Stalkers get too close for comfort

By DAISY PRICE

What is it that turns love into obsession? According to pop fan Juliet Peters, it was feeling that her idol, Billie Piper, had given her a "dirty, sly look" during a brief meeting on a television music show.

What followed was a tirade of abusive phone calls to the pop singer, calling her a whore and threatening to shoot her and behead her parents.

When Peters was convicted at Blackfriars Crown Court in London last month, the jury suggested she should seek help from a psychiatrist or counsellor. She is awaiting sentence.

This kind of fixated, obsessive behaviour - common to all stalking cases - is a growing area of concern for psychiatrists and other health professionals. Not only celebrities are on the receiving end. Research shows cases of anonymous celebrity stalkers are uncommon.

"Celebrity stalkers constitute a small number of cases, but are highly publicised and more likely to come to court," says Graham Davies, professor of psychology at the University of Leicester.

Most stalkers have had a relationship with their victims. Sometimes they are ex-partners or, more commonly, people whom the victim has met socially.

Figures suggest that up to one in five women and one in 10 men aged 16 to 30 in Britain have been victims of stalking.

For Jonathan Carter, aged 25, a PhD student from Newcastle, the harassment began after he split with his girlfriend, Chloe. After three years together, Chloe refused to accept that their relationship was over, and plagued him with phone calls and visits. He was stalked for more than a year and forced to move house three times. Chloe became anorexic.

"She would follow me around and was obsessive," says Carter. "Sometimes there would be 50 or 60 messages jamming my answerphone. No matter how many times I would explain to her that it was all over, she would still want to talk to me. She even followed me to work."

Carter often had to leave through a window or hide in the garden while his flatmate showed Chloe round the house to convince her that he was out.

"It affects everyone else around you. She wasn't only phoning me, but my friends and work colleagues as well. I felt imprisoned in my own home. As soon as I plugged in my phone, she would ring. If my phone was engaged, she would realise I was home and come round. Often she would wake the neighbours at three or four in the morning, pressing all the buzzers in the block of flats. In the end I had to call the police.

"Then she went on hunger strike or developed some kind of eating disorder and lost massive amounts of weight. I thought she was going to kill herself."

Eventually, Chloe found a job, and stopped phoning him altogether. It was as though she had regained her sanity. "It was an incredible relief - I had got used to looking over my shoulder all the time."

According to new research from Leicester University, stalkers fall into five main categories.

The rejected stalker is the most common, accounting for 50 per cent of cases. These are people who have been in a relationship that has been called off by the other person. In such cases the stalker, like Chloe, can't accept that the relationship is over, and is desperate for reconciliation.

This kind of stalking can continue as systematic harassment for up to 20 years, says Professor Davies. There is no firm method of dealing with it, and many experts encourage people to ignore the stalkers in the hope that they will go elsewhere.

The "infatuation" stalker accounts for 5 per cent of cases. They are usually women who target celebrities or people they don't know. The stalker is often lonely and looking for a fantasy relationship to compensate for a lack of normal intimacy. Frequently, they believe that if they pursue someone long enough, the object of their desire will eventually return their feelings.

Infatuation stalkers may suffer from de Clerambault's syndrome. Sufferers believe they are in love and think that the other person shares those feelings. Denial provokes hurt and confusion.

Resentful stalkers account for a minority of cases and are usually motivated by desire for revenge against a person who has hurt them or let them down. They usually act in a way they know will frighten their victims.

The most dangerous is the predatory stalker - the category sex offenders fall into. They stalk their victims for power, control and sexual excitement. They may even plot to attack their victims.

Although this group is afflicted with severe mental health problems, Davies does not believe this is true of all stalkers.

"Only the minority have mental health problems. Many stalkers are respectable people who have never come into contact with the criminal justice system ."

One category is that of "incompetent" stalkers - often a man who doesn't know how to pursue a normal relationship. They are typically the office nerd, or the chauvinist or misogynist who thinks he is entitled to a relationship with a woman. They bombard their victims with letters or presents.

Katie Thornton, a 24-year-old IT consultant from Hull, was on the receiving end of such attentions. Five years ago she was asked out by Paul, a workmate. They met for lunch once, after which Thornton told Paul she wasn't interested romantically. They agreed to remain friends.

When she went away to university that year, they exchanged addresses. For a while they wrote to each other, but Paul became increasingly obsessive. He would phone, write three or four letters a week and send flowers and presents.

"Even though I'd made it clear that I didn't want a relationship, he kept sending me these letters saying how much he loved me and wanted to get married," Thornton says. "When I stopped replying, he started sending abusive letters to me and to my parents saying I was a bitch. It was horrible ."

Eventually, Thornton phoned him and asked him not to contact her, but his attentions didn't stop. He sent more letters, claiming he had been abused by his parents, that he was an alcoholic and had a criminal past. When she moved house, he traced her. Five years on, she is still receiving letters.

"He's never turned up, which is something to hang on to," she says. "The worst thing is, psychologically you don't have any control over what's happening. The police say he could be cautioned or arrested, but because of his criminal connections I've been advised not to pursue any claim against him."

- HERALD CORRESPONDENT