a base-line reference for a true measurement of the problem. Training completion rates for police services suggest that a higher level of detection rates could be anticipated, but police recording of the crime lacks transparency and practices are not being systematically monitored. Whatever the precise stalking rate, it is clear that it is dramatically higher than the number of persons identified by the police would suggest. In other words, the low detection rates supported by anecdotal evidence provide enough information to suggest that there is a severe lack of expertise in stalking cases throughout the police, prosecution agencies and the courts, not a lack of stalking cases.

The legislation is either not being enforced or is being deliberately ignored by the very people charged with the responsibility to enforce it. Legislation in itself is worthless if it does not lead to a change in attitude to one that does not tolerate violence against women in all its forms. The reason why stalking was introduced as a stand-alone offence is that neither the existing law nor its application was working, as hon. Members have said.

Stalking as a concept is completely different from harassment: it has a different mode, motive and perspective. An inability to recognise those intrinsic differences is one reason why stalking is not taken seriously enough. Recognising stalking as a distinct and serious crime is in the interest not only of victims but of the public, because it plainly shows that such an offence has been committed.

There is a vast difference between someone identified as a stalker and someone who has got into trouble for harassment, as harassment says very little about the persistent, obsessional nature of the crime. Should an offender come before the criminal justice system again, it will be clear that he has a conviction for stalking. That is important in detecting stalkers who are serial ones, as many are. Stalking can lead to other forms of serious acts of violence, so it is important to establish such links. Prosecution for stalking signifies that the stalking has been acknowledged and taken seriously. It sends a clear message to the victim and to the public, and it encourages other victims to seek help and to report cases to the police.

The criminal justice system is a tool that we, as a society, use to signal what is and what is not acceptable. Based on many years’ experience, I firmly believe that where legislation is brought in, hearts and minds will follow. Victims should no longer be expected to live with the constant fear and powerlessness of being stalked. A miscarriage of justice occurs not just when an innocent person is wrongly convicted, but when innocent victims are failed by the state, sometimes at the cost of their lives, including from a failure to realise that psychological harm can be every bit as serious as physical violence.

There was welcome news in Scotland yesterday. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland will no longer enter into plea bargains with stalkers, following a case highlighted by the Daily Record, which has campaigned on the issue. The Crown Office chief executive wrote a letter of apology to the victim, Frances Carroll, after accepting that a plea of not guilty as part of a plea bargain should never have happened.

That plea bargain meant that the case against an obsessed bully who stalked and terrorised Frances was dropped, and that John Cabrelli faced only one charge of stalking, which was against a second woman, Ashley McCann. After the plea bargain, the charge involving Frances was dropped, while that involving Ashley was lowered from a section 39 charge of stalking under the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 to a section 38 charge of abusive and threatening behaviour. Both women were therefore short-changed, to say the least, by the criminal justice system.

Procurators fiscal and their deputies are now being told that all evidence in stalking trials must be heard and tested in court. That huge step forward would never have happened without the Daily Record campaign, on which it is to be congratulated.

Before this debate, I contacted Ann Moulds for her views on training issues from the Scottish context. Ann reported that although there is still much to do, substantial progress is being made. She advised me that she was told at a recent meeting with the Crown Office in Scotland that all front-line police officers in Scotland are to be trained to a basic level of understanding for the purposes of identification, which is welcome news.

Ann informed me about the work she is doing on a schools stalking project in South Ayrshire in my constituency. It involves eight secondary schools across South Ayrshire, in which year 5 and 6 pupils will develop short films about stalking. I am sure that everybody in the House will agree that it is important to educate young people about this serious issue.

The main difference between Scotland and England and Wales is that the legislation has had longer to bed in in Scotland. The overall picture in Scotland is positive. The legislation there is now up for review, which is good news. I am sure that we will see more progress in England and Wales in the near future, particularly in the important area of staff training.

Whenever we discuss stalking, we must remember that it is not just something that happens to high-profile celebrities. It happens to ordinary people, whose lives can be ruined. The survey by Leicester university and the Network for Surviving Stalking, which is the largest such project undertaken in the UK, shows that one in five women will fall victim to stalking in their lifetime. That is a horrifying statistic that underlines why legislation was needed and why we need to build on that legislation by prioritising the training of criminal justice professionals and spreading awareness across local communities.

