Not long after he embarked on an on/off dalliance with a former colleague, Tom began feeling uneasy about her behaviour. He ended things – but that only made matters worse.
Lies and gaslighting turned into his ex turning up randomly at places where he hung out and “appearing seemingly everywhere I went”, he said. “That was incredibly hard to deal with. I felt hounded, and I had no idea what to do.”
Anxious to placate her, he agreed to rekindle their relationship, with boundaries. “That was a terrible mistake,” said Tom (not his real name). One day, she tracked him down while he was travelling in London and chased him through the underground, sexually assaulting him on a carriage. “It was the first time in my life I had to sprint away from someone out of fear,” he said.
She followed him to his flat and tried to force her way in. Desperate, he told her he never wanted to see her again and hoped that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t. What followed was a frightening period in which, for months, the woman would turn up at places she knew he would be, or befriend his friends, telling them he was a sexual predator. “I thought it would eventually stop but it never stopped, it only got worse. I felt like I was metaphorically chased into a corner, no aspect of my life was beyond her reach.”
He became depressed and tearful, and said he felt “an immense amount of shame” that he had not been able to “man up” and shrug off her behaviour. Every time he was told to just ignore her, “it sunk me deeper into despair”.
Tom’s story echoes parts of the Netflix drama Baby Reindeer, which loosely fictionalises the experience of the comedian Richard Gadd in being stalked by a woman who befriends him in a bar, before her behaviour becomes increasingly obsessive and frightening.
The series has been a major hit for the streaming service, but for Tom, watching it was “really terrifying”. And yet finally seeing an experience that mirrored his own had proved “quite healing”, he said.
Stalking is a crime that disproportionately affects women, and they are also more likely to be victims of violence. But male stalking victims are more common than might be expected. According to the Crime Survey of England and Wales, one in five women over the age of 16 said last year they had been victims of stalking, and one in eleven (8.7%) of men. That may be an underestimate, particularly among men, according to experts, due to the same stigma identified by Tom. About 13% of those calling the National Stalking Helpline identify as male, according to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.
Conviction rates remain pitifully low, however. New research by the trust found that just 1.7% of reported cases resulted in a conviction. It is calling for specialist training and closer cooperation between police, prosecutors and health and social services to improve this rate.
The government this week promised new measures to make it easier to apply for legal restrictions on stalkers’ behaviour. Labour, meanwhile has pledged to introduce a national stalking action plan and overhaul the police response.
It was only after Tom became completely desperate that he reached out to the helpline, and eventually went to the police. While most officers were sympathetic, he felt let down by the investigation, which he said was never conducted with much energy. His stalker was arrested at one point, but has never been convicted.
He said he felt his gender played a part: “How serious can it be? It’s just a man being stalked by a woman.”
Helen Newlove, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, told the Guardian stalking was “a pervasive, deeply unsettling and dangerous crime – and it can escalate dramatically”.
She said the crime remained poorly understood by some agencies, and was not treated with the seriousness it deserved. “Whether male or female, we must ensure that all victims are able to access the protection, support and justice that they need.”