This charity's technology can save your life
It is difficult to turn such a negative as stalking into a positive, but a Gloucestershire charity is giving real hope - and as National Stalking Awareness Week draws to a close we find out why.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the Thursday email edition of The Raikes Journal - the first edition we’ve published since our return from the Easter break. Although we have been updating the website with a few stories here and there.
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When Clare Seed, of Tidal Training, was told she was wasting her time trying to get defibrillators installed in Cheltenham they didn’t realise it, but they said the right thing, because she became so very determined to prove everyone who told her ‘no’ so very wrong.
We’re talking about the Public Hearts Cheltenham Defibrillator Campaign CIC. A special ceremony is due to take place this evening (24 April) at the town’s MX centre to celebrate the installation of the hundredth defib machine in the town. But more of that tomorrow.
Today we ask you to come with us to take another look at a Gloucestershire charity many will already assume they know well, and an issue many will think has nothing to do with them. And hopefully it never will.
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This charity's technology can save your life
It is difficult to turn such a negative as stalking and the horrors that can follow into a positive, but a Gloucestershire charity is achieving just that - and as National Stalking Awareness Week draws to a close we find out why.
By Andrew Merrell.
On the eve of the end of National Stalking Awareness Week The Hollie Gazzard Trust sent out a press release that simply offered a 50 per cent discount on its police-approved safety app, and sadly no doubt many simply walked on by.
It’s easy to dismiss another story because we assume we know all there is to know about an organisation, even one like the Trust that was born from an event that remains as emotive and traumatic today as it did when the organisation was founded more than decade ago.
Perhaps that helps explain in part why society is slow to change and needs organisations like the Hollie Gazzard Trust to continue fighting, to remind us that even 10 years after the murder of the Gloucestershire hairdresser whose name it has immortalised, her story remains as relevant today as then.
Today the Trust certainly has even more weapons and tools in its armoury. They are tools that, had they been around back then - when Hollie was murdered, in her place of work, in public - it could have been a very different ending.
It is one of those tools that the charity wanted to promote this week, during National Stalking Awareness Week - a simple piece of software that turns a mobile phone into a powerful tool that can deliver safety, justice and freedom.
“The Hollie Guard Extra is not just an app. It is a gamechanger,” said Jane Harvey, the newly appointed chief executive officer of the Gloucester-based charity.
“What is really fantastic about it is it is much more than just a safety app.
“Yes, you get a hotline through to 24-hour support, but – as my colleague says who looks after this – it’s like having a policeman in your pocket.
“It enables you to upload pictures, text messages you’ve received (from the person stalking you), diary entries of what has happened to you, all time-stamped; digital evidence.”
That can all be sent, by a secure link, to the authorities to form a case compelling and powerful enough to bring a stalker to justice.
“It has already resulted in convictions,” said Harvey.
She took the reins of the Gloucester charity from its founder, Nick Gazzard, Hollie’s father, earlier this month (April), with the latter taking on a new public-facing role and joining the board of trustees.
Harvey has 20 years in broadcast journalism with the BBC and ITV under her belt, but began a parallel career in advocacy and safeguarding in 1999 when she was working on an ITV documentary exploring the impact of stalking.
It was during this time she worked closely with one victim and liaised with global experts in risk and safeguarding to tell a story that was so fantastically scary it seemed at first unreal. It was this experience that shocked her, changed her mindset forever, and ignited a long-term commitment to support victims of abuse.
And this is the world in which the Hollie Gazzard Trust is now a respected force for change.
“The Trust has so many initiatives in place,” said Harvey, clearly in awe of its achievements to date.
“We have a schoolteacher who works for the trust who is designing programmes for schools that were already tackling the issues raised in the Netflix series Adolescence before it came out this year.
“The Trust is ahead of the game.”
She was referring to the unnerving Netflix drama that started a national debate with its storyline about 13-year-old Jamie Miller, who is arrested for murdering a schoolmate.
Last year the Hollie Gazzard Trust celebrated 10 years. So much has changed in that time.
When Raikes contacted Gloucestershire Constabulary it jumped at the chance to drive home its own messages around stalking, highlighting a campaign it began in 2023 and sending us links to advice for us to pass on at the foot of this article.
That advice is not just for people being stalked, and how they identify the signs, but how all of us can spot the signs and what we can do to help.
“We launched a stalking campaign in 2023 and created a romantic comedy trailer to highlight the problematic behaviours which constitute stalking,” said a spokesman for Gloucestershire Constabulary. explaining how it has embraced the challenge the force faced in understanding the issues head-on.
“This campaign has been used by several other police forces across the country and we continue to use it to help raise awareness of the pattern of fixated, obsessed, unwanted and repeated behaviour which can have a lasting emotional and psychological impact on a victim.”
In some ways our understanding has come on in leaps and bounds, said Harvey.
