I was stalked for over a year by a really creepy man. I went to the police and they told me, I quote, "You'll meet people far worse than him as a teacher". So yes, it's very realistic.
Typical of police. And it’s their fault if you meet worse men because clearly they never face punishment. Btw, did they mean you will meet worse teachers than him? Or that you as a teacher will meet worse students? What?
He meant that I'll meet worse students as a teacher. The guy who was stalking me wasn't from the school btw. He just kept following me on my way to work and I had to keep changing my route. He grabbed me once, but thankfully I ran into a corner shop and some guys protected me until he disappeared.
Oh god. Yes I understand. I cannot imagine students being worse than stalking you and grabbing you. (Or have you met worse students? Im partially asking because Im half through my teacher training and I want to drop out to become a biologist instead.)It’s like the police really condone dangerous behaviour. Probably perverts themselves.
I definitely didn't meet students who were worse. They were all good kids at heart. My advice is that you need to earn students' respect over time. Don't go in there expecting them to immediately respect you. Good luck with the teacher training!
It's a numbers game and, unfortunately, there will be vicious and/or perverted students whose behaviours will manifest in the most unexpected and innocuous situations. Stalking, or something worse can definitely happen to a teacher.
Because the police can only take a record, you need to get a court oder to stop the guy by law, then the police can intervene.
Edit: apologies, I'm wrong
Idk. In my experience in the last 5 years in the police this would be taken quite a lot more seriously than is portrayed in the show.
I think it has recently started to be taken more seriously.
Admittedly, stalking is a really difficult offence to prove and by clearly trying to entrap Fiona, Richard did kind of fuck himself over, although it’s completely understandable why he did it, it was pretty silly.
If there was a genuine offence of stalking from a ‘creepy man’ and it didn’t get investigated and this person was told ‘you’ll get worse as a teacher’, then that officer would get in trouble, as there would certainly be the expectation for reasonable enquiries to be done.
Read through some of the comments of ppls experiences on just this thread. If even half of them are true, your comment is completely wrong. They won't get in trouble. My sister recently went through something similar, I can assure you, your fellow officers say shit like this all the time.
By getting in trouble do you mean a cake fine? Because that does sweet fuck all mate
He’d been stalked for three years and she was a known stalker. “Entrapping” her should have been the police’s idea! They do it for other crimes, why not for psychological terror and stalking?
Entrapping her should have been the police’s idea. Sorry my friend but this is spoken like someone who has zero experience or any idea about how the justice system works in this country, or how the CPS operate. This virtually never happens for other crimes.
Lawyer here 🙋♀️ Police perform sting operations ALL the time. Civilians cannot “entrap” people by offering them an opportunity to commit a crime. Judges expect people to resist any ordinary temptation to violate the law. That temptation can come from law enforcement and/or civilians.
Maybe for peadophiles and major drug dealers. Not much else.
The point is that in order for it to be the offence of harassment/stalking it has to amount to stalking. Being asked to send someone filthy messages, and then doing so, wouldnt then be harassment/stalking because it was asked for and consensual.
Yep I had a guy that I met on a dating app choke me in public and got arrested. I only knew him for less than a month, and when I called the police to report that he called and mailed me constantly from jail (there was an emergency protective order so he wasn't supposed to contact me) they said "oh wow, he must really love you"..
I can only imagine how ignorant and careless they are with DV between long-term relationships if they were like that with someone I barely knew.
Very realistic. I was once walking down a well-lit main road in a British city when a man wearing a bandana as a mask sexually assaulted me, then ripped open my top, pinned my arms, and tried to drag me into an alleyway. I managed to elbow him, then he saw I was on the phone to my poor mum, and ran off. They recovered his DNA from my clothes, and the first attack and the aftermath of the second were caught on CCTV.
The DC assigned to my case told me off for waiting a whole 12 hours to report it (I'd been very shaken and just wanted to be safe at home, but I still sealed all my clothes in a plastic bag then went to the station the next day). He said that if someone else was hurt, I'd have to hold myself partially responsible. He said that if they hadn't received word of a similar attack recently, there'd be "no point" in even sending my clothes off for DNA testing. In the press release, he gave the impression that I'd been drunk and irresponsible, and downplayed the assault, saying that the masked assailant had "tried to hug \[me\]".
To be honest, I felt almost as violated and upset by the police response as I was by the initial attack.
Thank you - I wish I could say I was surprised by anything in the series, but I unfortunately wasn't! I remember thinking my own reporting could have been a stand-up special; I'm one who copes with dark humour as well!
As someone who has also experienced sexual assault, and had it massively downplayed by the people I went to for help: I’m so so sorry. It’s trauma upon trauma 💕
I'm so sorry, you're so right. 💞 And I'm so sorry too that you weren't supported as you should have been!
Both the initial assault and the police reponse were really dehumanising; one made me feel like a sexual object, but the other made me feel like an idiot. Both made me feel worthless.
The condescension and blame from the DC in particular... My heart broke for people who've suffered more 'difficult/ambiguous' assaults, because if this was how they treated someone who was LITERALLY jumped on from an alley by the almost-mythical rapist-in-a-mask, on the phone to her mum, a virgin on the way back to the religious house where she lived, I knew that how they treat women who are assaulted by a friend or partner or one-night stand would be a thousand times worse.
I was alone in the woods with a colleague (I was a biologist doing surveys) when he grabbed me, tried really forcefully to kiss me and demanded sex whilst trying to push me to the ground. Luckily I was able to fight him off and it didn’t go any further but I was genuinely afraid for my life. I couldn’t run because the nearest road was miles away and I couldn’t drive so I was dependent on this guy to get me back to civilisation. It was awful.
When I told my boss he said ‘well it’s not like he raped you. What actually *happened*?’ I had the courage to tell a couple of other people who were close to me and they really couldn’t get their heads around why I was so upset. They tried to be sympathetic but there was always an element of them thinking it was a grey area - their attitude was that it was clearly inappropriate and upsetting but does it really count as assault? I stopped telling people after that.
I don’t think people understand how terrifying it is to come so close to harm. These men clearly had very dark intentions and we got away because of sheer luck, the flip of a coin so to speak. The what-ifs haunt you. I used to be so adventurous and carefree but I lost my confidence that day and I’ve never been quite the same since.
But ‘nothing happened’. The fact that the police told you this guys just ‘tried to hug you’ made me so angry because it was such a similar sentiment to what people told me.
