In June 2024, a coalition presented a petition to Paul Goldsmith, asking that stalking be made illegal. Today, new anti-stalking legislation comes into effect.
Police have long had to shoehorn stalking into a variety of other criminal offences, risking only the most serious complaints being taken seriously
When Pieta (whose last name we have left out to protect her privacy) was 20 years old, she started a new job. Within days, her social media inboxes were filled with explicit, personal messages from a stranger. It didn't take her long to figure out that the sender was a colleague, a man about twice her age.
And the stalking didn't stay online.
"He ended up driving to my house after finding my address online ... he wrote letters and dropped them in my letterbox," she says.
