Ten Years of Stalking Laws: 'Changing attitudes is harder than changing the law'

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2022

⏱️ 57 minutes

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Summary

To mark ten years since stalking became a specific crime in England and Wales Woman's Hour has a special programme looking at what’s changed in that time. We have exclusive data on how this is being dealt with by police. The BBC's Gemma Dunstan joins Emma Barnett in the studio to go through the findings. One question we wanted to answer is what efforts have been made to get to the crux of the problem; to stop stalkers from stalking. Woman's Hour were granted extremely rare access to one of the three specialist stalking units around the UK. These units brings together police, psychologists, probation staff and victim advocates to decide the best steps to take to minimise the risk of stalking incidents. Emma Barnett visited the London Unit which has been in operation for 4 years. We are joined by the crime reporter, presenter and podcast host Isla Traquair. In her day job Isla is used to confronting murderers and travelling to dangerous places but it was in a quiet village in Wiltshire where her stalking ordeal took place. In August this year Isla's neighbour, Jonathan Barrett, was found guilty of stalking. This followed what Isla calls a 7 month period of terror from March to September 2021, she joins Emma in the studio. How are police dealing with a huge rise in the number of stalking cases? Emma puts this question and others to to Paul Mills, Deputy Chief Constable for Wiltshire Police. He is also the National Police Chief's Council lead for Stalking and Harassment. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Emma Pearce

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:05.3	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.1	A special programme for you today here on Woman's Hour covering a reality we wish wasn't
0:14.8	the case for those who are affected, the majority of whom are women.
0:19.4	I'm talking about stalking because this week marks ten years since stalking became a
0:24.0	specific crime in England and Wales.
0:26.8	We could be forgiven for thinking we'd had such a law for longer, but we haven't.
0:31.0	The Prime Minister in 2012 at the time of this legal change, David Cameron, described stalking
0:36.1	as an uphorrent crime which makes life a living hell for the victims.
0:41.3	It certainly is a unique and dangerous one, to find as behaviour that is fixated, obsessive,
0:47.2	unwanted and repeated.
0:49.5	The change in the law saw new powers for law enforcement and training rolled out across
0:53.9	the Crown Prosecution Service and police.
0:57.6	But has it worked?
0:59.2	What has changed in the last decade?
1:01.4	A period that's seen no less than five different Prime Ministers, each saying they would
1:05.7	prioritise law and order and in particular, especially of late, women's safety.
1:11.1	Coming up on the programme today we have exclusive figures gathered for Woman's Hour by the BBC's
1:15.7	shared data unit.
1:17.4	We speak to the news anchor and podcast host Eila Trequere herself, a victim of stalking.
1:23.6	The stalker was convicted earlier this year.
1:26.3	He was her next-door neighbour.
	...

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