From April 2021 to March 2022 alone, 1.8 million people in England and Wales were affected by it. One in five women and one in ten men in the UK will experience stalking in their lifetimes. She also believes “a lot of people aren’t reporting it”. Vicky explained that unfortunately, stalking is a lot more common than people think. In 2014, she received a £130,000 pay-out from the Home Office for its failings to protect her. He set fire to Ms Hewitt’s mother’s home and turned up at the hospital where she worked with weapons and a specially adapted cage in a van. Initially, Vicky didn’t realise what was happening to her until she saw a TV programme about Alison Hewitt, the doctor who was hounded by an ex-partner. She is constantly looking over her shoulder. Her children know the last four digits of the number plates of all his vehicles, her doors are always locked, and she can never buy a house. When she went to the supermarket, she would always park under CCTV cameras in well-lit areas. On one occasion, he ominously sent a friend request to her landlady.īeing stalked impacted every aspect of Vicky’s life as she felt as though a “heavy black cloud” followed her wherever she went. Over the past decade, she has uprooted her life four times to escape him. My cousin saw it and told me: ‘Vicky I’m sorry, but he knows where you’ve moved’.” Vicky explained: “He posed as a buyer and went into a house for sale behind my new house and took a photograph of where I lived, putting it on Facebook. Every time she moved, he would eventually find her new address. He bombarded her with long, rambling letters, cards, and texts. He followed her to work, to friends’ houses, on dual carriageways.

Once, when she was in a bar, he approached her from behind and threatened to have the mother of two shot. He tried to play the victim,” she explained.Īs time went on, his behaviour became more sinister. Little did I know he was also reporting me to the police for stalking, telling people that he was one of my clients, and spreading rumours about me. “At first he was motivated by rejection, then it became revenge because I had reported him to the police. In the little time they dated, her perpetrator had gathered her personal information and routines which he then used to hound her. After five months of dating, she broke it off.

Letters of Note by Shaun Usher