Super-complaint about the police response to stalking

Introduction

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust submitted a super-complaint regarding the police response to stalking on behalf of the National Stalking Consortium (the Consortium) in November 2022.

A super-complaint is a complaint that “a feature, or combination of features, of policing in England and Wales by one, or more than one, police force is, or appears to be, significantly harming the interests of the public” (Section 29A, Polie Reform Act 2002).

The police super-complaints system is designed to examine problems of local, regional or national significance that may not be addressed by other elements of the police complaints system. More information on police super-complaints and the process for making a super-complaint is on the government police super-complaint webpage.

The Consortium raises several concerns about the police response to stalking in this super-complaint. It states that these are features of policing that are significantly harming the interests of the public:

Misidentification of stalking

This includes:

• Police treating behaviours as single, unconnected incidents and not recognising the wider pattern of behaviour that constitutes stalking.
• Police treating stalking behaviours as a different offence such as malicious communications or harassment.
• Police minimising or trivialising stalking behaviours.

Flawed investigations leading to inappropriate no further action decisions

This includes:

• The psychological effect of stalking not being sufficiently recognised by the police or treated as evidence.
• Risk of serious harm and homicide to the victim not being recognised by the police.
• Police failing to recognise the influence of online (or cyber) stalking and not treating the behaviours as evidence.
• Cases being wrongly closed by the police due to lack of evidence, where evidence was available.
• Failure to offer or refusal to apply for a stalking protection order on behalf of a victim in cases of stalking.
• Lack of response by police following breaches of protective orders (including stalking protection orders, non-molestation orders, restraining orders, bail conditions or other), and the failure to treat continued breaches of orders as a further offence of stalking.

Further issues of concern including:

• Lack of referrals to specialist services by the police leaving the victim at risk.
• Dangerous or unhelpful advice given to victims.
• Evidence not being collected within the statutory six month timeframe, where this applies, and the case having to be closed for this reason.
• Lack of stalking intervention programmes across England and Wales.