The question of how perpetrators should be treated is controversial, as it presupposes that treatment can be effective and can afford sufficient safety to the victim. I say unequivocally that stalking is a crime first and foremost, and should be treated as such. Perpetrators should feel the full force of the law, with no suggestion of pre-court diversion, which takes away the criminal element and puts the victim at risk.

I have campaigned against violence against women for more than 30 years. I chair my local Women’s Aid group, where I started work 30 years ago. I pay tribute to that organisation, especially Karen Gardner who has devoted her life to Women’s Aid and who leads the team in East Ayrshire. I make no apology for the continual tributes, because the people who do this kind of work do not get anything like the recognition that they richly deserve.

To return to the subject of perpetrators, I was astounded to hear last month that Sir Stephen House, the chief constable of Police Scotland, suggested that some domestic violence offenders could be directed to counselling or relationship guidance, rather than be taken to court. That would take us back to the early ’90s—it failed then and it would fail now. To categorise domestic violence or stalking as some kind of relationship dysfunction, rather than a crime, sends out all the wrong messages. It is particularly worrying that that has come from a person who is running the whole police force of Scotland. I honestly thought that we had made much more progress than that. To make matters worse, he takes issue with the fact that his officers have to act in every case. It took us years to achieve that in domestic violence cases and we are still a long way from it in stalking cases. It looks to me as though victims are once again being sacrificed to save time and money.

I recognise that many women want the behaviour to change or the stalking to stop, but the bottom line is that if a crime has been committed, court is what we have. Why should domestic violence or stalking be dealt with differently from any other crime, unless we do not really accept that it is a crime? I accept that a criminal sanction is not the whole answer, but it is an important part of it.

In the summer of 2011, NAPO, the probation union, asked its members to provide case histories of individuals who had been convicted of significant stalking behaviour in the previous 12 months. By autumn 2011, it had received 80 studies. The majority of those came from probation victim liaison units.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I regret having to interrupt the hon. Lady. Having put a time limit of 15 minutes on Back-Bench speeches, I note that it appears that fewer Members are in the Chamber than was the case at the beginning of the debate. If the hon. Lady would like to take a little more than 15 minutes, she is welcome to do so. The same goes for other Back Benchers.

[Sandra Osborne]

Thank you very much for informing me of that welcome news, Madam Deputy Speaker.

During NAPO’s study it became apparent that court report writers, following training, often concentrated on the immediate matter before the court and did not take into account previous histories or behaviours. In NAPO’s view that meant that significant stalking and harassment evidence was being missed by the courts on a finding of guilt—a view also shared by the leadership of the Magistrates’ Association.

Probation staff are concerned that evidence shows that sentences handed down by the courts are often too short for rehabilitation or treatment to occur, and that cumulative behaviour is not taken into account by the courts when determining outcome. For example, it is not routine for psychological or psychiatric assessments of the perpetrator to be requested by the courts; indeed, often they are turned down. In the view of NAPO and Paladin, as a consequence of that, women who are being stalked are placed at grave risk. The cases submitted by NAPO members are strikingly similar. They are disturbing and frightening for victims, and all the experiences were harrowing. The overwhelming majority of victims were in constant fear; many were physically injured and most experienced varying levels of assault. Many were the victims of criminal damage, and in extreme cases victims were either murdered or subjected to attempted murder. There is evidence that perpetrators threaten the family and friends of victims to get information, either in real life or through texts and the internet.

A number of common characteristics appear in all cases. Most victims claim that a significant number of incidents occur before they go to the police, and often their complaints are not investigated thoroughly. Stalking usually occurs over a long period—often years—and tends to be a mix of real life and cyber-stalking. There is overwhelming evidence that a perpetrator’s behaviour escalates if there is no criminal justice intervention or treatment. It appears that stalking behaviour is not properly recognised by professionals. In most cases—although not all—there is a history of domestic violence, with numerous incidents before matters are reported to the police. In a number of cases men were placed on domestic violence courses that were not appropriate, especially for those with links to mental ill health.

One case supplied by Paladin illustrates the problems that victims face. Rachel, aged 40, has been the subject of a long-term campaign of stalking. The stalker breached a court order banning him from contacting Rachel just hours after it was made. The magistrates court heard how he turned up at her address and workplace demanding she hand over cash, and he admitted stalking involving serious alarm and distress. He was given an 18-week suspended prison sentence and ordered to stay away from Rachel, but the next day he showed up at her place of work and was re-arrested. He told police, “She better not live in that house when I get out. I mean it.” His defence team stated that he was desperate and pleading for help. They said he did not threaten her when she said no to giving him money. The judge ordered the man to serve 18 weeks for each breach of the restraining order.

