Ban stalkers from internet, urge MPS

STALKERS could be banned from using the internet under new legislation, as Twitter was accused yesterday of failing to protect victims.

Senior Tory MPS have urged the Government to take urgent action and back a Bill which would allow early action against stalkers before their behaviour escalates.

It comes as a victim claimed Twitter protected the man who stalked her rather than take her claims seriously.

Rosamund Urwin, a journalist for The Sunday Times, spoke of her ordeal as a man who had harassed her online escaped his secure unit and turned up at her office. “At every step it has felt like my stalker’s rights trump mine,” Ms Urwin said.

Anne-marie Trevelyan, the Conservative MP, said: “It cannot be acceptable that public figures who are victims of stalking via Twitter have to suffer continued ordeal and live in constant fear.”

The proposed “stalking protection orders” would be tailored to individual cases. Magistrates could force stalkers to declare their aliases, ban them from using encrypted software or, in extreme cases, ban them from using the internet altogether. Breaking the order would be a criminal offence.

There were 10,214 recorded offences of stalking in England and Wales in 2017-18, according to the Office for National Statistics. The Bill has been proposed by Sarah Wollaston, the Tory MP, who chairs the health and social care committee, and will be heard in the Commons in November, although the Government is being urged to action it.

Dr Wollaston said: “None of this legislation will work by itself unless organisations like Twitter do their bit and take stuff down. I think they have a responsibility to take this much more seriously than they are at the moment.”

Nicky Morgan, the Conservative MP and chairman of the Treasury committee, said Twitter has become a “platform for misogyny and worse”.

Twitter said: “We have raised in recent years our concerns with government, Parliament, the Crown Prosecution Service and at public events run by expert charities that stalking is not adequately dealt with and perpetrators are often pursued for more minor offences.”