When Kerry Daynes found the phrases “Jill Dando” scrawled on her fence, shortly after her cat was discovered useless in her backyard with its neck apparently damaged, she believed her life was in peril.
The forensic psychologist has come face-to-face with a few of the UK’s most infamous criminals, together with Moors assassin Ian Brady and violent inmate Charles Bronson, by her work in most safety prisons.
But it was after her appearances on tv that she says made her the goal of a stalker.
After collaborating in a number of crime documentaries, Daynes was contacted on-line by a stranger providing her the possibility to purchase domains for web sites arrange in her title.
She declined the provide however he “immediately turned” and responded with “anger and vitriol”, she says.
He “bombarded” her with messages and feedback have been posted on-line accusing her of being a liar and remarking on her look in numerous outfits, she says.
“I knew he had my address, he knew what clothes I was wearing, he knew I lived alone,” Daynes tells Sky News.
“It was a really terrifying time.
“I did not have any data of him. I did not know who he was.
“He could have been any man who walked past my house or who was behind me in a queue in Tesco’s.
“Every time a person checked out me, I believed: ‘Is that him?’
“I was rushing into my house at night, trying to get my key in the door quickly… and then living with the curtains closed.”
‘Fixated, undesirable, persistent’
Daynes, from Greater Manchester, says she would lie awake at night time pondering was this “somebody who was likely to kill me”.
“What was disconcerting about it was the level of obsession this man had about me,” she provides.
“I’d never spoken to him. As far as I was aware, I’d never set eyes on him.
“Fixated, undesirable, persistent – he was clearly a stalker.”
Daynes says the man’s behaviour meant she stopped appearing on TV or at public speaking events and stayed off social media.
She finally came face-to-face with him in a civil court case, which resulted in the websites in her name being taken down.
But years later, while out walking her dog, she says a parked car suddenly sped up and nearly hit her.
A week later, she received a letter from the man with a demand for more than £26,000. Shortly after that, her cat was found dead.
The title ‘Jill Dando’ was scrawled on Daynes’s fence. Dando was shot useless on her doorstep in 1999
‘Death menace’
“My cat – who had been absolutely fine 10 minutes previously – I found dead, seemingly having had its neck broken, and looking like he’d been thrown over my fence,” Daynes says.
“When I went round to the other side of the fence, somebody had written the words: ‘Jill Dando’.”
Daynes believes the point out of Dando – the TV presenter who was shot useless outdoors her London dwelling in 1999, in a homicide that is still unsolved – was meant as “a death threat”.
“I walked into the police station and said I want to speak to your specialist officer in stalking,” she says.
Daynes says the person later acquired a harassment warning from police.
The celebrities focused by stalkers
Emma Raducanu, Claire Foy and David Beckham have been victims of stalking
On Friday, a stalker shall be sentenced for focusing on the actress Claire Foy, who performed Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix collection The Crown.
Foy described the actions of Jason Penrose as “deeply frightening” after he despatched greater than 1,000 emails in simply over a month, knocked on the door of her dwelling and contacted her sister.
It follows a string of high-profile victims of stalking in latest months.
David Beckham stated he was “frightened” for his household’s security after Sharon Bell despatched him “threatening” letters and turned up at his daughter’s faculty.
She was charged with stalking and detained underneath the Mental Health Act in July final yr.
And in February 2022, a stalker who trekked 23 miles to the house of tennis star Emma Raducanu and stole her father’s shoe as a memento was handed a five-year restraining order.
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which helps victims of stalking, says instances involving celebrities are “by no means the majority”.
About 45% of people that contact the charity’s helpline are being stalked by ex-partners, and an extra third have had prior contact with their stalker.
Read extra:
Singer Billie Eilish asks for restraining order
Stalker terrorised 121 victims after making ‘rape listing’
Official figures present there have been greater than 718,000 stalking and harassment offences in England and Wales within the yr to June 2022 – a forty five% rise in contrast with the yr ending March 2020.
However solely 5% of stalking instances in England and Wales end in a cost, based on the National Stalking Consortium.
In November, anti-stalking campaigners submitted a super-complaint – which is designed to think about complaints about systemic points in policing – after arguing that forces are failing to launch efficient probes into stalking crimes.
Why are celebrities focused?
Daynes says the commonest kind of stalker is “the rejected stalker” and most of the people will know these focusing on them.
“Stalking is a pretty gendered crime – more often than not, it is men who stalk their female ex-partners, although that’s not to say you don’t have female stalkers,” she says.
“What we find is that those who stalk people in the public eye, they tend to have low-level mental health problems, they tend to be unemployed, or under-employed, and they’re struggling with various difficulties in their lives.
“I feel it is simple for them to develop into obsessive about somebody they do not know, as a result of they flip to fantasy to take care of that.
“For people who are inclined to fantasise a relationship with somebody they’ve never met, the fact they’re able to view lots of photographs of them on Instagram or they’re able to look into their home on TikTok videos, it all adds to that faux intimacy.”
Ex-newsreader tells of ‘psychological rape’
Alexis Bowater was stalked whereas working as a newsreader. PIc: ITV Westcountry/Home Office
Former newsreader Alexis Bowater, who was the sufferer of stalking, described the crime as “psychological rape”.
She was working as a presenter on ITV Westcountry when she was bombarded with emails from stalker Alexander Reeve, who made threats towards her and her then-unborn baby and falsely claimed a bomb had been positioned within the studios.
“It’s barbaric, isn’t it, for a human being to want to torture a pregnant woman,” Bowater tells Sky News.
“I had a Home Office-approved alarm installed in my home and we were linked up to the local police station.
“It was a race towards time at that time between them getting him and him getting us.”
Bowater was awarded an OBE for her marketing campaign work
Reeves was jailed in 2009 for 4 years however Bowater, who acquired an OBE for her work to fight violence towards ladies and women, believes stalking continues to be “not taken seriously”.
“The sentences are not long enough and not enough people are prosecuted for it,” she says.
“This is a horrific psychological crime which destroys lives.
“When I first begin campaigning 10 years in the past, folks have been nonetheless making jokes about stalkers. Thank heavens that is not taking place now.”
The private investigator hunting stalkers
Laura Lyons set up a private investigation agency after she was the victim of stalking herself.
Her company – Are They Safe – helps victims of online stalking identify the perpetrators and receives “no less than 30 calls” every week about this form of crime.
“It’s an enormous, big drawback,” Ms Lyons tells Sky News.
“The panorama of stalking has modified considerably since on-line communications.
“A lot of the time, until (the stalker) is outside their house, victims don’t know who the stalker is online.
“Sadly, on-line offers stalkers with the weaponry to stalk anonymously who they need, when they need.
“We’re seeing now that 99% of stalking cases start online.”
Read extra:
Stalkers ‘have develop into more and more obsessive’
The ‘highly effective device’ to guard stalking victims
Social media makes it ‘straightforward’ for stalkers to cover
Ms Lyons says she works with “a lot of people in the public eye” who’re victims of stalking.
“They have to have active social media,” she provides. “You would be hard-pushed to find a presenter with a closed social profile.”
Ms Lyons says stalkers are utilizing digital non-public networks (VPNs) to forestall authorities discovering them; sending spyware and adware to victims’ emails; hacking into CCTV cameras and utilizing Apple Air Tags to trace victims.
She provides that it’s also “easy” for stalkers to arrange faux profiles on social media websites and conceal their info.
“There are so many tools for stalkers to use,” she says.
“It’s so easy for stalkers to remain anonymous and hidden. It’s very difficult for the police.”
Source: information.sky.com”