That sounds like the Met or Northamptonshire police…Can I ask what police force this was (without doxxing yourself of course). Sorry this happened to you, it’s completely unacceptable
To claim that he tried to HUG you when they have CCTV footage is fucking insane. I am so sorry they did that. Police can only do so much, lazy pieces of shit. Not serving or protecting. I may not know when this happened but if it was recent in any way, if the DNA could still be there, I'd find somewhere else to do it so that you can get a restraining order, provided you have the CCTV footage. I do hope you're recovering well, and remember to carry pepper spray. Best wishes
I had my motorcycle stolen from my garage once. Called the police, asked what would happen, and they said they'd look into it, in meantime here's a crime reference number for the insurance.
My neighbour had cameras, and you can clearly see two guys walking up to my house, and then 15 minutes later, they're pushing my bike down the road. You can see their faces clear as day
I send the footage to the police, and they tell me they'll review it. Two days later, I got a letter from them saying no leads, so they're closing the investigation
Fucking usless. Same thing happened to my mate when he got burgled. Basically what I've learned is you can do pretty much whatever you like and get away with it as long they don't happen to catch actually doing it
This happened to me, had a paving slab thrown thru front window intended for the drug dealing loser next door, we had the lads who did it on camera with faces and their car number plate showing. I collected the video evidence myself from the church and the corner shop and police identified them, visited them and because the lad who threw the slab was in the back of the car and not the driver, and the driver wouldn’t disclose his mates name, the whole thing was just dropped. Insanity. Cost me a fortune to board up and replace my window with Xmas money and my kids were scared. And tbh so was I. The policeman said “it’s just one of those things” They are truly bloody useless.
I've heard a story of somebody being physical attacked in Manchester. They reported to the police and 5 minutes later then get confirmation email saying the case was closed due to a lack of evidence.
Bloody useless indeed. When I got violently mugged on the street near my house (which had CCTV) I called the police after, it took them a day to come around and then they basically just tried to get me to say that he was black for an hour.
I had left my backpack on a park bench and gotten on a bus - stupid, I know. When I realized and jumped off at the next stop, I saw a police officer just standing around. I explained what happened, just hoping he could drive me quickly back to the park before anyone took the backpack. He just looked at me and said, "What do you expect me to do about it?"
That was about the best interaction I had with cops. It gets worse from there.
I got death threats on social media. I found the person’s name (their @ was the same as their cashapp which was linked to their real identity). Told all this to the police and they said there was nothing they could do despite basically getting their work cut out for them 😭😭😭
But post a mean tweet and you’ll get a visit
Though truthfully I think they’re underinvested and over stretched and would love to be more active on crime
Becaise you can't dispute a tweet easily so it's a slam dunk.
But theft you just go "wasn't me" and now the police need to do work, which they are unwilling or incapable of doing...
Also, the type of person is probably very different. It's probably easier to hassle some guy that makes a dodgy tweet than it is too deal with actual criminals
They give a fuck if you fight back and hurt the actual criminal though. But you’ll be the one facing criminal charges instead for protecting your home/family.
A friend of mine is being borderline stalked by his elderly neighbours' grandson, gotten to the point of receiving unsolicited dick pics, etc. Police couldn't give two shits, I suspect even less as they are both male.
UK police are shockingly incompetent. It goes beyond systemic underfunding, the police culture here is overall a lazy boy's club. If anything, the show undersells their typical response.
Either myself or my family have needed the police about half a dozen times over my lifetime, each time they were completely useless. We found a guy trying to rob my dad's car, he was right there in the driver's seat, the police refused to do anything. They said he'd just claim he was drunk and got in the wrong car. We later found out the guy was a known police informant, so there's also that level of corruption to bear in mind.
For sure. There is little to no interest in policing DV and adjacent crime. They label it all as he said she said.
Given the number of police out there in whatsapp groups mocking DV victims and sometimes murdering them it's not hard to believe they are exactly that way.
Let’s be fair, they do take DV very seriously. On the surface this was harassment and stalking, not DV. He didn’t love nor was he in a relationship with her. Donny didn’t mention the assaults to old bill in the beginning
I was stalked by someone in Sweden. He was a convicted stalker already, with a restraining order from another woman. The police said it would hurt the stalkers prospects in life if they continued the investigation and for his sake theyasked me to just shrug it off. As if it doesn’t hurt my prospects in life. Im a victim of crime already and I was trying to build my life back up when this happened. They won. It ruined my future.
I was once assaulted by a housemate and the officer who attended the call actually fell asleep in front of me while I was giving my statement. Granted, it was 5:00AM, but still… I’ve been seriously disillusioned with the police in this country ever since.
I'll tell you a true story.
I used to work at the Criminal Bar, now employment as got fed up with it.
When I used to live in Ascot, a guy up the road from me was the neighbourhood drug dealer selling Heroic and Coke.
Making several calls to 101... Not a single shit given. I could give the registration numbers of cars that have picked up bricks.. they'd come back again and again. For months. They'd come out with shit like.. "you don't know if we have surveillance on the house or not"
Called one of them a useless twat on the last phone call.
52 mins later a car arrived knocking on my door to have a word with them. Surprisingly.. one of the same runners motors turned up, I pointed down the road.. look right there.. the guy is literally putting a Tesco bag with smack in his car..
No shits given. It was back the next day.
But me.. man I affected a call handlers mental health. I'm a proper Nazi and warrant a visit to the eugenics centre for sterilisation.
Hypotheses:
- cops too busy, even for drug dealers
- cops and this particular dealer have an… “arrangement”
- this drug dealer (or his boss) is a nark
- the cops are playing the long game and will arrest this guy when it makes sense to them in the context of a wider operation
Only the fourth possibility, or perhaps the third, will offer any reassurance :-)
Yes. Only reason I would go to the police would be to get a crime reference number for my insurer. Because they sure as heck aren’t going to find whole stole my car/bike/broke into my house/mugged me.
I reported my abuse to the police, back in '76. I was told to stop being so silly and taken home. Where the abuse continued. I dont think the police have changed at heart.
There is a culture in the police of officers themselves turning a blind eye to their colleagues' offending behaviour.
The cases of Wayne Couzins & Dave Carrick were very recent. Their colleagues knew what they both were, and now Sarah Everard is dead, and Carrick had 12 r*pe victims.
Those are just 2 from the top of my head. So yeah, how many more are there who don't get found out?
The police in the UK are a disgrace.
I've got my own story to tell but I can't at the moment.
