High Tech Adds to Abuse of Women

Mobile phones and computers are increasingly being used as tools to abuse, control and stalk women, a report from Women’s Aid reveals.

Many of the 14,613 women who called the Women’s Aid helpline last year said telephone, surveillance and computer technologies were being used to harass and intimidate them.

Women reported:

* How their home and mobile calls were being monitored, as well as their texts by their partners and ex-partners.

* How their phone conversations were being recorded.

* How they discovered that cameras had been secretly installed in their homes.

* Their online use had been tracked and scrutinized, with partners demanding access to their private email and social networking accounts.

* Their partners or ex-partners had put lies about them up on internet sites.

"The use of technology in domestic violence situations is now a key part of the wider pattern of emotional abuse," said Women’s Aid director Margaret Martin.

Women have told Women’s Aid that they feel like they were being watched constantly, that their privacy had been completely invaded and controlled.

"We also heard from women who had been photographed and filmed without their consent, sometimes having sex and having the images uploaded to the internet," she said.

Ms Martin said the use of technology often prevented women from seeking help as they feared that their partner would discover that they had phoned a helpline, had looked at a domestic violence website or spoken of the abuse to their friends, family or colleagues in an email or text.

She said the abuse did not stop for many women who left a relationship, with one in five women revealing that they had been abused by their former boyfriends, husbands and partners.

"For many, technology played a part in the stalking and harassment they experienced," she said.

Women told how they had been bombarded with texts and calls, often telling them in explicit detail how they would be attacked or even killed.

Younger women reported that their current or former boyfriends were stalking them on social networking sites.

Technology is also a lifeline for women experiencing abuse, with almost 90% of calls to the Women’s Aid helpline made from a mobile phone, while its website received over 39,000 visits.

Women’s Aid has also expressed concern about women who are being abused during pregnancy and shortly after the birth of a child.

"We hear from women who are forbidden to breast-feed their child, who are raped in the weeks following childbirth and women who are beaten while holding their baby."

* Women’s Aid national freephone number in Ireland is 1800 341 900.

original article here

Could You Be a Stalker's Next Victim?

By Claire O'Boyle

(U.K.) Following a shocking report into the problem of stalking, we look at how police deal with the crime and how in one woman's case, they ended years of abuse from a stranger.


It's a crime that usually hits the headlines when it's linked to A-list celebs, but falling prey to a stalker is something that never crosses most of our minds.

But recent figures show it's on the rise, with a shocking 1 million British women and 900,000 men being targeted by predatory stalkers.

The biggest problem in tackling the crime, according to experts, is that stalking is simply not taken seriously enough in the UK.

Jane Harvey from the Network for Surviving Stalking (NSS) says: "Victims of stalking often try to shrug it off until it is too late, but the main problem is that the authorities don't take it seriously."

A report carried out for NSS found 77% of victims waited until they were targeted 100 times before going to the authorities.

"That's much too long," says Jane. "It's amazing what levels of abuse people will put up with - they don't identify the abuse as stalking.

"They tell themselves that if they ignore it, things will fizzle out. But if something happens or you are contacted repeatedly in a way that causes you alarm or distress, that is stalking."

Jane says around 50% of all cases are carried out by ex-partners, but in the other half of cases, victims have never had particularly close relationships with their stalkers - and many have never even met

them. "It can often be someone known through work, or a friend of a friend," explains Jane. "In other cases it could be someone you pass in the street.

"And with the internet as huge as it is, sometimes people never set eyes on their stalker."

Jane says one of the main problems is that so many of us are brought up to be polite and kind, and rather than rebuff unwanted attention, we often let it go.

"It means sometimes we find ourselves in slightly awkward situations and don't make it clear that we're unhappy," says Jane.

"For example, with repeated text messages from someone we don't know well, we might reply politely to one or two.

"Then after that we might ignore them, when perhaps the best, although not necessarily the easiest, thing to do is say you do not want any more texts." The latest figures relating to the number of victims in the UK are terrifying.

"Victims must get the help they need," says Jane. "Until you speak to someone who has been stalked, you never fully understand how terrifying it is.

"One man I've talked to is being stalked online. The stalker seems determined to wreck his life - he spreads lies about him on forums and chat sites.

"It's extremely distressing, this man is being used as a plaything for the stalker's amusement."

