Online retailers pull Valentine's Day cards 'glorifying stalking'
Stalking victims have spoken out about the impact of such cards
Online retailers have agreed to drop plans to sell 'stalking themed' Valentine's Day cards after concerns were raised by Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner.
Former stalking victim Katy Bourne took to Twitter to call for the greeting card and gift companies Thortful and Etsy to remove the items from their online shops.
Some featured ‘Joe’ from US hit Netflix series ‘You’ whose obsessive and fixated nature ends in a gruesome kidnapping and homicide and this is just in Season One.
Now cards are being circulated making light of this serious crime using language like, ‘Stalker is a strong word, I prefer Valentine’.
One £3.65 card found on Etsy has a google map pin as the picture with the words, ‘You say stalker, I say devoted.’
Ms Bourne, who said that she had found the cards while shopping online for one for her husband, tweeted:
“Please do not use stalking as a form of a joke on your valentine’s cards out of respect for the thousands of victims living in fear of this awful crime.”
The companies also faced backlash from other groups dealing with victims of stalking.
Claudia Ortiz, co-founder of Brighton-based stalking support service Veritas Justice, commented: “Absolutely inappropriate to trivialise a crime that destroys lives and sometimes even takes lives!”
PCC Katy Bourne is herself a victim of stalking, facing years of torment, with unfounded claims made about her online and a threatening presence at events she attended as PCC in her home county of Sussex.
The courts imposed a civil injunction to prevent her stalker from contacting or writing about her and when this was breached, in 2018 he was sentenced to four months in prison, suspended for two years.
The experience has led her to campaign for improvement of people’s attitudes to stalking, and crucially the way it is dealt with by police and the courts.
The dangers of "normalising" stalking
Katy Bourne added: “By normalising stalking in this way we are risking taking ten steps back in terms of public perception of this all-consuming, truly devastating crime.
“Valentine’s Day is about celebrating all love and I want it made clear that stalking is never a display of love or affection.
“Stalkers have deep rooted and complex psychological problems and their display of fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repeated behaviours takes over and destroys the lives of their victims.
“We have seen how this crime can fatally escalate and it should never be treated as some sort of joke.
“I hope that all retailers will now appropriately censor the products that they stock and remove any of these types of cards from their websites and shelves.”
A Thortful spokesperson took to Twitter to apologise for any offence caused, adding: “We can see that this card is upsetting and we have removed it from our catalogue with immediate effect, thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
Etsy has been approached for comment.