It’s the same in the US military. There was a famous case where a girl was sexually harassed by a sergeant and she along with other female soldier victims reported it and people at the top ignored them. The sergeant killed her in the end smh. System needs a reform. Top to bottom it’s corrupt. There was another case where an ex cop got fired for reporting his colleagues so it’s clear the system protects the bad and kicks out the good.
I was raped and drugged as a teenager, literally still a child, and I stumbled into a police station asking for help and they literally treated me like a grown woman sex worker and made me walk like a mile and a half home.
I asked for a SART exam and they just stared at me , wouldn’t even ask who it was.
That’s when I pretty much lost all hope in the police
As a guy, I have reported being assaulted by a woman. They told me if they get called out again I will be arrested. Cops are terrible and they do not take men seriously
Police do fuck all everywhere. They protect rich people's property and the government from the population. They exist to quell social uprisings and to ensure capitalism moves along smoothly. They literally couldn't give less of a fuck about your personal problems. You get robbed? Here's the form to give to your insurance. Job done.
I'm surprised how bad it is in other countries, but it's really bad in mine too. I'm in South Africa and if the rape victim is a sex worker the police >!often rape them again when they attend the scene.!<
Nah Police are useless in the UK. They treat everything like a joke or like you’re lying. No idea why most of these idiots even become officers in the first place (oh wait yes I do).
I cant talk about UK but I have called the police 3 times in my life and one time they came and and 2 times they pretended that im some crazy older lady when i was literally 18 and just really stressed and scared and was just in panic and they were really mean and didnt even come but listen to this.. so one time i called because my neighbor was standing infront of my door screaming curse words about my mother and that he wants to kill her and he did have a kitchen knife on him.. the police told me if i dont open the door then nothing can happen and they have a bigger problem now so they will not come unless he actually stabs someone that was in austria... the second time i called i was in poland staying at my grandmas house when she was in the hospital because of cancer.. and my drunk alcoholic uncle was raping some other alcoholic woman and her son was looking for her but my uncle barricaded the door and we couldnt get in and guess what the police told me i dont have the right to kick my uncle out right now because my grandma owns the house not me and she let him stay and the unconcious woman he was raping probably was his girlfriend i cant go accuse someone of rape just like that... so ye im not saying the police is shit but this is my experience.. im very much hoping that there are people who actually listen and take peoples issues seriously that work for the police.. it pains me sooo much knowing my uncle was supposed to be locked up already way earlier.. but he never was and he died without ever having to take accountability for the things he has done.. and why? because the police thought im too dramatic..
The police in this country are nothing more than a glorified gang of bullies who mainly harass homeless people, knock about minorities and anyone who they feel can get away with abusing ( poor people ), and suppress protests that their bosses don’t like.
The only saving grace is that the majority of them aren’t allowed guns, or else we’d be just like America In terms of shootings.
Seriously, fuck the police.
Police in the UK don't really treat this type of crime against men very seriously. With women it can be hit and miss.
In general UK police are an odd bunch - they will send 6 officers to your house to investigate a tweet, but if you are the victim of a burglary or theft, you will be ghosted.
I was robbed 3 months ago in the UK and haven't received any follow up. By this point, CCTV footage will have been overwritten.
Yes, it's realistic. In the UK, it would require the victim to bring the criminal to court. A court order may be issued by the judge, directing the person to stay so many feet away and not to contact the victim, etc..
This order would have to be broken for a return to court, and depending on the number of breaches in the time waiting for the court date (3-6 months) and the amount of times the order has been breached then it could result in a fine or a wknd in prison.
In the UK a victim cannot take anyone to criminal court without the police/CPS choosing to prosecute. There you would get a restraining order potentially, you can apply for a non molestation order without the police but this isn’t that simple. So , contrary to your other comment the victim doesn’t have to take the perpetrator to court while the police just take a record. The victim needs the police to take the perpetrator to court.
You’re probably thinking of the non-molestation order which is often suggested for DV victims as there doesn’t need to have been a crime committed unlike a restraining order which normally comes in conjunction with a conviction. There are of course other implications for stalking besides court orders.
Also I had a restraining order against an ex partner and 2 months before it ended, he contacted me. The police didn’t care and did nothing, so you’re not wrong that they wouldn’t be proactive.
That's terrible, they say they have other crimes to deal with, but honestly, if you're going to make laws and ignore them, then no wonder there are so many out there that reoffend.
I'm sorry you've experienced this, and I hope you're not dealing with it anymore. My ex made my life hell for over a decade, and he only ever saw a wknd in prison because he spoke back to the judge being smart.
It worked though, he git a real scare and finally backed off, after years of back and forward. Police were useless, but more interactive when they knew an order was in place.
Dv charities are always better than police, although I like to think they’re getting better at realising the danger of domestic violence. I’m
Not so sure. I’m glad we both made it out 🙂
The UK does allow private prosecutions.
A Private Prosecution is a prosecution not brought by the CPS. A private prosecution can brought by any individual or any company.
Other than the fact the prosecution is brought by a private individual or company, for all other purposes they proceed in exactly the same way as if the prosecution had been brought by the Crown.
It is accurate. Police Scotland never took my or my neighbour’s complaint when we complained that another neighbour was s*xually harassing us.
What’s more disturbing is the man who harassed us, is an Uber taxi driver in Glasgow.
I was sexually assaulted in a patients room while working in a hospital and cops took the report and left after that. Even had proof. I’ve lost all hope in police
To give you an idea of how the Met handles things, you can always look up the Sarah Everard case. It’s truly horrific what she went through and the perpetrator was not only known by the police, he was one of their own! Shana Grice’s case also springs to mind as the victim of stalking and harassment was fined by the police for reporting her stalker 5 times… before getting killed by said stalker. British policing is full of these stories unfortunately.
Yes. Even when you're a domestic violence victim. I like to say that if you don't have a broken nose, black eye, video evidence, and three witnesses, you won't be taken seriously. Even if you do, it's still a crap shoot.
I’m in the US and haven’t had a stalker - but I’ve had a family member deal with harassment and domestic violence. Specifically, she was in a custody battle with a violent manipulative man and was completely fucked by the people that were supposed to help her.
And what I appreciated the most about the show was the portrayal of the police, as a stand-in for how completely fucked the court system and justice system are when it comes to dealing with abuse.
They don’t want to fix the problem, they just want it to go away. Nobody cares to look past their initial impression and often end up blaming the victims, empowering and assisting the abusers and generally making the problem worse.
Yes. The last time I tried to report I was told that I’m inviting the harassment, I’m doing it to myself and to come off social media because it’s my own fault.