According to the law, if any unwanted or abusive acts happen on two occasions, you can go to the authorities.

Despite this guidance, the police came under fire in light of the report, and one senior officer even said forces have let victims down.

However, according to Jane, the police can be fantastic in some areas, while other victims are left floundering on their own. "It sounds like a cliche, but this is another postcode lottery," she says. "But at least now, the issue is on the agenda, and the good work done by some forces can roll-out across the UK."

One victim who had a positive experience with the police was mum-of-two Alexis Bowater, whose dangerous stalker Alexander Reeve was jailed for four years last April.

"I knew from the very first email this guy wasn't right," recalls Alexis, 39.

"I was working as a news anchor on a local TV station, ITV Westcountry, and these horrible emails came in. Some were so graphic and frightening I don't want to repeat what they said. I told my boss about the first one, and we told the police almost immediately."

The menacing messages, threatening rape and violence, chipped away steadily, telling a pregnant and petrified Alexis, "I'm watching you," and, "I know where you live".

"He was clever in the way he wrote the emails," says Alexis. "You couldn't tell if he really knew anything or if he was actually watching me. Not knowing was the most frightening part."

To the news presenter's relief, the messages slowed down when she went on maternity leave to have her first child.

But when she came back and went on screen, visibly pregnant for a second time, the emails resumed and were more menacing this time.

"It was worse with my second pregnancy," she recalls. "He sent obscene, horrible messages about me, and he was threatening my unborn baby. He said he hoped my baby would die."

Alexis became increasingly anxious throughout her pregnancy as fears about her stalker's intentions grew.

"I sometimes did late shifts at work and would have to drive myself home at 11pm," she says. "I remember taking detours because I thought someone was following me.

"I noticed someone tailgating me a couple of times, but I'll never know if it was him.

"People talk about this state of hyper vigilance you get into when you're being stalked, and I'm sure I was there.

"One night when I was pregnant again, my first baby woke me in the night. My husband was away for work and I went into the baby's room to comfort him. I heard a creaking on the stairs and thought: 'It's fine, I'll just get my mobile and call for help'. But my phone was in my bedroom. I'd have to pass the stairs to get it. I decided I'd crawl through a window to escape."

Luckily, Alexis didn't need to flee. There was no one in her home that night.

But police took her fears seriously and installed an alarm at the news presenter's home.

In many cases of online stalking, tracking the culprit is an enormous task. But in Alexis's case the police found a clue at an internet cafe in Chichester, West Sussex.

Unfortunately, they couldn't trace him any further, and he stopped sending emails.

Then in May last year the messages started again and officers took eight weeks to snare him. "In those weeks towards the end, I was frantic," she says. "I knew the police were closing in on him, but would it make him more angry?"

In April, after two years of harassment and threats, 25-year old Reeve was jailed and given a lifetime restraining order.

"Putting a face to it all should have meant more, but he was just a sad man. He meant nothing to me," explains Alexis.

She says the police helped her cope with the ordeal. "They were very supportive. But it's a pity if it's not that way across the country because it's a scary thing to go through. The police did a good job in my case, so hopefully other forces can follow their example."

For support and information about stalking in the U.K., visit http://nss.org.uk.

Stalking

What you need to know -

• 18% of stalking victims have been sexually assaulted
• 12% say the stalker threatened to harm their children
• 15% say their pets have been abused by the stalker
• 67% of victims were spied on by their stalker
• 40% of stalkers got details from the victim's friends
• 27% got information from the victim's workplace or family
• 77% of victims didn't go to the police until they'd been bothered 100 times

What to do if you're stalked -

1. Show no emotion, regardless of how scared or angry you are. Never confront or agree to meet your stalker.
2. Call local police to find out which officer is running the case.
3. Tell your friends, family, neighbours and work colleagues.
4. Keep evidence like texts, emails, letters and parcels. Record anything that could be proof and keep a diary.
5. If you get calls from a stalker, in the U.K. use 1471 to track their number.
6. If you're being followed, try to stay calm. If you're driving, head for the nearest police station to get help.
7. If you ever feel in imminent danger, call 999. (or 911 in the U.S.)

original article here

Do a Criminal Search on Them!

Confirm your worst suspicions about the one that got away

“Do you really know who people are?” That’s the slogan for pay site PeopleFinders.com's freshly launched (and totally free!) companion site, CriminalSearches.com. Do you want to know? Everybody has something to hide — so the cliché goes. That’s where CriminalSearches.com comes in.

