Taking Stalking Seriously: With Important Update.

"Taking stalking seriously is murder prevention." See link.

Back when David Blunket was Home Secretary, he made vigorous attempts to get police to take stalking and harassment seriously and actually produce an appropriate reaction. There were a few self-righteous responses from senior officers, but basically the police in general ignored the Home Secretary, who is responsible to Parliament for their actions. The reason for this is simple: the police have a deeply-ingrained culture of believing that stalking victims willfully provoke their stalkers and don't deserve any help. In truth, many individual stalkers are stalkers because they develop deep grudges about happenings which a normal person would regard as totally insignificant and probably not even offensive in any way.

Mr Blunket was also concerned about gang stalking, after one mother and her handicapped daughter committed suicide after being endlessly stalked by gangs of youths and adults, with the police constantly refusing help. It is apparent that the police in the United Kingdom have taken a collective decision to ignore senior politicians and Parliament on this issue.


Update 5/6/2017: The Inspectorate Of Constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate have had a go at improving the situation. One of the key findings of their report, is that police frequently obscure stalking campaigns by treating each and every incident in isolation, as in the case highlighted above. This has to stop. Not only do the inspectorates want the law tightened, they want police and prosecutors to be much more aware of what the law actually says!

The full report "Living In Fear: The Police and CPS Response to Harrasment and Stalking" and an associated research publication may be downloaded from the page on this link.