Face masks enable increase in stalking and harassment

FACE masks have fuelled an increase in stalking, the victims’ commissioner has warned, as she urged the police to take the crime more seriously.

Stalking and harassment rose 28 per cent to 632,022 in the year to March 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Separate research for the Suzy Lamplugh Trust showed half of victims had experienced an increase in the behaviour, either online or offline, during lockdowns and the Covid restrictions.

Dame Vera Baird, the victims’ commissioner, said the anonymity provided by face coverings had been used to perpetrate in-person stalking “further heightening victims’ fear and distress”.

This included increased spying, reported by 18 per cent of the 111 victims surveyed by the Trust, visiting their homes or work, reported by 13 per cent, and loitering, also 13 per cent.

Face masks have made it harder to identify and prosecute using CCTV footage. Lockdowns have also fuelled an increase in “socially distanced” tactics to stalk victims, according to the research. “Stalkers’ use of sending letters

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Percentage of stalking victims surveyed who were not satisfied with the response they received from the police

and gifts as a ‘socially distanced’ behaviour also highlights that the obsession and fixation which characterise stalking do not disappear under lockdown restrictions,” she said.

“For many of the 111 victims who participated in the survey, stalking behaviours have increased since the start of the pandemic, with further detrimental impacts for their mental health and wellbeing,” said Dame Vera.

“It is possible that lockdown created further opportunities to carry out stalking. Yet, despite these findings, many victims continue to receive a woefully poor response from the criminal justice system, while also struggling to access vital health support.”

Nearly six in 10 (59 per cent) of vicitms who reported their experience said the police response had been unsatisfactory.

A quarter claimed police failed to recognise the perpetrator’s pattern of behaviour as a stalking offence, while one in eight (13 per cent) felt their complaint was not taken seriously or acted upon.