In the third instalment of our series on stalking (Here’s a link for the first story and the second), Sarah Lang talks to a woman being stalked who shockingly hasn’t been believed or helped.
Melanie*, who has been stalked by a man for more than two decades, is sick of not being believed. And having met her, and seen evidence, I can assure you she’s not making this up.
Melanie was 25 when she first met Jim* at work. He seemed nice. At after-work events, they flirted a little initially, but nothing romantic happened, although he tried to make it happen.
She left the company, got married, and had two children. Not long afterwards, Melanie started getting weird voicemails. Cryptic objects and messages started appearing on her doorstep, and she worked out who they were probably from. One day Jim turned up at her workplace to tell her he was going away, and she got the feeling he’d been watching her.
“When he first started stalking me, I didn’t take it very seriously. Given he was a businessman, husband and father, I didn’t imagine I was really in danger. I didn’t know what to do about it, so I ignored it. But it became this ugly thing that was always there because I never knew when he’d leave a message on the phone, send an email, or worse.”
She didn’t tell her husband initially, partly because she had no proof, but then she told him. Her husband also thought Jim wouldn’t do anything ‘seriously criminal’.
But it got worse. Notes shoved under the door. Pictures sent to her cellphone. More disturbing voicemails. Jim started turning up in public places, including cafes where Melanie was meeting people. She now thinks he hacked her email and calendar.
Melanie sent Jim an email saying that, if he didn’t stop, she’d go to the police. The threat had no effect, so she did go to the police. But they didn’t take action. “A police officer told me that guys doing this sort of thing usually stop once they know the police know.” Melanie emailed Jim to say she’d told the police, but things got worse not better.
Objects started appearing inside her house, and she didn’t understand how Jim was getting in. At one point, he disabled an alarm, and at another point reprogrammed another alarm. The objects got more terrifying. The voicemails got more frightening. The emails became more threatening.
Melanie took photos, wrote down what had happened, and sent that to the local police station. She didn’t go in person because she thought the evidence would speak for itself. “I wanted the whole thing to go away and I felt intimidated by the police.” They didn’t follow up. She later sent the police station a photo of one of the most disturbing objects, and other evidence.
She never heard back.
After the stalking continued for two more years, Melanie went into a central police station (rather than the local branch that hadn’t helped her) with printed-out emails from Jim. A female sergeant issued him a two-year no-trespass notice.
For a couple of years, Melanie thought it might be over. She separated amicably from her husband (for unrelated reasons) and purchased a house for herself and her children. But the stalking started up again.
So Melanie spoke to a lawyer about a restraining order. The lawyer advised police of this, and a policeman phoned Jim to warn him that Melanie might get a restraining order. But, as she’d later find out, Jim convinced the policeman that Melanie was mentally ill.
She gave up on getting police help. She had bolts put on the doors, catches on the windows, and eventually realised Jim was getting in through the garage door. Putting a registered key lock on the internal door from the garage finally stopped him. “I’ve invested a fair bit of money trying to keep him out of the house.” However, Jim has appeared outside her windows several times. “I rarely leave my home unless someone is with me.”
Melanie’s partner of a decade “has been a big help. He has called the police when they haven’t responded to me. His attitude is that he won’t let my stalker get me, so he goes everywhere with me. I’m lucky that I can work from home, but if I go into the office, my partner drops me at the door and picks me up there.” That’s because even the walk from a very close work parking space isn’t safe; Jim appeared there once. “He even appeared in the ladies’ toilet at my work.” She is too terrified to say anything to him when she sees him. She runs away as fast as possible.
The last evidence that Melanie has of Jim stalking her was nearly a year ago. That doesn’t mean it stopped then, though she sure hopes so.
The psychological impact
“My soul feels shredded and scarred. My stalker has, over many years, invaded every aspect of my life. He’s entered my home, my car, and my workplace.”
“Being stalked is a bit like walking around with an illness that you’re trying to forget is real. Being stalked changes the way you live your life. A stalker takes away your freedom to enjoy the simple things in life without feeling watched and threatened.”
“To survive being stalked, you have to consistently assess the risk of a situation, and you have to be a good actor. You have to pretend to others that all is well even if you’ve just had a threatening phonecall or email. All of this has hugely affected my relationships with people in my life because it was and is such a huge thing that I can’t talk about.”
“The stalking started when I had young children and it’s robbed my children of a relaxed mum.” Melanie has always been terrified that Jim might hurt her kids. “I’ve always left work early every weekday to pick up my daughter from school, even though we lived five minutes’ walk away.”
“I’ve asked myself if there was anything I did to attract a stalker or anything I could have done to stop him. The fact is that anyone can be unlucky enough to attract a stalker. There’s nothing you can do about it. You just try to survive. I’m just clinging on to the day when I find out that he’s dead or locked up for good. I can’t even imagine a day when I might once again have the freedom to go for a walk on my own.”
Not being believed
Melanie says some people ‘victim blame’. “Some people assume that the person claiming they’re being stalked is having mental-health issues. That’s why a stalker can have so much fun making a victim look mentally ill. Not being believed is one of the cruellest aspects of this crime.”
“Some people accuse stalking victims of being paranoid and of course that’s exactly what being stalked makes you – how could it not! In fact, paranoia can save your life.”
“Stalkers feel entitled to do what they like. They lack empathy and seek complete control over another person. They’re deceitful and manipulative. They enjoy the game like a cat torments a mouse. They’re likely to commit other crimes and are typically capable of fooling police.”
Melanie went to the police four times over four years. However, shockingly, stalking is not considered a crime under current New Zealand law, unlike in many other countries. “What’s unbelievable is that when you’re being stalked, and you have evidence,” Melanie says, “police just record what you tell them as ‘information’, rather than opening a case file where all that information is placed and linked up. I also believe the misogynist culture in the police prevented me getting help.” Melanie later found out that some police officers had laughed about some of her complaints.
One day, Melanie hopes she can bring all of this to light with her real name, Jim’s real name, the police’s actions (and inactions), and many MUCH more dreadful things that she can’t talk about for this piece, because they might identify her or him, or have other adverse outcomes.
So why is Melanie speaking to me? Because she’s determined to help introduce a law that would make stalking a crime.
The Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children and AVA: Anti-Violence Action have written an open letter to Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith, accompanied by the petition ‘Protect Women: Make Stalking Illegal’. Please sign it on the ActionStation community campaign platform and share it with friends. On Wednesday 26 June, at 12:45pm, the group will hand over the petition to politicians on Parliament steps. All are welcome. Melanie will be there.
“This law won’t bring back decades of my life that I should have had without being stalked. But it will mean that when someone goes to the police station like I did, they can’t say there’s nothing they can do.”