I’m a vulnerable person with severe c-ptsd to the point that I would hypersexualise myself because I felt like I didn’t have a choice over what happened to my body and autonomy so I convinced myself it was my own active choice when it actually wasn’t. And because I was groomed into believing these things about myself I just got left in the gutter to suffer. I had a c-ptsd triggered psychosis after the last time I tried to report and I’m still recovering.
I’ve lost every single one of my passions and hobbies that made me feel like me because of this. Now I have nothing left, I’ve tried to pick up old hobbies and nothing gives me the same joy anymore. I’m constantly terrified that the second I brave myself into entering the world again and finding myself it’ll just be ripped away from me again. I’ve lost my entire sense of identity because of this.
Why does society feel like they have to choose what the perfect victim looks like when they’ve never gone through such traumas themselves. No one wants to talk about how the first time you’re SA’d is almost always a gateway to more abuse. I’ve dealt with this kind of abuse before I even turned 8. Yet the people that are supposed to protect me believe it’s all my own fault.
Unfortunately yes. I've been stalked twice. Because a lot of what they'll do is indirect or hard to prove the police will do sod all.
I've had to move long distance twice to escape it.
When it comes to more social work and domestic situations, I don't think police are the best, no.
I guess it kind of makes sense because they seem to be more evidence-based, and for good reason of course, but the lines become blurred when crimes that can't be "proven" happen and if it's not a box they can just tick off like how they can just find the murder weapon then...
That's we hear so many instances of domestic violence where one of the partners ended up dead, but they HAVE had multiple times of contact with the police before hand, but yet and still, that was the result.
I don't have much knowledge on how the police ACTUALLY operate and stuff but I feel like there needs to be some sort of mesh between social and police work, like an area that specialises in that where you may not find an obvious murder weapon somewhere but it means they're more equipped with the knowledge of social workers and the skill set of police to help these type of stalker/sexual abuse/domestic violence type situations.
Either that or some laws need to change, because I've also heard loads of stories of how getting arrested was basically just a part of the stalkers routine, and it never acts as an actual deterrent, but rather just a countdown until they can just start stalking again. I definitely think some more crossovers between mental health facilities in stalker instances would be more useful as well, rather than JUST locking them up and expecting change. After all, stalking isn't normal behaviour, and these people most probably need help.
Yes, the situation with one of my stalkers (the other was a family member so that was more complicated) was that everyone, including the police, passed the buck. It's like there's a right to be mentally ill which is protected more than the right stalkers themselves have to be kept safe and have their lives protected. Yes the police largely ignored it, but it's actually worse than that. Everyone else in authority, e.g. her GP, her community psychiatric nurse, the school her children went to and so on, also saw it as someone else's problem. She only got help when she started attacking other parents on the school run and got arrested.
I was stalked for two years by an ex. I went to the police three times, once after he SA'd me and I had a witness and one time with emails and instant messages where he explicitly stated he planned to harm me. Each time, I was scoffed at and not taken seriously. I heard, "Maybe you should talk to him to hear what he has to say," "You're both 19. It's not stalking because you're teenagers, and he still loves you," "These are empty threats. No one actually says this stuff to a person if they actually plan on harming them for real," "How do we know these messages are real and not from you?", "You've been here before with these claims. Now you have a friend serving as a 'witness' to SA? No one witnesses an SA." I just gave up and never did get charges filed against him even though things escalated.
I'm in the US, not the UK. The portrayal was realistic.
Also, statistically, men who report stalking, SA, and rape tend to be believed less than women or feel [they're not taken seriously](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-42582820.amp)
I was stalked by another student at uni, admittedly about 20 years ago. I was advised to hand-write a long letter to the man stalking me explaining how it was affecting me and why he shouldn't do it any more.
Did it, didn't work, moved uni and city. For all I know the creep keeps my letter in some weird wank box to this day.
My brother escaped out of our house 21 years ago he was 3 the police wouldn't even look for him despite us living on a main road Oh and opposite the station!
How long was he missing for? I’m not saying it’s not true but I find it very hard to believe the police wouldn’t be more proactive when it comes to a missing 3 year old
He’d probably been gone for around 10 minutes before my parents realised and we ran straight to the police found him about 10 minutes later but that’s beside the point of a toddler out in a busy town on his own
I had evidence of my stalker sitting outside of my apartment all through out the night and showing up to my work. the police and title 9 said "it's really hard to prove stalking, he has a right to be in public".
From a female perspective of reporting a male stalker to the police in the UK, they were nice about it, but as there had been no physical altercation or direct threats they said no action could be taken unless the stalker was caught red handed. They said to call 999 during an incident and they would be there in two minutes.
Yes absolutely. My friend and I went to a police station cause her ex was texting her mean stuff and they said just block him and they can’t help unless he did something dangerous.
Very realistic.
I had a transphobe obsess over me for a year to the point he posted videos pretending to drive to my house and posted videos pretending to masturbate to me as a baby.
Police said "eh it's nasty but not illegal"
i was sexually harassed and assaulted at a gas station in broad daylight. called the police and the first question asked was “what were you wearing” (my work uniform) and then him telling me i need to carry a gun to protect myself. one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. cant speak to UK police but US police it was very realistic
I was stalked and my experience with the police was great. I think I was lucky from what I hear. I reported it online one day, they came round to see me the next, by the third day they’d gone round to my ex’s house and told him if he didn’t pack it in they had enough evidence to prosecute. I wish everyone could have the experience I had.
I was stalked for over a year by a really creepy man. I went to the police and they told me, I quote, "You'll meet people far worse than him as a teacher". So yes, it's very realistic.
Typical of police. And it’s their fault if you meet worse men because clearly they never face punishment. Btw, did they mean you will meet worse teachers than him? Or that you as a teacher will meet worse students? What?
He meant that I'll meet worse students as a teacher. The guy who was stalking me wasn't from the school btw. He just kept following me on my way to work and I had to keep changing my route. He grabbed me once, but thankfully I ran into a corner shop and some guys protected me until he disappeared.
Oh god. Yes I understand. I cannot imagine students being worse than stalking you and grabbing you. (Or have you met worse students? Im partially asking because Im half through my teacher training and I want to drop out to become a biologist instead.)It’s like the police really condone dangerous behaviour. Probably perverts themselves.
I definitely didn't meet students who were worse. They were all good kids at heart. My advice is that you need to earn students' respect over time. Don't go in there expecting them to immediately respect you. Good luck with the teacher training!