I strongly believe that whether a perpetrator is given a community or custodial sentence, a treatment programme from skilled practitioners is essential if victims are to be protected. I would welcome any statement from the Home Office on progress that has been made since last November when the laws came in, and on what plans there are for the future. I do not want to try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will finish by saying that I am pleased, and actually proud, to take part in this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We must empower victims and victims’ families to speak out. It is important that they do, because by doing so, including through forums such as the one in his constituency, they can challenge the culture in those institutions that normally close their eyes and ears and that do not always stand up for the victims. Such forums can be powerful tools.

In my constituency and the county of Essex, we have gone a long way to change the whole process—the policing, the dialogue, the engagement, the interaction—through our police and crime commissioner, Nick Alston, who has been a breath of fresh air. Our change of approach stems from the fact that in the past Essex has not had a great track record; we have had some horrific cases of stalking, domestic abuse and violence. Again, it is about hearing victims’ voices and challenging the organisations involved. That can be a powerful tipping point and a forceful interaction for change.

[Sandra Osborne]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the media have an important role to play in presenting victims’ stories, which, if done in the wrong way, can be very injurious to the victims?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to mention the role of the media. From start to finish, the media must be balanced, sensitive and thoughtful in reflecting victims’ experiences, particularly when it comes to court reporting by journalists sitting in on cases, which brings me back to my comment about re-victimisation. If those journalists get it wrong, it is traumatic and dreadful for the victims. We must all work in a joined-up way with all the organisations and institutions to ensure the right parameters, so that the media know how to report cases in the right way.

I would like to reflect on some of the statements by victims about their interaction with the police after suffering the trauma of stalking and harassment, along with psychological and physical abuse. Some of their comments are quite telling about their experiences and the challenges they face, which we have to overcome to ensure that the system works for the victims. I was quite taken aback by some of their comments, which show a degree of trivialisation of the issue—I do not like using that word in this context—and, dare I say it, indifference from the police towards victims. One victim said:

“‘The police didn’t take me seriously on any occasion that I went to them to report numerous events”

of stalking and harassment. Another victim said:

“They told me to switch my phone off and ignore it. They said there that nothing can be done. I showed them dozens of texts, they were not…interested. They said nothing can be done unless he actually tries to hurt me!”

That is simply unacceptable and puts this issue into context. The system is letting victims down. It is appalling to think that, as we have heard in this debate, there are cases in which the result has been death or murder, and there are hundreds of cases up and down the country—all Members present this afternoon can testify to that.

It is pretty clear that the victims of stalking are consistently let down by the criminal justice system. Victimisation is an issue, as I have said, but although new laws have been introduced, it is pretty obvious that victims are still not at the heart of the criminal justice system. There is no doubt that many agencies display a lack of awareness of the new law, as the comments I have quoted show. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) spoke about training. There is no doubt that we need much more training, education and awareness. Again, incidents are treated in isolation, not linked with the totality of an offender’s behaviour and thus not seen as stalking when the victim finally reports. It is relentless. We have heard examples already, but although a perpetrator might be arrested, that is not linked with their stalking behaviour and they are not charged appropriately for that or for harassment. Then there are the wider issues about such behaviour leading to domestic abuse.

I also want to touch on the courts. It is quite clear that the courts are not always aware that victims might have been stalked consistently over a long period, as they will be dealing with only the latest and most recent element of crime in a case, with the result that the offender might not receive the right sentencing, as the judge or magistrate will not be fully aware of the context or history. There is so much more that the courts and the Crown Prosecution Service could do in this area, as well as by working with the police. I feel that the CPS sometimes enters into plea bargaining with offenders and drops charges in exchange for a guilty plea for a smaller number of lesser offences. We must look at this whole area if we are to ensure that victims receive the justice they deserve.

As we have all seen, victims are simply not taken as seriously as they must be—this is not about “should”; it is about “must”. They need to be treated with respect throughout their journey and their experience. All the research shows that too often the accounts of perpetrators are given precedence over those of victims, without thorough checking for corroborative evidence. Victims are not signposted to the appropriate support or given the right kind of safety advice or risk assessment. Again, it is a matter of securing the right balance. All of us who work with organisations and institutions must do what we can to put victims first.