The email was friendly enough. It was signed with a male name who said he was a fan of my work and wanted to drop me a note.
I was flattered.
I was newly-fledged crime reporter and it felt nice to get a kind email for a change instead of abusive letters.
Within a very short time the emails became more frequent. At first I tried to be polite and responded but as their frequency grew and the tone changed, I began to ignore them.
Colleagues and I even joked about my “mystery admirer”.
Deep down I was starting to feel very uncomfortable and uneasy and something wasn’t sitting quite right. I asked them to stop contacting me.
That didn’t go down well. This person accused me of “leading them on”, being haughty and rude.
Then an email dropped complimenting me on the outfit I was wearing that very day. Flowers were delivered to my office.
It was apparent they were watching me.
It was time to involve my bosses, who immediately alerted police. I was officially a “stalking victim”.
Safety precautions were taken while police investigated. I was given advice on how to keep myself safe. The support networks and the awareness surrounding the psychological affects of stalking wasn’t around then. Security was put in place at work but at home and in my personal life, I was more or less on my own.
The inquiry took many months – this was in the early days of high-tech crime investigations – and without going into too much detail, life seemed to stop while we waited to find out who my stalker was.
I felt vulnerable and exposed. Simple tasks such as walking home became scary so I changed my habits, I became obsessed with keeping my private life exactly that, I was brusque and guarded meeting anyone new so anxious was I not to become the recipient of unwanted attention. I made myself “small”.
Suddenly, even friends became suspects – I tormented myself wondering: “Is it you?”
I was looking for any hint it was someone close to me. My life was spiralling in the grip of constant paranoia. If a stranger looked at me for a second too long in street, it took all my time not to dial 999. I was snappy and irritable. It was dominating all my interactions with friends, colleagues and even relatives. I was beginning to feel quite mad with it.
Was the man calling me with a story really my tormentor? Was the interview I was about to go out on a set-up to lure me to a place on my own?
It felt like my life had spun out of control and there was nothing I could do about it.
As a journalist, we are used to attention from the public. After all, they are the very cornerstone of our business but for those few months communication with strangers made me feel sick and suspicious.
Social media has made us more “out there” and while we do get more abuse, it’s rarely personal and even rarer that we have to involve police.
It turned out my stalker was a female – by the time she was traced, she had moved out of Scotland and was apologetic for the fear and alarm she had caused.
I think she genuinely believed her actions had been “harmless”.
She was, what police described, as an “intimacy seeker” – she wanted a romantic relationship with me and so created a male persona in an effort to engage me in conversation.
It was decided we would drop any legal proceedings and that was the end of that.
But, I was curious why this woman had targeted me – she was a stranger. I discovered from police I’d had a brief introduction that had lasted no more than seconds and was so insignificant I had forgotten all about it.
To this day, I still don’t really remember it. This week it was National Stalking Week – and I was pleased to read that a Scottish University is leading the way in fighting back against unwanted and abusive behaviour.
University of the West of Scotland and Action Against Stalking are joining forces to fight back against stalking through research and targeted action for both victim and perpetrator.
For too long, victims have been forced to modify their behaviour, change their lifestyles or do anything that could aggravate their tormentor – all of which leaves the victim feeling more isolated and vulnerable. In many cases, victims are left feeling as if it’s their fault. It categorically is not.
Unwanted attention, whether it’s emails, texts, phone-calls or social media messages is not harmless “fun”.
Attitudes towards stalking have been changing but it’s still mostly overlooked as a serious crime.
So this new anti-stalking centre is a welcome addition and we can only hope that, as result of their research and work on the long-term effects of stalking, we will see new legislation that offers better protection for victims, an understanding of the physical and mental aspects of stalking and much tougher punishments as a deterrent.
In 2021 and beyond, we should not still be telling victims it’s their behaviour that needs to change.
