Dr. Sarah Wollaston

Transcript by Jayde Stevenson

I think it’s representing a really important issue that affects thousands and thousands of women, and men as well, and trying to see whether I can actually make a difference personally by taking an Act of Parliament through as a private member’s bill.

That’s a… that’s an extraordinary opportunity to have and I’m very conscious um, that when I was selected in the… uh successful in the ballot, um, that I wanted to choose something that, a: was a really issue where there was a gap in the law and where something could make a real difference. And actually, there is a gap in the law around stalking, and that is if you’re a victim of so-called stranger stalking- that’s to say you’re not being stalked by someone who’s your former or current intimate partner, um, then really the onus is on you to take the action. And uh… and stalking is very dangerous and it has really serious impact on people’s lives when they’re victims of stalking. And the worst cases of course can lead to murder. Um… and what we know is there’s a gap in the law to provide protections for people against their stalker at an earlier stage, cos stalking is a crime of obsession and fixation and often it will go on for years or decades and each individual act in itself may appear to be trivial- sending a bunch of flowers, sending texts – but when you view them in their entirety as a pattern of behaviour, they have profound impacts on victim’s lives. Um, very intimidating, frightening, um and so what we needed was to have something in place so that the police could take action and it could go to a magistrates court and a stalking protection order could be put in place on the balance of probability- that’s to say the civil standard of proof, but breaching the stalking protection order by continuing to stalk the victim would actually be a criminal offence. So, I think that’s the whole point of it is, a: to be able to interview earlier, um b: to take the onus off the victim, and to make sure that there are serious consequences for stalkers who continue their behaviour. And it allows that hopefully to step in at an earlier stage before it becomes completely and deeply engrained. But it’s not intended to replace a conviction for stalking as an offence, but it puts something in place, for example where… while the investigation can be taking place.

Before I came into Parliament, before when I was a doctor, one of the jobs I had was to be a victim examiner for Devon and Cornwall Police, and over many years I’ve been seeing victims of serious sexual crime, but you know, it’s not uncommon for that to be part of a pattern of stalking behaviour leading up to that.

Um, and I think people are always surprised by how common stalking is to be honest, and certainly- yes in my constituency casework I’ve come across very many victims of stalking, and this affects men as well as women.