In the last Prime Minister’s Questions of the year I asked David Cameron for his support in reviewing sentences for dangerous stalkers. Why?
Stalking is, as I said, a horrible crime. It gets media attention especially when celebrities are involved: and more MPs (all female that I know of) have been targeted than is known about. I’ve always felt it was something that was unpleasant, and a hazard of being in the public eye, but didn’t impact ‘normal’ people in Gloucester.
Until the case of Dr Eleanor Aston came to our Crown Court. Ellie lives in Cheltenham but is a GP in Gloucester. Over a period of several years her life was made an absolute misery by a constituent of mine – Raymond Knight. He made over a hundred visits to her surgery, many to her house, hacked her water pipe, cut off her gas and put foul objects through her letter box. When he finished one sentence for harassment he immediately sent a note saying ‘guess who’s back?’ Dr Aston and the family have suffered dreadfully, and she was prescribed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
If this can happen to a Gloucester GP it can happen to anyone: it might be a teacher or a nurse or someone in business. This is not just a hazard of fame: it has become a potential risk for all, especially women. And it is not just a nuisance that can be laughed off, but a nightmare that affects everything in the life of an individual and those around them.
Judge Jamie Tabor, in sentencing the stalker again earlier this year, told the court that if he could impose a sentence longer than the maximum five years he certainly would have done. Under the current law, stalking can’t be categorised as ‘dangerous’ and so the maximum sentence for stealing a Mars bar from a shop is two years longer (seven years) than for stalking.
There are other more technical issues as well – the business of consecutive versus concurrent sentences: the issue of ‘tagging’ for those banned from certain geographic areas and the issue of mental health versus public danger.
But the bottom line is that judges need more discretion in determining when a stalker is dangerous and should have a longer sentence.
My friend and neighbour Alex Chalk, MP for Cheltenham, has raised the issue on behalf of his constituent Ellie Aston with Justice Secretary Michael Gove and other Ministers. My aim in raising it at PMQs was to highlight the issue, to encourage the PM and the Justice Secretary to look at this issue of public safety and to review it in time to be included in any Criminal Justice Bill intended for the next Queen’s Speech and therefore for Parliament to consider in 2016–7.
These things take time: and I sense that the government believes it has already done enough on stalking in the coalition government. But the issue of protecting Dr Aston, and many others like her in Britain, is not one I felt that should risk being pushed into the long grass. We need to review and, I hope, extend sentencing guidelines, and that is what Alex and I, Cheltenham and Gloucester working together, intend to do. We will start with a meeting with Michael Gove early next year.
