Stalking is a pattern of Fixated, Obsessive, Unwanted and Repeated behaviours targeted at an individual, causing that person distress, fear and alarm. The acronym FOUR can be useful in remembering this. It’s a course of conduct offence so the incidents need to occur on two or more occasions.
It’s difficult to generalise about stalking behaviours as they can be anything that is persistent and intrudes into the life of the victim, but they can include such behaviours as:
- Repeated contact by text, telephone, social media, and in person
- Monitoring a person
- Turning up at the victim’s home, place of work, school of their child, gym
- Online tracking
- Sending/leaving unwanted gifts/tokens
- Damage to property
So often, there is a focus on the actions of the perpetrator, but it is equally crucial to consider the impact on the victim. If a perpetrator’s behaviour, however trivial it may seem to the external observer, leaves the victim feeling fear or distress, then it is important to take this into account, particularly in cases of stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress.
Sentencers are asked to consider the psychological harm to the victim, the persistence of the perpetrator, and the changes a victim has made to their life as a result of the behaviours. What is often not understood is the escalation of the behaviours and the risks that poses.
I think the lived experience of the Ruggles family illustrates how quickly behaviours can escalate. Clive Ruggles’s daughter, Alice was murdered by her former partner in Gateshead in 2016. Neither she nor her family had recognised the risk her killer posed.
Clive said: “Well, in Alice’s case the escalation was really fast— just 12 weeks from when she broke off their relationship in mid-July 2016, to his murdering her in the October. In most cases, the escalation is thankfully not this quick but rapid intervention can clearly be critical.”
The work of Professor Jane Monckton Smith has identified a pattern followed by abusers; the domestic homicide timeline. This eight stage escalation of behaviours has been created using research from domestic homicide cases. According to Clive, Alice’s cases follows this timeline “frighteningly well”.
Stage one is a HISTORY of stalking or coercive behaviour. Stage two is GROOMING; the relationship developed very quickly. Stage three is the presence of CONTROLLING behaviour. Stage four is the TRIGGER phase; the perpetrator’s control is threatened. At stage five there is an ESCALATION in the controlling/stalking tactics. Stage six is a CHANGE OF THINKING; the perpetrator choses to move on or seek revenge and then attempts to reconcile. At stage seven, the PLANNING phase, the perpetrator may buy weapons and/or plan to get the victim alone. The final stage, stage eight, is DOMESTIC HOMOCIDE.
In being familiar with the timeline and using it with the information given about a defendant in court, magistrates can be more informed about the risk the individual poses and escalation of their offending.
Following Alice’s murder, Clive and his wife Sue Hills founded the Alice Ruggles Trust to help educate young people about the dangers of stalking. Through this work they have heard first-hand the impact of stalking.
Clive said: “If you have not been a stalking victim, or known one closely, it is hard to appreciate the psychological impact of the continual (and often unpredictable) intrusion upon someone’s daily life. This is just as true when this involves a series of seemingly trivial incidents, such as leaving unwanted gifts, as when the perpetrator is constantly messaging, turning up repeatedly at the victim’s home, workplace or elsewhere, or—more seriously—spreading harmful messages or sensitive material on social media, or threatening actual violence to the victim or their loved-ones (e.g., children or pets).
In one case, a perpetrator left small tokens (jelly babies) in places where he had no right to be (e.g., placed in the victim’s locked car overnight, or in the living room of her locked house while she was out during the day), effectively saying “I can get in here. I am constantly watching you.””
In recent years, we have seen the introduction of Stalking Protection Orders (SPO), which can be applied for by the police as an early intervention strategy. The idea is to engage with the perpetrator before behaviours meet a criminal threshold and introduce preventative measures, managing the risk the individual poses. They are civil orders but carry a criminal sanction and can act as valuable evidence of escalation if they are breached. Additionally, they do not need the compliance of the victim.
“They take the onus off the victim,” explains Clive. “That is important because many victims (such as Alice) do not appreciate the seriousness of the situation they are in, believing and hoping that if they ignore their stalker for long enough they will eventually give up and move on.
A critical aspect of SPOs is the ability to impose positive requirements on the perpetrator as well as prohibitions. This may permit psychological interventions as well as requiring the perpetrator to hand over electronic devices and provide access to social media accounts.”
Clive Ruggles and Sue Hills, founders of the Alice Ruggles Trust, will join Sarah for an MA webinar on 21 April. Find out more details and sign up here.
Both Professor Jane Monckton Smith and Clive Ruggles will also be attending the MA’s first Domestic Abuse and Stalking Conference in Leeds on Saturday 6th June. For more information or to register your interest in attending, please contact [email protected].