Her role as an advocate working in Gloucestershire saw police refer to her individuals who were being stalked or reporting incidents which, on closer inspection, are now seen as red flags demanding action.
But, if you ask her if we’re winning she will tell you simply there is a long way to go, but the major positive being that the Hollie Gazzard Trust is well-placed and determined to continue to be a catalyst for that education and change.
Getting in front of more businesses is just one of the routes Harvey sees as key.
“Businesses are often central to many of the cases – especially as the stalker will know where the person they are stalking works. The victims can also be especially vulnerable if they are in public-facing roles,” she said.
Helping businesses with such safeguarding is key, said Harvey, and can make all the difference.
The story she got involved in as a journalist, the one that changed her mindset forever, was about a woman whose own stalking experience began in her place of work. A place she thought was safe.
Only when it was almost too late was she saved when the man she could get no one to believe was going to take her life if he was not stopped was jailed for the attempted murder of another woman.
“It was an incredibly shocking case, and one I have to say sounded so shocking it was difficult to believe it was true, but it was,” said Harvey.
She remains close to the woman, whose story she helped tell, with her experience inspiring her to become an advocate to help identify victims and a trainer to help support others.
“When the police hear about someone having threats made against them, or dead flowers sent to their address, or their tyres slashed, it might just sound like one incident.
“But if an advocate can sit down and talk to the complainant it can become apparent it is part of a long line of incidents, that it is stalking and should be treated as such.”
When that first incident is reported it is often the point at which action is needed, she said.
According to the police “it can take up to 100 incidents of stalking before someone reports one event to police”.
What might seem almost innocuous can often be a tipping point at which things escalate quickly, which is why the role of advocate in idenfiying cases is so important.
Gloucestershire Police told Raikes it “supported the work of the Hollie Gazzard Trust and its tireless efforts over several years to raise awareness of domestic abuse and stalking”.
Detective Inspector Dave McCoy, the force tactical lead for stalking, said: “Training has been provided to our staff around recognising stalking behaviour, and the work of our multi-agency stalking hub is recognised nationally as good practice.
“The hub assesses high-risk cases to ensure there is a joined-up approach to dealing with the offender and safeguarding the victim.
“There are a range of things we can do in order to disrupt the person's behaviour, such as Stalking Protection Orders which, for example, can block contact or attempts to make contact, create exclusion zones or order people to not post on social media with reference to a victim.
“A breach is a criminal offence, and these are tools available to us to manage perpetrators.
“I encourage everyone to be aware of the signs of stalking so that we can help victims get the appropriate support.”
Since their introduction in 2019, Stalking Protection Orders have been used to allow early police intervention in stalking cases.
From February 2021 to December 2021, 434 applications for Stalking Protection Orders were made and 232 were issued, according to the latest data from His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service.
According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) one in five women and around one in 11 men aged 16 years and over have been a victim of stalking.
Despite these rises, the number of police-recorded stalking offences remains well below levels reported in the CSEW, with 129,076 offences recorded in the year ending March 2024, up from 2,885 in the year ending March 2015.
According to the CSEW, “while there are slight differences in how the CSEW and the police define stalking which may explain this gap, it is possible that due to the sensitive nature of the crime, victims may not always report it to the police”.
Harvey said: “In the case of Hollie, she did report what had happened to her, but even Nick will tell you it was too short a window for anyone to piece it all together and understand the threat.
“In hindsight she had exhibited all the signs that she was in danger.”
Which only makes her story even more tragic, and helps explain more clearly Gazzard’s determination that what he knows from bitter experience is used to benefit others.
To date the Hollie Guard Extra has been downloaded more than 500,000 times is now backed by 10 police force areas.
These are the four behaviours that are warning signs that someone is stalking you:
· Fixated - being followed on your daily routine, spied on, or being watched by someone loitering around your work or home.
· Obsession - being monitored on or offline, cyberstalking, the ordering and cancelling of items on your behalf.
· Unwanted attention - gifts being sent or left for you; unwanted messages, letters or phone calls. Even damage or graffiti being caused to your property.
· Repeated behaviour - this can be any nuisance or threatening behaviour, being approached, accosted or bullied repeatedly.
For further advice about spotting the signs of stalking and how to report it and seek support, visit www.talkingstalking.com. In an emergency always call 999.
Lots of advice here too: Stalking: Fixated Obsessed Unwanted Repeated | Gloucestershire Constabulary
If you are not sure if you are being stalked you can contact the National Stalking Helpline.
In collaboration with our partners Alice Ruggles Trust and Paladin, The Hollie Gazzard Trust has developed a resource pack on stalking for teachers and tutors. It’s available to download here.
The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme gives any member of the public the right to ask the police if their partner may pose a risk to them. It is often called Clare’s Law after the landmark case that led to it.
This scheme also allows a member of the public to make an enquiry into the partner of a close friend or family member. For more information click here.