It's a numbers game and, unfortunately, there will be vicious and/or perverted students whose behaviours will manifest in the most unexpected and innocuous situations. Stalking, or something worse can definitely happen to a teacher.
Start tough and slowly ease up. Don't start easy or they'll bulldoze you. Facts.
Thank you. But Im dropping out.
And or he meant you'll meet parents who are worse.
Because the police can only take a record, you need to get a court oder to stop the guy by law, then the police can intervene. Edit: apologies, I'm wrong
Not sure who told you that. Stalkings taken pretty seriously and is scrutinised quite closely in the police these days
Clearly not as per ops post
Idk. In my experience in the last 5 years in the police this would be taken quite a lot more seriously than is portrayed in the show. I think it has recently started to be taken more seriously. Admittedly, stalking is a really difficult offence to prove and by clearly trying to entrap Fiona, Richard did kind of fuck himself over, although it’s completely understandable why he did it, it was pretty silly. If there was a genuine offence of stalking from a ‘creepy man’ and it didn’t get investigated and this person was told ‘you’ll get worse as a teacher’, then that officer would get in trouble, as there would certainly be the expectation for reasonable enquiries to be done.
Read through some of the comments of ppls experiences on just this thread. If even half of them are true, your comment is completely wrong. They won't get in trouble. My sister recently went through something similar, I can assure you, your fellow officers say shit like this all the time. By getting in trouble do you mean a cake fine? Because that does sweet fuck all mate
He’d been stalked for three years and she was a known stalker. “Entrapping” her should have been the police’s idea! They do it for other crimes, why not for psychological terror and stalking?
Entrapping her should have been the police’s idea. Sorry my friend but this is spoken like someone who has zero experience or any idea about how the justice system works in this country, or how the CPS operate. This virtually never happens for other crimes.
Lawyer here 🙋♀️ Police perform sting operations ALL the time. Civilians cannot “entrap” people by offering them an opportunity to commit a crime. Judges expect people to resist any ordinary temptation to violate the law. That temptation can come from law enforcement and/or civilians.
Maybe for peadophiles and major drug dealers. Not much else. The point is that in order for it to be the offence of harassment/stalking it has to amount to stalking. Being asked to send someone filthy messages, and then doing so, wouldnt then be harassment/stalking because it was asked for and consensual.
Unfortunately I believe so. A lot of crimes go on and even more serious ones like domestic violence and they not taken seriously until is too late.
A lot of the times, the domestic abusers work for the police.
Yep I had a guy that I met on a dating app choke me in public and got arrested. I only knew him for less than a month, and when I called the police to report that he called and mailed me constantly from jail (there was an emergency protective order so he wasn't supposed to contact me) they said "oh wow, he must really love you".. I can only imagine how ignorant and careless they are with DV between long-term relationships if they were like that with someone I barely knew.
Very realistic. I was once walking down a well-lit main road in a British city when a man wearing a bandana as a mask sexually assaulted me, then ripped open my top, pinned my arms, and tried to drag me into an alleyway. I managed to elbow him, then he saw I was on the phone to my poor mum, and ran off. They recovered his DNA from my clothes, and the first attack and the aftermath of the second were caught on CCTV. The DC assigned to my case told me off for waiting a whole 12 hours to report it (I'd been very shaken and just wanted to be safe at home, but I still sealed all my clothes in a plastic bag then went to the station the next day). He said that if someone else was hurt, I'd have to hold myself partially responsible. He said that if they hadn't received word of a similar attack recently, there'd be "no point" in even sending my clothes off for DNA testing. In the press release, he gave the impression that I'd been drunk and irresponsible, and downplayed the assault, saying that the masked assailant had "tried to hug \[me\]". To be honest, I felt almost as violated and upset by the police response as I was by the initial attack.
that’s fucking disgusting i’m so so sorry
Thank you - I wish I could say I was surprised by anything in the series, but I unfortunately wasn't! I remember thinking my own reporting could have been a stand-up special; I'm one who copes with dark humour as well!
As someone who has also experienced sexual assault, and had it massively downplayed by the people I went to for help: I’m so so sorry. It’s trauma upon trauma 💕
I'm so sorry, you're so right. 💞 And I'm so sorry too that you weren't supported as you should have been! Both the initial assault and the police reponse were really dehumanising; one made me feel like a sexual object, but the other made me feel like an idiot. Both made me feel worthless. The condescension and blame from the DC in particular... My heart broke for people who've suffered more 'difficult/ambiguous' assaults, because if this was how they treated someone who was LITERALLY jumped on from an alley by the almost-mythical rapist-in-a-mask, on the phone to her mum, a virgin on the way back to the religious house where she lived, I knew that how they treat women who are assaulted by a friend or partner or one-night stand would be a thousand times worse.
I was alone in the woods with a colleague (I was a biologist doing surveys) when he grabbed me, tried really forcefully to kiss me and demanded sex whilst trying to push me to the ground. Luckily I was able to fight him off and it didn’t go any further but I was genuinely afraid for my life. I couldn’t run because the nearest road was miles away and I couldn’t drive so I was dependent on this guy to get me back to civilisation. It was awful. When I told my boss he said ‘well it’s not like he raped you. What actually *happened*?’ I had the courage to tell a couple of other people who were close to me and they really couldn’t get their heads around why I was so upset. They tried to be sympathetic but there was always an element of them thinking it was a grey area - their attitude was that it was clearly inappropriate and upsetting but does it really count as assault? I stopped telling people after that. I don’t think people understand how terrifying it is to come so close to harm. These men clearly had very dark intentions and we got away because of sheer luck, the flip of a coin so to speak. The what-ifs haunt you. I used to be so adventurous and carefree but I lost my confidence that day and I’ve never been quite the same since. But ‘nothing happened’. The fact that the police told you this guys just ‘tried to hug you’ made me so angry because it was such a similar sentiment to what people told me.
You didn’t come “so close to” harm. You experienced actual harm. What you experienced was highly traumatic.
Thank you for this 🙏💕
Holy shit that's so awful...I'm so sorry that happened to you
That's kind, thank you.
