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The stalking was so bad, she thought he would kill her. The law couldn't help

Friday, 20 August 2021

More than a decade after Maya* left her partner, she is still hounded by him.

He wants to know what she’s doing every moment of every day. To find that out, he will break into her house to look through her computer, steal mail, follow her to work, hide in a ditch outside her house, and call and text her constantly.

He will use other people to stalk her, getting them to keep tabs and lay false police complaints about her.

She’s not free from him in her work life either. He has done everything he can to sabotage her career, making “relentless” false complaints to WorkSafe and professional bodies. She has to keep her job off LinkedIn and warn colleagues about the safety measures she needs to take.

**READ MORE:

Maya’s ex-partner would wait outside her house and follow her to work.
Maya’s ex-partner would wait outside her house and follow her to work.

* Abuse victims are urged to get police protection. They're left with debt

* She spent $50,000 trying to get safe. In the end, she gave up.

* Stalking victim left 'terrified' by threats and online harassment

**

It’s “constant harassment” that she is sure will continue for as long as they’re both alive.

That’s the other thought that plagues her: “At what point is he going to cross the line and kill me?”

Every time something happens, she lodges a police complaint. Every time she is told the same thing.

“There's nothing they can do, they just tell me to go back to Family Court to get a protection order.”

The police have their hands tied. Strictly speaking, his stalking wasn’t breaking the law. There’s no law to break.

New Zealand does not have any specific stalking laws. It has harassment laws, but criminal convictions are rare – about 40 a year, according to figures released under the Official Information Act.

There are also civil restraining orders, but they can’t be taken out by a person against a partner or ex-partner.

We’re falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to protecting victims of stalking, clinical psychologist Dr Alison Towns says.

Australia, the US and most EU countries have anti-stalking legislation. In England, perpetrators can face up to five years in jail under laws introduced in 2012 after a number of women were murdered by their stalkers.

English police have the power to take out stalking protection orders without forcing the victim through a lengthy court process. It puts the responsibility for monitoring behaviour onto police, rather than victims, Towns says.

That’s something that’s lacking in New Zealand, she adds.

The calls and texts were constant – every hour of every day and night.
The calls and texts were constant – every hour of every day and night.

The onus is always on victims. To gather evidence – even when the law isn’t there to prosecute. To make police reports – so if the worst happens at least there’s a paper trail. To get a protection order.

Protection orders are often the only avenue open to people being stalked by their partner or ex-partner.

They are usually granted through the Family Court. Their purpose is to protect the victim from contact or violence from the person named on the order.

But to get one there has to be evidence of a risk of serious harm, Women’s Refuge policy adviser Natalie Thorburn explains.

“Given that there’s often very little evidence of the stalking, and that individual episodes of stalking are only harmful because of the backdrop of abusive behaviour, it’s a hard threshold to meet.”

For victims of stalking, their home can become a prison.
For victims of stalking, their home can become a prison.

In Maya’s experience, the threshold for getting a protection order was almost impossibly high: “They don't think you need one until you’re dead.”

She describes her years-long battle through the Family Court as “the most traumatic experience of my life”.

She had a protection order for a couple of years. It was the first time she had felt safe since the break-up, even though he would regularly breach it. But it didn’t last.

“All it took was for one judge to feel sorry for him and give him unsupervised contact of our child and remove the protection order.”

Rebecca* experienced three years of stalking and bullying from her ex-husband. She found the hardest thing wasn’t getting the protection order, but keeping it.

She left her husband soon after her son was born, when it became clear that the violence – the strangulation, the blows to the head, being thrown to the ground – wasn’t going to end just because there was a baby around.

With the help of friends, she got out – but her ex-husband’s need for control only grew.

Flowers and gifts may seem innocuous, but they are a reminder from the stalker of their presence.
Flowers and gifts may seem innocuous, but they are a reminder from the stalker of their presence.

There was no life outside his constant hounding, she says. By 7am each day there were angry phone calls, then he’d text for hours, call her at work, send flowers and gifts. At night he would drive by her house to check if anyone else was there.

