| Stalking: a real problem
The jailing of Barry George, Posh and Becks targeted again, a storyline in Coronation Street… stalking affects all kinds of people, writes Stacey Teale Type the word 'stalking' into any Internet search engine and you’ll be overwhelmed by the response. It is fast becoming the byword for celebrity. Anyone who is anyone has a stalker – Posh and Becks, Nicole Kidman, Hear'Say's Myleene, Brooke Shields, Billie Piper. Yet to concentrate on the glamorous element is to ignore the reality – stalking is a terrifying experience for those involved, celebrity or not. Pity poor Victoria and David Beckham, officially the most stalked couple in Britain. The couple are thought to have attracted the unwanted attentions of up to 400 stalkers – recently a woman was detained after breaking into the communal hallway of their penthouse flat and stealing private mail. Police confirmed the 37-year-old, who had travelled all the way from Scotland to the couple’s house in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, had been involved in several other incidents at the Beckhams’ home. The Beckhams are not alone. There have been a glut of other cases recently. Nicole Kidman’s stalker appeared in court and was ordered to stay away from the actress for at least three years and there were also reports that Brooke Shields had staged a mock wedding to throw a stalker off her trail. The jailed pursuer of tennis star Martina Hingis is now planning to appeal after revelations that she is dating the prosecutor who put him behind bars. Even Dean and Josh from Big Brother 2 have claimed they were victims of stalkers in the past.
Not just the rich and famous Academics at Aberdeen University are to carry out a comprehensive study into stalking to gauge the need for new anti-harassment laws. At the moment prosecutors normally treat stalking as a breach of the peace – something many victims say does not give them enough protection. The study will look at how complaints are dealt with, the current laws and the experiences of police officers, lawyers and victim. It will report back next May.
Visit Dating Detectives website for up-to-date advice on dating harrassment, stalking and cyber stalking. The academics will be very aware of recent cases such as the Barry George conviction for the murder of Jill Dando and the man nicknamed Britain’s most notorious stalker, Anthony Hurdle. Barry George had a history of stalking. The loner was obsessed with women and had thousands of photographs he had taken of complete strangers he had followed around London. Some experts believe he was stalking Miss Dando before her murder, although this was not proved in the trial. Anthony Hurdle – highlighted in a TV documentary as Britain’s most notorious stalker – tried to murder girlfriend Lorraine Nicholson when she called off the relationship. He slashed her wrist so hard her left hand was left hanging off. Hurdle was jailed for life this week.
Cyber stalking The storyline was bound to strike a note of fear in many parents, if only because cyber stalking is dramatically on the increase. Stalkers often meet their prey in chat rooms or pose as other people on pornographic websites. They bombard their victims with abusive email and use the Internet to gain revenge when things go wrong. ‘Cyber stalking is soaring,’ says Evonne Von Heussen, MBE, the founder of the National Association against Stalking and Harassment, the only charity of its kind in the UK. ‘At one time we dealt with the more traditional forms of stalking where someone followed their victim around or called them on the phone. Now we’re dealing with more cases of Internet stalking than ever before. We’re working on more than a dozen cases at the moment. To the victim, it’s terrifying. The cyber stalker has such power.’
Visit Dating Detectives website for up-to-date advice on dating harrassment, stalking and cyber stalking. Cyber stalking has made life a misery for women like 20-year-old Julie. As a young woman, living in the capital, surrounded by friends and family, she should be having the time of her life. Instead she is a nervous wreck, often afraid to go out, yet just as afraid to stay at home. She has been plagued by abusive telephone calls from men responding to an explicit website that lists her name, address, home telephone number and fabricated stories about her sex life. She has not been able to find the website and wouldn’t know how to get her details removed even if she did. Julie is a victim of cyber stalking, but ironically she doesn’t even own a computer. As the Coronation Street storyline highlights, the advent of the Internet had added a further degree of anonymity in the stalker's favour. When someone seems to know everything about you – your name, address, route to work, likes and dislikes – it can be terrifying. And in the technological 21st century, there is no way of knowing if they are sitting at their computer terminal across the other side of the world or in the house next door.
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