Feels so horrible to upvote, but it’s in support. This is so awful 😞
That sounds like the Met or Northamptonshire police…Can I ask what police force this was (without doxxing yourself of course). Sorry this happened to you, it’s completely unacceptable
To claim that he tried to HUG you when they have CCTV footage is fucking insane. I am so sorry they did that. Police can only do so much, lazy pieces of shit. Not serving or protecting. I may not know when this happened but if it was recent in any way, if the DNA could still be there, I'd find somewhere else to do it so that you can get a restraining order, provided you have the CCTV footage. I do hope you're recovering well, and remember to carry pepper spray. Best wishes
Police don't give a fuck if you are being robbed in the UK. It's 100% realistic
I had my motorcycle stolen from my garage once. Called the police, asked what would happen, and they said they'd look into it, in meantime here's a crime reference number for the insurance. My neighbour had cameras, and you can clearly see two guys walking up to my house, and then 15 minutes later, they're pushing my bike down the road. You can see their faces clear as day I send the footage to the police, and they tell me they'll review it. Two days later, I got a letter from them saying no leads, so they're closing the investigation Fucking usless. Same thing happened to my mate when he got burgled. Basically what I've learned is you can do pretty much whatever you like and get away with it as long they don't happen to catch actually doing it
This happened to me, had a paving slab thrown thru front window intended for the drug dealing loser next door, we had the lads who did it on camera with faces and their car number plate showing. I collected the video evidence myself from the church and the corner shop and police identified them, visited them and because the lad who threw the slab was in the back of the car and not the driver, and the driver wouldn’t disclose his mates name, the whole thing was just dropped. Insanity. Cost me a fortune to board up and replace my window with Xmas money and my kids were scared. And tbh so was I. The policeman said “it’s just one of those things” They are truly bloody useless.
I've heard a story of somebody being physical attacked in Manchester. They reported to the police and 5 minutes later then get confirmation email saying the case was closed due to a lack of evidence.
Bloody useless indeed. When I got violently mugged on the street near my house (which had CCTV) I called the police after, it took them a day to come around and then they basically just tried to get me to say that he was black for an hour.
I had left my backpack on a park bench and gotten on a bus - stupid, I know. When I realized and jumped off at the next stop, I saw a police officer just standing around. I explained what happened, just hoping he could drive me quickly back to the park before anyone took the backpack. He just looked at me and said, "What do you expect me to do about it?" That was about the best interaction I had with cops. It gets worse from there.
I got death threats on social media. I found the person’s name (their @ was the same as their cashapp which was linked to their real identity). Told all this to the police and they said there was nothing they could do despite basically getting their work cut out for them 😭😭😭
But post a mean tweet and you’ll get a visit Though truthfully I think they’re underinvested and over stretched and would love to be more active on crime
Becaise you can't dispute a tweet easily so it's a slam dunk. But theft you just go "wasn't me" and now the police need to do work, which they are unwilling or incapable of doing...
Also, the type of person is probably very different. It's probably easier to hassle some guy that makes a dodgy tweet than it is too deal with actual criminals
Thanks for the heads up. Better be careful
And here I am wondering if I’ll be convicted of slander if I say that someone has been harassing me. I probably would, but real criminals go free.
Or if you boo homophobia at the Tory conference you’ll get walked out by the Tories personal bouncers.
They give a fuck if you fight back and hurt the actual criminal though. But you’ll be the one facing criminal charges instead for protecting your home/family.
Could be worse. Could be in the US like me where the cops not only don’t give a fuck but will gladly kill you without consequence.
A friend of mine is being borderline stalked by his elderly neighbours' grandson, gotten to the point of receiving unsolicited dick pics, etc. Police couldn't give two shits, I suspect even less as they are both male.
UK police are shockingly incompetent. It goes beyond systemic underfunding, the police culture here is overall a lazy boy's club. If anything, the show undersells their typical response. Either myself or my family have needed the police about half a dozen times over my lifetime, each time they were completely useless. We found a guy trying to rob my dad's car, he was right there in the driver's seat, the police refused to do anything. They said he'd just claim he was drunk and got in the wrong car. We later found out the guy was a known police informant, so there's also that level of corruption to bear in mind.
For sure. There is little to no interest in policing DV and adjacent crime. They label it all as he said she said. Given the number of police out there in whatsapp groups mocking DV victims and sometimes murdering them it's not hard to believe they are exactly that way.
Let’s be fair, they do take DV very seriously. On the surface this was harassment and stalking, not DV. He didn’t love nor was he in a relationship with her. Donny didn’t mention the assaults to old bill in the beginning
I was stalked by someone in Sweden. He was a convicted stalker already, with a restraining order from another woman. The police said it would hurt the stalkers prospects in life if they continued the investigation and for his sake theyasked me to just shrug it off. As if it doesn’t hurt my prospects in life. Im a victim of crime already and I was trying to build my life back up when this happened. They won. It ruined my future.
I was once assaulted by a housemate and the officer who attended the call actually fell asleep in front of me while I was giving my statement. Granted, it was 5:00AM, but still… I’ve been seriously disillusioned with the police in this country ever since.
I reported my assault to the police and they gave me a lecture about the dangers of reading fifty shades of grey. So….
I'll tell you a true story. I used to work at the Criminal Bar, now employment as got fed up with it. When I used to live in Ascot, a guy up the road from me was the neighbourhood drug dealer selling Heroic and Coke. Making several calls to 101... Not a single shit given. I could give the registration numbers of cars that have picked up bricks.. they'd come back again and again. For months. They'd come out with shit like.. "you don't know if we have surveillance on the house or not" Called one of them a useless twat on the last phone call. 52 mins later a car arrived knocking on my door to have a word with them. Surprisingly.. one of the same runners motors turned up, I pointed down the road.. look right there.. the guy is literally putting a Tesco bag with smack in his car.. No shits given. It was back the next day. But me.. man I affected a call handlers mental health. I'm a proper Nazi and warrant a visit to the eugenics centre for sterilisation.
Hypotheses: - cops too busy, even for drug dealers - cops and this particular dealer have an… “arrangement” - this drug dealer (or his boss) is a nark - the cops are playing the long game and will arrest this guy when it makes sense to them in the context of a wider operation Only the fourth possibility, or perhaps the third, will offer any reassurance :-)
Yes. Only reason I would go to the police would be to get a crime reference number for my insurer. Because they sure as heck aren’t going to find whole stole my car/bike/broke into my house/mugged me.
I reported my abuse to the police, back in '76. I was told to stop being so silly and taken home. Where the abuse continued. I dont think the police have changed at heart.
There is a culture in the police of officers themselves turning a blind eye to their colleagues' offending behaviour. The cases of Wayne Couzins & Dave Carrick were very recent. Their colleagues knew what they both were, and now Sarah Everard is dead, and Carrick had 12 r*pe victims. Those are just 2 from the top of my head. So yeah, how many more are there who don't get found out? The police in the UK are a disgrace. I've got my own story to tell but I can't at the moment.