“I wasn't getting beaten up by him any more, but my phone never ever stopped ringing or beeping.”

Six months after she left, she had a thought: “He’s going to kill me, and he’s going to kill my son.”

The relationship between stalking and homicide is well documented, with research in the US indicating 76 per cent of homicides of women started with stalking.

Scared for her life and for her son’s safety, Rebecca went to the police and family violence charities multiple times in the following two years.

But without stalking laws, she says all they could do was “put the kettle on, tell you it’s horrible and tell you to go to Family Court”.

“Ask any woman who's been abused, who's gone to Family Court, whose partners have contested a protection order – ask any woman what that process is like.

“It is a nightmare, an expensive, terrifying, drawn-out nightmare for the children, and for them.

Stalking is an “unbearable reality”, Maya says.
Stalking is an “unbearable reality”, Maya says.

“The abuse is minimised and swept under the carpet.”

Family Court is a last resort for many women, Rebecca says – and that’s dangerous.

“Women who get murdered … by their ex-partners, this is what it looks like. This pattern of behaviour is textbook, but women like me are delaying going to get help and delaying protection orders because we know what a nightmare it is.”

Her ex-husband told her if she went to court, he’d tell them she was lying and crazy and have her son taken away.

“These threats are very real. You’re at your most vulnerable and you believe them,” she says.

After three years, when she had enough evidence “to sink a ship”, Rebecca applied for a protection order.

It was granted immediately for her and her son – but just as quickly he contested it. That meant a court date, where she thought she would have to provide evidence of the stalking and why she needed protection.

Instead, the conversations between the lawyers outside the courtroom quickly descended into negotiations over the child, and it became so distressing for Rebecca that when the lawyers suggested delaying the hearing, she agreed.

But back in the same waiting room three months later, she was told that now the abuse was six months old, it counted as historical. The lawyers warned her that if she went into the courtroom, her ex-husband would seek punitive custody arrangements.

Terrified at the prospect of losing her son, she felt backed into a corner.

“They could tell you to do star jumps and stand on your head in the middle of the court waiting room, and you’d do it if it meant protecting your child.”

She reluctantly agreed to drop the protection order in exchange for an undertaking, an agreement from her ex to limit contact.

The whole process cost her more than $60,000. She was left in debt, and with a piece of paper even police told her was worthless.

Rebecca says she felt “completely unprotected”, and still does.

“When I look back at it, it made me feel like no-one really cared, because it didn’t matter that my life was being ruined and he was terrifying me – no-one was prepared to stand up and say it wasn’t OK.

“If there were coercive control and stalking laws, the police could've helped me.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said work to review stalking and harassment legislation would happen “later in the Parliamentary term” and had not yet started “due to other competing government priorities”.

“The Ministry of Justice will provide advice in due course on what aspects of the law could be amended to address intimate partner stalking,” he said.

For Rebecca, court didn’t stop the abuse, but allowed her ex to continue his “reign of terror” – now with the “aid of lawyers”.

Alison Towns says often stalkers will know how to play the courts and will drag out the process, resulting in mounting legal fees for their victim.

While the application for a protection order is free, costs quickly build through the court process and easily get into the tens of thousands, she says.

“People shouldn’t have to pay to be safe.”

People don’t understand the “life sabotage” that stalking entails, she says: “The intention to wreck that person's life or keep them imprisoned in their own home.

“I think that you could probably say that stalking is a form of torture.”

For Maya, the years of stalking have been an “unbearable reality”.

“You spend all your time with them hoping you’re not going to die.

“And then when you leave, you spend every day dealing with this and really wishing you did.”

*Names have been changed to protect victims’ identities.

Breaking Silence is New Zealand’s only web series dedicated to shining a light on the many faces of domestic abuse in Aotearoa. Produced by Magnetic Pictures for Stuff and made with the support of New Zealand on Air. Watch series 1 & 2 stuff.co.nz/breakingsilence.

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