Researchers to examine stalking phenomenon

It might be phone calls at all hours of the day and night, threatening letters or text messages.

Stalkers regularly hit the headlines - last month a woman who threatened to kill Hollywood actor Catherine Zeta-Jones, cut her up and feed her to dogs was jailed for three years. Dawnette Knight, who did not dispute stalking and threatening charges, was obsessed with Zeta-Jones' husband, Michael Douglas.

But little is known about how prevalent the problem is in New Zealand - police do not keep statistics on stalking, which is likely to fall under offences such as harassment and intimidation - and now Auckland University researchers are trying to find out how widespread it is.

Deborah Widdowson, senior research associate at the Centre for Child and Family Policy Research, said the study would focus on university students and mental health nurses and doctors, two groups at high risk of being stalked, according to overseas research.

Health workers tended to be stalked by people with mental health problems, while students were more likely to be stalked by someone they knew or had an intimate relationship with in the past.

Ms Widdowson said stalking ranged from a person being followed and spied on to unsolicited letters or phone calls.

A former partner might turn up at a social occasion uninvited or regularly drive past the house they used to share. Cellphones and email were also used.

Debbie Robinson, trainer for the National Collective of Independent Women's Refuges, said about one in five women using refuges were stalked by their former partners.

Men would drive by the house, make continual phone calls and were increasingly using text and picture messages from cellphones.

"Technology is making it worse. Cellphones and texting mean they have continued access to them."

Ms Robinson knew of one woman who would hide inside the house in the dark with her three children so that her former partner, a convicted paedophile, would not know if they were home.

Associate professor Robyn Dixon, director of the research centre, said clinicians were not only subjected to stalking but were often required to treat perpetrators and victims. "Even when the behaviour is seen as stalking, if the perpetrator is a client then clinicians often feel that they should be able to deal with it, or that it is an expected part of their job."

The Auckland study of 500 students and a similar number of doctors and nurses, would explore the characteristics of young adult victims and perpetrators.

It would also look at potential links between childhood bullying and stalking later in life.

The research is part of an international study, involving the US, Britain and Canada.

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A recent Australian study found a quarter of respondents reported having been stalked.

Victims suffered both socially and economically, for example having to change their phone number or move house.

Stalkers were more likely to be men but both genders were victims.

An American study of 16,000 people found 8 per cent of women and 2 per cent of men had been stalked.