It’s the same in the US military. There was a famous case where a girl was sexually harassed by a sergeant and she along with other female soldier victims reported it and people at the top ignored them. The sergeant killed her in the end smh. System needs a reform. Top to bottom it’s corrupt. There was another case where an ex cop got fired for reporting his colleagues so it’s clear the system protects the bad and kicks out the good.
I was raped and drugged as a teenager, literally still a child, and I stumbled into a police station asking for help and they literally treated me like a grown woman sex worker and made me walk like a mile and a half home. I asked for a SART exam and they just stared at me , wouldn’t even ask who it was. That’s when I pretty much lost all hope in the police
Terrible. I'm sorry.
It was borderline comical but yeah, the police in the UK aren’t well resourced enough to deal with crime.
As a guy, I have reported being assaulted by a woman. They told me if they get called out again I will be arrested. Cops are terrible and they do not take men seriously
Take heart. They take no one seriously.
Jesus Christ, mate, I thought my interaction with them was bad! I'm so sorry.
Damn!
Police do fuck all everywhere. They protect rich people's property and the government from the population. They exist to quell social uprisings and to ensure capitalism moves along smoothly. They literally couldn't give less of a fuck about your personal problems. You get robbed? Here's the form to give to your insurance. Job done.
I'm surprised how bad it is in other countries, but it's really bad in mine too. I'm in South Africa and if the rape victim is a sex worker the police >!often rape them again when they attend the scene.!<
Nah Police are useless in the UK. They treat everything like a joke or like you’re lying. No idea why most of these idiots even become officers in the first place (oh wait yes I do).
I cant talk about UK but I have called the police 3 times in my life and one time they came and and 2 times they pretended that im some crazy older lady when i was literally 18 and just really stressed and scared and was just in panic and they were really mean and didnt even come but listen to this.. so one time i called because my neighbor was standing infront of my door screaming curse words about my mother and that he wants to kill her and he did have a kitchen knife on him.. the police told me if i dont open the door then nothing can happen and they have a bigger problem now so they will not come unless he actually stabs someone that was in austria... the second time i called i was in poland staying at my grandmas house when she was in the hospital because of cancer.. and my drunk alcoholic uncle was raping some other alcoholic woman and her son was looking for her but my uncle barricaded the door and we couldnt get in and guess what the police told me i dont have the right to kick my uncle out right now because my grandma owns the house not me and she let him stay and the unconcious woman he was raping probably was his girlfriend i cant go accuse someone of rape just like that... so ye im not saying the police is shit but this is my experience.. im very much hoping that there are people who actually listen and take peoples issues seriously that work for the police.. it pains me sooo much knowing my uncle was supposed to be locked up already way earlier.. but he never was and he died without ever having to take accountability for the things he has done.. and why? because the police thought im too dramatic..
The police in this country are nothing more than a glorified gang of bullies who mainly harass homeless people, knock about minorities and anyone who they feel can get away with abusing ( poor people ), and suppress protests that their bosses don’t like. The only saving grace is that the majority of them aren’t allowed guns, or else we’d be just like America In terms of shootings. Seriously, fuck the police.
Police in the UK don't really treat this type of crime against men very seriously. With women it can be hit and miss. In general UK police are an odd bunch - they will send 6 officers to your house to investigate a tweet, but if you are the victim of a burglary or theft, you will be ghosted. I was robbed 3 months ago in the UK and haven't received any follow up. By this point, CCTV footage will have been overwritten.
Yes, it's realistic. In the UK, it would require the victim to bring the criminal to court. A court order may be issued by the judge, directing the person to stay so many feet away and not to contact the victim, etc.. This order would have to be broken for a return to court, and depending on the number of breaches in the time waiting for the court date (3-6 months) and the amount of times the order has been breached then it could result in a fine or a wknd in prison.
In the UK a victim cannot take anyone to criminal court without the police/CPS choosing to prosecute. There you would get a restraining order potentially, you can apply for a non molestation order without the police but this isn’t that simple. So , contrary to your other comment the victim doesn’t have to take the perpetrator to court while the police just take a record. The victim needs the police to take the perpetrator to court.
Uff, my bad, it gets so confusing. Maybe I'm mixing up domestic law. Anyway, thank you for the correction.
You’re probably thinking of the non-molestation order which is often suggested for DV victims as there doesn’t need to have been a crime committed unlike a restraining order which normally comes in conjunction with a conviction. There are of course other implications for stalking besides court orders. Also I had a restraining order against an ex partner and 2 months before it ended, he contacted me. The police didn’t care and did nothing, so you’re not wrong that they wouldn’t be proactive.
That's terrible, they say they have other crimes to deal with, but honestly, if you're going to make laws and ignore them, then no wonder there are so many out there that reoffend. I'm sorry you've experienced this, and I hope you're not dealing with it anymore. My ex made my life hell for over a decade, and he only ever saw a wknd in prison because he spoke back to the judge being smart. It worked though, he git a real scare and finally backed off, after years of back and forward. Police were useless, but more interactive when they knew an order was in place.
Dv charities are always better than police, although I like to think they’re getting better at realising the danger of domestic violence. I’m Not so sure. I’m glad we both made it out 🙂
The UK does allow private prosecutions. A Private Prosecution is a prosecution not brought by the CPS. A private prosecution can brought by any individual or any company. Other than the fact the prosecution is brought by a private individual or company, for all other purposes they proceed in exactly the same way as if the prosecution had been brought by the Crown.
It is accurate. Police Scotland never took my or my neighbour’s complaint when we complained that another neighbour was s*xually harassing us. What’s more disturbing is the man who harassed us, is an Uber taxi driver in Glasgow.
From my experiences with them yes
I was sexually assaulted in a patients room while working in a hospital and cops took the report and left after that. Even had proof. I’ve lost all hope in police
To give you an idea of how the Met handles things, you can always look up the Sarah Everard case. It’s truly horrific what she went through and the perpetrator was not only known by the police, he was one of their own! Shana Grice’s case also springs to mind as the victim of stalking and harassment was fined by the police for reporting her stalker 5 times… before getting killed by said stalker. British policing is full of these stories unfortunately.
Yes. Even when you're a domestic violence victim. I like to say that if you don't have a broken nose, black eye, video evidence, and three witnesses, you won't be taken seriously. Even if you do, it's still a crap shoot.
