Victims to get ‘right to know’ the identity of their online stalker in new clampdown

Victims of online stalking will get the right to learn the identity of their tormenters as part of a new government clampdown on the terrifying crime.

At the moment, those whose lives are thrown into turmoil by chilling messages and pictures sometimes need to wait until a court appearance to find out who is responsible for them.

But the Home Office has today announced plans to introduce a ‘Right to Know’, which would allow the police to reveal a stalker’s identity at the earliest opportunity.

The new guidance was inspired by the experience of former Coronation Street star Nicola Thorp, who was abused online by a man calling himself the Grim Reaper.

During a two-year ordeal, Nicola was harassed from almost 30 separate social media accounts, all of which had been set up by one man she did not know.

In one particularly horrifying incident, her stalker said he was close enough to her on a train that he could smell her.

However, Nicola was not able to find out who he was even after he had been arrested, and only learned his identity when he appeared in court.

Her stalker, who Metro has decided not to name, is now serving a 30-month prison sentence with a lifetime restraining order after being convicted in April last year.

Nicola previously addressed her painful experience in an article for Metro, saying: ‘I didn’t need a degree in psychology to know that when someone is caught, things could go one of two ways. It could act as a wake-up call and he could change his behaviour, or it could be a trigger for rage.

‘As part of his bail conditions, I was told that he was banned from contacting me.

‘But the only person who would know if he had contacted me was him. He could be the guy I had a pleasant chat with at the bus stop, he could be a casual acquaintance, he could be the taxi driver whose car I sat in the back of.’

Reacting to today’s announcement, she said: ‘For too long, stalking victims have been at the mercy not only of their stalker, but a justice system that failed to protect them. 

‘These new measures will empower victims to regain some much-needed control of their lives and police to bring abusers to justice.’

Alongside the new ‘Right to Know’, the government is also making Stalking Protection Orders more widely available and publishing national standards on stalking perpetrator programmes for England and Wales.

In an opinion piece for Metro, Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said the additional measures will ‘allow victims to regain a sense of control’.

Today’s announcement comes just over two years after anti-stalking charity the Suzy Lamplugh Trust launched a super-complaint against the police, alleging ‘deep-rooted systemic issues’ that put victims at risk.

As part of the new crackdown, the government has committed to ‘accepting or partially accepting’ all of the recommendations made in the complaint.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘For far too long, victims of stalking have been subject to debilitating and vicious abuse at the hands of stalkers who use any means necessary to monitor and control their victims’ lives.

‘Let us be clear – we will use every tool available to us to give more power to victims and take it away from the hands of their abusers.

‘This starts with empowering police to give women the right to know the identity of their online stalkers, strengthening stalking protection orders and ensuring that the police work with all support services to give victims the protection they deserve.’

Earlier this year, a review by London victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman found that women are being failed by a criminal justice system that does not understand stalking and has become ‘complicit’ in allowing cases to escalate.

In April, former safeguarding minister Laura Farris issued new statutory guidance to police forces to apply a lower standard of proof when issuing SPOs.

That meant that there would be fewer barriers to issuing an SPO.

Farris told Sky News: ‘We must continue to treat stalking with the utmost gravity. Having doubled the maximum sentence, and introduced a new civil order to protect victims, we know there is more we must do.’

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