When does a healthy interest become stalking?

Friday, 2nd April,2010

Stalking can be defined as the willful and repeated following, watching and/or harassing of another person:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking. It differs to that of other bad behaviour because for much of the time, actions of stalking tend to be over a long period of time, as opposed to a single event which is associated with other crimes, and very often, it can consists in a number different forms, ie. phonecalls, gifts, text messages, etc., which are perfectly acceptable under normal circumstances.

So when does an interest in someone's activites become stalking?

Well, it should be probably be regarded as stalking when a person's privacy or free will is impacted by the attention or actions of another.

The BBC Inside Out website states that unsocial conduct occurring on at least two occasions in which a person is subjected to persistent and obsessive behaviour causing harassment can be dealt within the law under The Protection from Harassment Act 1997: http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series7/stalking_advice.shtml, which would seem to indicate that after only a couple of instances of unwanted attention, it could

be viewed as stalking within the law.

Also, whilst a Crime Survey back in 2007 revealed that one in 10 women in Britain said that they have been stalked during the previous year:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6300291.stm, a survey carried out a Dr Sheridan which included 1,300 stalking victims, suggests that the top three methods used by stalkers were unsolicited telephone calls, spying and threatening to commit suicide.

It also shows that the most likely victims are attractive female professionals in their mid-30s, and that most of the victims have had some sort of contact with the stalker, 50% are ex-partners, others were delusional and some were deeply sadistic. Also it is ex-partners who are the most frequently violent. Therefore, stalking also differs from other forms of crime as most of the time, the culprits are suffering from some sort of mental illness.

Whilst only a minority of cases end in fatality, studies also indicate that the majority of victims suffer deep psychological distress as a direct result of the stalking, and Dr Sheridan said that the majority of victims present with post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Given the severity of the distress experienced by the victims, 2 0r 3 episodes of unwanted attention as a result of obsessional behaviour would not be an unreasonable figure to go on, when very often, a simple police caution will suffice.