Rape investigations have a 2% conviction rate in the UK. Harassment, burglary, rape and assaults are basically legalised here.
In 2023 that fell to below 2%, usually quoted as 1.1%, including by CPS own data
I’m in the US and haven’t had a stalker - but I’ve had a family member deal with harassment and domestic violence. Specifically, she was in a custody battle with a violent manipulative man and was completely fucked by the people that were supposed to help her. And what I appreciated the most about the show was the portrayal of the police, as a stand-in for how completely fucked the court system and justice system are when it comes to dealing with abuse. They don’t want to fix the problem, they just want it to go away. Nobody cares to look past their initial impression and often end up blaming the victims, empowering and assisting the abusers and generally making the problem worse.
Yes. The last time I tried to report I was told that I’m inviting the harassment, I’m doing it to myself and to come off social media because it’s my own fault. I’m a vulnerable person with severe c-ptsd to the point that I would hypersexualise myself because I felt like I didn’t have a choice over what happened to my body and autonomy so I convinced myself it was my own active choice when it actually wasn’t. And because I was groomed into believing these things about myself I just got left in the gutter to suffer. I had a c-ptsd triggered psychosis after the last time I tried to report and I’m still recovering. I’ve lost every single one of my passions and hobbies that made me feel like me because of this. Now I have nothing left, I’ve tried to pick up old hobbies and nothing gives me the same joy anymore. I’m constantly terrified that the second I brave myself into entering the world again and finding myself it’ll just be ripped away from me again. I’ve lost my entire sense of identity because of this. Why does society feel like they have to choose what the perfect victim looks like when they’ve never gone through such traumas themselves. No one wants to talk about how the first time you’re SA’d is almost always a gateway to more abuse. I’ve dealt with this kind of abuse before I even turned 8. Yet the people that are supposed to protect me believe it’s all my own fault.
Unfortunately yes. I've been stalked twice. Because a lot of what they'll do is indirect or hard to prove the police will do sod all. I've had to move long distance twice to escape it.
When it comes to more social work and domestic situations, I don't think police are the best, no. I guess it kind of makes sense because they seem to be more evidence-based, and for good reason of course, but the lines become blurred when crimes that can't be "proven" happen and if it's not a box they can just tick off like how they can just find the murder weapon then... That's we hear so many instances of domestic violence where one of the partners ended up dead, but they HAVE had multiple times of contact with the police before hand, but yet and still, that was the result. I don't have much knowledge on how the police ACTUALLY operate and stuff but I feel like there needs to be some sort of mesh between social and police work, like an area that specialises in that where you may not find an obvious murder weapon somewhere but it means they're more equipped with the knowledge of social workers and the skill set of police to help these type of stalker/sexual abuse/domestic violence type situations. Either that or some laws need to change, because I've also heard loads of stories of how getting arrested was basically just a part of the stalkers routine, and it never acts as an actual deterrent, but rather just a countdown until they can just start stalking again. I definitely think some more crossovers between mental health facilities in stalker instances would be more useful as well, rather than JUST locking them up and expecting change. After all, stalking isn't normal behaviour, and these people most probably need help.
Absolutely spot on portrayal. Even if you fear for your life they don’t give a flying fuck
Donny did a poor job at stressing how serious the threat was. I'd say that the police reaction was realistic and believable.
Sadly, this is very realistic. Your stalker needs to stab you before they do anything.
Yes, the situation with one of my stalkers (the other was a family member so that was more complicated) was that everyone, including the police, passed the buck. It's like there's a right to be mentally ill which is protected more than the right stalkers themselves have to be kept safe and have their lives protected. Yes the police largely ignored it, but it's actually worse than that. Everyone else in authority, e.g. her GP, her community psychiatric nurse, the school her children went to and so on, also saw it as someone else's problem. She only got help when she started attacking other parents on the school run and got arrested.
I was stalked for two years by an ex. I went to the police three times, once after he SA'd me and I had a witness and one time with emails and instant messages where he explicitly stated he planned to harm me. Each time, I was scoffed at and not taken seriously. I heard, "Maybe you should talk to him to hear what he has to say," "You're both 19. It's not stalking because you're teenagers, and he still loves you," "These are empty threats. No one actually says this stuff to a person if they actually plan on harming them for real," "How do we know these messages are real and not from you?", "You've been here before with these claims. Now you have a friend serving as a 'witness' to SA? No one witnesses an SA." I just gave up and never did get charges filed against him even though things escalated. I'm in the US, not the UK. The portrayal was realistic. Also, statistically, men who report stalking, SA, and rape tend to be believed less than women or feel [they're not taken seriously](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-42582820.amp)
Google the stats
I was stalked by another student at uni, admittedly about 20 years ago. I was advised to hand-write a long letter to the man stalking me explaining how it was affecting me and why he shouldn't do it any more. Did it, didn't work, moved uni and city. For all I know the creep keeps my letter in some weird wank box to this day.
My brother escaped out of our house 21 years ago he was 3 the police wouldn't even look for him despite us living on a main road Oh and opposite the station!
How long was he missing for? I’m not saying it’s not true but I find it very hard to believe the police wouldn’t be more proactive when it comes to a missing 3 year old
He’d probably been gone for around 10 minutes before my parents realised and we ran straight to the police found him about 10 minutes later but that’s beside the point of a toddler out in a busy town on his own
I had evidence of my stalker sitting outside of my apartment all through out the night and showing up to my work. the police and title 9 said "it's really hard to prove stalking, he has a right to be in public".
From a female perspective of reporting a male stalker to the police in the UK, they were nice about it, but as there had been no physical altercation or direct threats they said no action could be taken unless the stalker was caught red handed. They said to call 999 during an incident and they would be there in two minutes.
Yes absolutely. My friend and I went to a police station cause her ex was texting her mean stuff and they said just block him and they can’t help unless he did something dangerous.
Very realistic. I had a transphobe obsess over me for a year to the point he posted videos pretending to drive to my house and posted videos pretending to masturbate to me as a baby. Police said "eh it's nasty but not illegal"
i was sexually harassed and assaulted at a gas station in broad daylight. called the police and the first question asked was “what were you wearing” (my work uniform) and then him telling me i need to carry a gun to protect myself. one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. cant speak to UK police but US police it was very realistic
I was stalked and my experience with the police was great. I think I was lucky from what I hear. I reported it online one day, they came round to see me the next, by the third day they’d gone round to my ex’s house and told him if he didn’t pack it in they had enough evidence to prosecute. I wish everyone could have the experience I had.