Totally free and possibly the most intuitive Web site of its sort, CriminalSearches.com painstakingly culled and standardized the disparate record-keeping practices of counties, municipalities, cities and states to provide an almost-instant snapshot of neighborhoods and people with criminal records.

Parents may favor the comprehensive Sex Offender section of the site, which includes photos and details of offenses with its record returns. Meanwhile, privacy advocates are apoplectic. What’s more, critics decry such sites as yet another attack on America’s privacy — not to mention potentially disastrous inaccuracies, incorrect or incomplete information provided by the original record keepers.

Still, nobody’s talking about the totally awesome aspect of this whole criminal record compilation. Why settle for Google stalking your ex when you can confirm your worst suspicions by looking them up on CriminalSearches.com? Who wants to read about happy marriages and job satisfaction on Facebook?

Do it! Do it now! CriminalSearches.com your ex!

That Power Point presentation can wait an extra minute. If you’ve ever questioned for one second the direction your life’s taken — or even if you haven’t — it may do wonders for your self-assurance. I myself never doubted ditching that age-inappropriate bad boy once I finally extracted myself from that unfavorable situation in my late teens. For years however, I did beat myself up for the length of time it took me to finally see the light. But two seconds on CriminalSearches.com washed away any remnants of self-recrimination that may’ve been lurking.

My ex Loser’s name returned almost-immediate confirmation that getting out of that relationship — not to mention that state — was the right choice, even if it took me longer than I’d prefer. There, under Loser’s name, corresponding birthday and county of residence was an early conviction that occurred before we became involved, one of which I was previously aware.

(Sad to say, at the time, his run-in with Johnny Law was part of the attraction – that’s before I wised up and started finding my dates in music magazine classifieds, under “Guitarist Available.”)

In the years since I ended my acquaintance with Loser, there were a couple of shocking additions to Loser's record — most appalling, a record of child abuse/neglect accompanied on the same date with a creepily oblique “O” offense for “Other.” (CriminalSearches.com conveniently color codes offenses with letters for quick reference: Red “S” for sex offense, purple “V” for Violent, etc.)

My inner Sherlock piqued but stomach nauseous, I chose not to pay the $40 to get further details from the affiliated PeopleFinders.com. Instead, I called a friend and insisted she do the same. Always game for a good Internet scavenger hunt, she inserted the name of a former beau she knew for a fact had some sort of police record related to owning a pet wolf that mauled some dude — and fully expected to see his name pop up with the specified “O” icon.

Nothing.

So I turned to my sister. Seeing as we share a genetic predisposition for bad seeds, I felt certain she’d get some positive returns in the ex department. Instead, she decided to search for herself.

What she found was a woman of a similar name living in an entirely different state and a list of that woman’s traffic offenses — yet no acknowledgement of my sister’s identity let alone her own speeding ticket legacy. Disappointed, she made what some might consider a risky move and looked up her husband — fully expecting to find his own collection of traffic offenses.

Again, nothing.

So she tried Charles Manson and came up with many — but none that appeared to be THE Charles Manson. So she tried some more recent notorious criminals of somewhat less renown, (who, along with Charles Manson, she never, ever dated) and found their records straight away.

Then she was on to her ex-husband, a man we lovingly refer to as “Wingnut.” Alas, nothing. A search for our other sister’s husband also proved an exercise in futility as we’re unsure of his birthday and he shares a ridiculously common name. She then moved on to her neighbor, of whom she’d heard rumors of a youthful indiscretion. But again, there were so many people who shared his name, the search was inconclusive.

My sister reasoned that she could probably find out his birthday and search again, but by then, she was bored. What’s more, he's good guy and also a friend so she wasn’t so sure she really wanted to know what he did in his younger years. Which, given omissions and possibilities of incorrect or misinterpreted information, is probably the best policy when using such sites. Consider it like your horoscope — for entertainment value only.

Like my friend, who we’ll call “Grumpy.” He checked up on each member of his family just for giggles and learned that his buttoned-down uncle got busted for drug possession in 1979.

“Wow!” Grumpy reported. “I love this Web site.”

ORIGINAL

Do a Criminal Search on Them!

