Cheshire woman stalked by work colleague urges businesses to protect their staff

A woman from Cheshire who was relentlessly stalked by a work colleague says employers must do more to protect their workers.

Lauren (who we've renamed to protect her identity) was bombarded with friend requests and messages after she rejected the man's advances.

"He just wouldn't leave me alone." Lauren told us.

"He'd just follow me, and when it moved on to the cyber stalking there were follow requests on social media. Hacking into my emails. The point where they decided to bring the arrest forward was when one of the follow requests sent to me was a picture of the inside of my house."

The individual started off as a friend and told Lauren they wanted to take things further. She rejected them and what followed was more than three years of 'mental torture'.

"My employer didn't recognise it at all" she told us.

"I raised a grievance, and it wasn't upheld. They wanted to offer me mediation with this person. Who wants to have mediation with a stalker?"

"I chose to leave that employment, but evidence was collated once the arrest was made that did prove that he'd got my address from my employer."

Lauren added: "Regardless if it's under 10 employees or 500, employers have a duty of care for every single employee. If somebody comes to you and raises a concern they are being harassed or there's unwanted behaviour from a colleague, you must address that."

In Cheshire, police deal with around 3000 stalking offences each year.

The majority are linked to rejection, with around 90% of all stalking offences recorded involving an ex-partner.

On average 10 stalking crimes are reported in Cheshire each day.

Stalking behaviours to look out for:

• Fixation on your daily routine – this could involve following you, watching your every move, using a tracking device on you or on your vehicle.
• Constant obsessive and repeated communication – endless phone calls, messages, or contacting people known to you.
• Threatening and intimidating behaviour towards you or someone you know – threatening suicide, last resort thinking or sending death threats.
• Repeated unwanted attention or ‘love bombing’ – they could make unannounced visits to your home or workplace, send you unwanted gifts, or make declarations of love constantly.
• Unwanted sexual contact – sexual assault, sexual harassment, unwanted touching.
• Resorts to criminal behaviour to gain your attention or cause fear – they could break into your home or vehicle or cause damage to your property or belongings.

Cheshire Constabulary’s Stalking Single Point of Contact, Detective Sergeant Dave Thomason, of the Harm Reduction Unit, said:

"Stalking is a crime that should not be ignored. Stalking behaviours can quickly escalate and become more serious, particularly if an offender gets to a place of ‘last resort thinking’.

“I want to reassure the public that if you believe you are experiencing stalking, then we are here to help you and you will be believed. Cheshire currently has the highest charge rate in the country for stalking and harassment and has recently issued the county’s first GPS tag on a stalking offender after securing a five-year stalking protection order. Stalking is an unacceptable crime and our efforts to protect victims and bring offenders to justice will continue."

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