Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, it is frequently said that one of the strengths of this House is its expertise and experience. However, I am afraid that I have some unwelcome experience in this area that colours my views about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the stalking Act in Scotland on which Amendment 70 is based. I had the misfortune to be the target of a sustained, three-year criminal campaign that included a number of stalking and harassment incidents, as well as criminal damage, which was waged by my Conservative political opponent Ian Oakley when I stood for Watford at the 2005 and 2010 general elections. It started in the run-up to the general election of 2005 when posters with my name had very unpleasant swear words painted on them in large letters. To spare noble Lords' blushes, I will refer to the C-word, the WH-word and the B-word. They were so graphic that at the sentencing of the perpetrator they were not read out in court. Although it was unpleasant, the police and my team felt that it would stop when the 2005 election was over—at this point we did not know who was doing it. Sadly, that was not the case. Over the next three years, the individual's campaign escalated to include repeatedly sending me and mainly six other individuals gay and lesbian literature, including very unpleasant and increasingly hard-core pornographic material, making repeated silent telephone calls, particularly late at night after I had gone to bed, and sending a large number of untrue and very unpleasant letters first to party supporters and then increasingly to neighbours and random members of the public. I often felt that we were being watched, and I certainly did not like being on my own. The perpetrator continued the campaign of minor criminal damage, which also escalated from breaking car wing mirrors and fence-posts to repeatedly slashing tyres on people’s driveways—not just one tyre but three or four on each car on a driveway, and done with, the police told us, a large nine-inch knife. The nature of the letters, notes and fake leaflets became more offensive and sexually explicit, which was very distressing. Here I want to raise the issue of stalking of men. Well over 80 per cent of victims are women and the public are often unaware that men are targeted too. My close friend and colleague, a local councillor who became the second principal target in Watford, was at the receiving end of really vicious treatment in the same campaign. He was targeted simply because the perpetrator did not like the idea of a Liberal Democrat councillor in what had previously been an exclusively Conservative ward. His neighbours received anonymous letters saying that he had not paid his ex-wife’s maintenance—he is still happily married to his lovely first wife. A few months later his neighbours and some random members of the public received letters saying that the councillor was a convicted sex offender. A letter a few weeks later ““named”” the little girl and the effect this was having on her family. The whole thing was pure fiction. But those who did not know him said to me, ““There’s no smoke without fire””, even when told it was not true. It affected him, his wife and his adult children. This was typical of the power that stalkers try to gain over their victims through using other people near and dear to them and, sometimes, complete strangers. As the main target, and because I was the parliamentary candidate, I co-ordinated the reporting of all these events, because in the early stages we could not get the police to take them seriously. Surveys of stalking victims show that often they suffer 100 incidents before they go to the police or can get the police to take it seriously. So it was in our case. Only when I collated all these so-called minor incidents and put them in a spreadsheet with dates, times and locations—and often one incident covered actually eight incidents of criminal damage—did the police recognise that this was more than, in their description, occasional interparty political games but was a determined and sustained campaign by an individual. When the tyre slashing started, the police attitude changed completely. Their profiler said that the next step would be danger to people and we were warned and trained how to deal with any future events. This included saying a code word—““Operation Tuition””—when ringing about an incident so that anyone taking our call in the police control room would alert detectives immediately. This worked for a bit, but as personnel changed so the vigilance dropped, and on at least two occasions the perpetrator could have been caught if control had responded as originally intended. My husband installed around a dozen CCTVs at the homes of the main targets, including ours, at his own personal cost and time, in an attempt to get the perpetrator's fingerprints. The targets and our families, including my teenage children, already alarmed at what was going on, were taught to use police-issue gloves to pick up anything posted through our doors. Following an incident where my husband took a photo of the perpetrator when he was being very aggressive to me and two councillors one day, the police were able to use the photo and subsequent CCTV of a graffiti incident to link him to the vandalism, and at last, in July 2008, he was caught. Thankfully, given the weight of the evidence, he pleaded guilty to seven specimen charges: five of criminal damage and two of harassment. He asked for a further 68 to be taken into account. Another 80 or so incidents—including a large number stalking/harassment ones—were not even included. Our case was typical of this kind. Having got some evidence, the police and the CPS wanted to close it down quickly, for which I have some sympathy. This meant that they used the incidents with forensic evidence for the charges, but stalking and harassment is harder to prove. In fact, in law, an ““index”” crime such as GBH or ABH will at present cancel out the need for the harassment even to be logged. This must be changed as it is making stalking and harassment invisible. We also need a higher sentencing tariff than is currently available under the harassment Act. It may be peculiar to say this, but I was lucky—lucky because I was not on my own. With six other colleagues—five councillors and a candidate—who were also targeted by this man, and dozens of supporters having criminal damage to their properties or receiving extremely unpleasant literature about me or my colleagues, we were able to band together as a little team and support one another. Most victims of stalking are on their own. They do not have the benefit of knowing how to explain to the police or of having local newspapers, such as the Watford Observer, taking them seriously and refusing to publish the repeatedly really offensive letters about me. It is therefore essential that more support and advocacy is available to victims of stalking, especially those struggling on their own. All these are reasons why we need legislation on stalking, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her amendment, which is fine as a probing amendment. However, its timing is just a little too early. The people’s stalking inquiry, with the all-party support to which the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred, set up by the National Association of Probation Officers and Protection Against Stalking, of which I am a member, is due to submit its report to the Prime Minister early in the new year and, at the same time, the Government’s own consultation will conclude. To date, the stalking inquiry wants to recommend much of the legislation made in Scotland, on which the amendment is based, but we believe that some parts of it need to be strengthened, especially regarding training for all parts of the justice system. More specific recommendations are needed relating to the treatment of perpetrators and understanding the nature of the escalation of behaviour and violence—rather than focusing just on the length of the sentence. The treatment of perpetrators is critical. In return for his prison sentence being suspended, our perpetrator agreed to have treatment because clearly there were mental health issues. Both myself and my councillor colleague who was targeted as the fictitious sex offender were content with this. Prison on its own would have neither resolved the issue nor helped him come to terms with his behaviour. That is one of the reassurances we had. During the whole experience, I refused to allow myself to be described as a victim, nor did I think myself as one. That is why I repeatedly used the word ““target””. Becoming a victim would have played into the perpetrator’s hands. However, for many who do not have the support networks that I was lucky enough to call on, especially my husband and family, it must be impossible not to feel that they are a victim. Talking about this has been a cathartic experience for me, and I did not understand how deeply it affected me until after the perpetrator’s conviction, and it still does. But please do not focus on my journey; I use it merely as past illustration and, compared with the horrible—horrible—experiences of many other serious stalking cases, mine was minor. Let us start at last to get effective justice and support for the thousands of victims of stalkers who are relying us to get it right. We can do that at the Report stage of the Bill, if we move fast enough. Nietzsche famously said: "““That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger””." The problem for too many victims of stalking is that being killed or maimed is a real threat. There is no point in strength there. Let us not rush this. Let us get it completely right and then do it—and do it early next year. We owe it to those who have given their lives or live in fear of them.