Confirm your worst suspicions about the one that got away

“Do you really know who people are?” That’s the slogan for pay site PeopleFinders.com's freshly launched (and totally free!) companion site, CriminalSearches.com. Do you want to know? Everybody has something to hide — so the cliché goes. That’s where CriminalSearches.com comes in.

Totally free and possibly the most intuitive Web site of its sort, CriminalSearches.com painstakingly culled and standardized the disparate record-keeping practices of counties, municipalities, cities and states to provide an almost-instant snapshot of neighborhoods and people with criminal records.

Parents may favor the comprehensive Sex Offender section of the site, which includes photos and details of offenses with its record returns. Meanwhile, privacy advocates are apoplectic. What’s more, critics decry such sites as yet another attack on America’s privacy — not to mention potentially disastrous inaccuracies, incorrect or incomplete information provided by the original record keepers.

Still, nobody’s talking about the totally awesome aspect of this whole criminal record compilation. Why settle for Google stalking your ex when you can confirm your worst suspicions by looking them up on CriminalSearches.com? Who wants to read about happy marriages and job satisfaction on Facebook?

Do it! Do it now! CriminalSearches.com your ex!

That Power Point presentation can wait an extra minute. If you’ve ever questioned for one second the direction your life’s taken — or even if you haven’t — it may do wonders for your self-assurance. I myself never doubted ditching that age-inappropriate bad boy once I finally extracted myself from that unfavorable situation in my late teens. For years however, I did beat myself up for the length of time it took me to finally see the light. But two seconds on CriminalSearches.com washed away any remnants of self-recrimination that may’ve been lurking.

My ex Loser’s name returned almost-immediate confirmation that getting out of that relationship — not to mention that state — was the right choice, even if it took me longer than I’d prefer. There, under Loser’s name, corresponding birthday and county of residence was an early conviction that occurred before we became involved, one of which I was previously aware.

(Sad to say, at the time, his run-in with Johnny Law was part of the attraction – that’s before I wised up and started finding my dates in music magazine classifieds, under “Guitarist Available.”)

In the years since I ended my acquaintance with Loser, there were a couple of shocking additions to Loser's record — most appalling, a record of child abuse/neglect accompanied on the same date with a creepily oblique “O” offense for “Other.” (CriminalSearches.com conveniently color codes offenses with letters for quick reference: Red “S” for sex offense, purple “V” for Violent, etc.)

My inner Sherlock piqued but stomach nauseous, I chose not to pay the $40 to get further details from the affiliated PeopleFinders.com. Instead, I called a friend and insisted she do the same. Always game for a good Internet scavenger hunt, she inserted the name of a former beau she knew for a fact had some sort of police record related to owning a pet wolf that mauled some dude — and fully expected to see his name pop up with the specified “O” icon.

Nothing.

So I turned to my sister. Seeing as we share a genetic predisposition for bad seeds, I felt certain she’d get some positive returns in the ex department. Instead, she decided to search for herself.

What she found was a woman of a similar name living in an entirely different state and a list of that woman’s traffic offenses — yet no acknowledgement of my sister’s identity let alone her own speeding ticket legacy. Disappointed, she made what some might consider a risky move and looked up her husband — fully expecting to find his own collection of traffic offenses.

Again, nothing.

So she tried Charles Manson and came up with many — but none that appeared to be THE Charles Manson. So she tried some more recent notorious criminals of somewhat less renown, (who, along with Charles Manson, she never, ever dated) and found their records straight away.

Then she was on to her ex-husband, a man we lovingly refer to as “Wingnut.” Alas, nothing. A search for our other sister’s husband also proved an exercise in futility as we’re unsure of his birthday and he shares a ridiculously common name. She then moved on to her neighbor, of whom she’d heard rumors of a youthful indiscretion. But again, there were so many people who shared his name, the search was inconclusive.

My sister reasoned that she could probably find out his birthday and search again, but by then, she was bored. What’s more, he's good guy and also a friend so she wasn’t so sure she really wanted to know what he did in his younger years. Which, given omissions and possibilities of incorrect or misinterpreted information, is probably the best policy when using such sites. Consider it like your horoscope — for entertainment value only.

Like my friend, who we’ll call “Grumpy.” He checked up on each member of his family just for giggles and learned that his buttoned-down uncle got busted for drug possession in 1979.

“Wow!” Grumpy reported. “I love this Web site.”

ORIGINAL