What should you do if you think you are being followed or stalked?
If you are in immediate danger, call 999. If not, report it to the police on 101 or through your force’s online form, even if you are not yet sure what you are seeing. Stalking and harassment are criminal offences in England and Wales under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and you do not need evidence in hand before you report. Then start a log — dates, times, places, descriptions, screenshots — and keep every message. Do not reply to the person or confront them. Tell the people around you, vary the routines anyone could learn, and check what your accounts and public records give away. The National Stalking Helpline, run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, gives free advice in England and Wales on 0808 802 0300. For many people, the police, the helpline and a few changed habits are the right response. Where the behaviour continues, professional help starts with a risk assessment and works alongside the police, never in place of them.
First, the police — and which number
Call 999 when something is happening now: someone following you, waiting outside the house, at the door. If you think you are being followed, do not go home. Go somewhere open and staffed — the Suzy Lamplugh Trust suggests a police station or a 24-hour supermarket with security staff and CCTV — and call from there. In a car, drive towards somewhere busy.
Everything else goes to 101 or your force’s online reporting page. The Trust notes that the police need only a reasonable belief that a crime has taken place in order to investigate. Keep the crime reference number and quote it with each new report.
The National Stalking Helpline is free and serves England and Wales: 0808 802 0300, from 9.30am on weekdays, until 8pm on Mondays and Wednesdays and 4pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. It is not an emergency service.
What the law says, in brief
In England and Wales, harassment is an offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 added two stalking offences to it: section 2A, stalking, and section 4A, stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress. The Act gives examples of behaviour that, in particular circumstances, is associated with stalking: following, contacting or trying to contact someone, loitering, watching or spying, interfering with property and monitoring internet or email use. Each offence rests on a course of conduct: where one person is targeted, conduct on at least two occasions.
Scotland has its own offence of stalking, in section 39 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, and Northern Ireland has the Protection from Stalking Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. For how the law applies to you, speak to the police or a solicitor.
Keeping a log the police can use
A log helps show a course of conduct and spares you relying on memory in a statement. The Trust’s template records, for each incident:
- The date, the time and exactly where, and whether the place has CCTV
- What happened, in as much detail as possible
- The evidence: screenshots, call records, letters, photographs
- Anyone who saw it
- Whether you told the police, what they did and the reference number
- How it affected you, and anything you changed because of it
Where you can, add a description of the person and of any vehicle. Delete nothing — messages, emails, voicemails — and check whether your voicemail clears old messages on its own. Keep letters or gifts in clean, sealed bags, handled as little as possible. If you keep the log electronically, use a device the person has never had access to. Do not follow or seek out the person to gather proof: the Trust warns against any action taken for the sole purpose of collecting evidence.
What to change day to day
Do not confront. Do not reply or argue, and do not arrange to meet the person to ask them to stop.
Tell people you trust. Family, neighbours, colleagues and, where it applies, the school office or building reception. Give them a description, and ask them never to confirm your whereabouts to anyone.
Vary what is predictable. The same route to work, the same gym at the same hour. Change the times and routes you can; for those you cannot, such as the school run, arrange company.
Check what is already public. Tagged photographs, fitness-app routes, company filings and the open electoral register can each give away an address or a routine. You can opt out of the open register and, if your safety is at risk, apply to register to vote anonymously. The steps after an address surfaces online apply here too, and the wider work of keeping a home address private is worth starting early.
Secure the home basics. Doors and windows locked when you go out and at night, lighting at the approach, a way to see who is at the door, and a household rule that no one opens it to an unexpected caller. The Trust suggests asking the police about a panic button at home.
If it is happening online
Report it to the police the same way, and report the accounts involved to each platform. Change your passwords and stop reusing them, turn on two-step verification, switch off live location sharing, check which devices are signed in to each account, and tighten privacy settings, family accounts included. If a phone or laptop may have been compromised, the Trust’s advice is not to use it until you are confident it is secure. Checking it is work for a digital forensics specialist or the police.
When professional help is proportionate
Often it is not needed. It may be when the behaviour continues after reporting, when the person knows your address or timetable, when children keep fixed hours, or when a public diary makes you easy to find. Keep reporting each new incident to the police: identifying the person and building a case are police work.
Start with an assessment. A written risk and threat assessment of your routines, home and journeys, with a proportionate plan. It can conclude that very little needs to change.
A survey of the home. A residential security survey of the approach, entry points, locks and glazing, and the alarm and CCTV set-up, with a graded written report and introductions to accredited installers.
A driver for the predictable journeys. The commute, the school run and the late return are where a routine is easiest to learn. A security driver on those journeys alone can be enough.
A female officer, where that is right. Some people would rather the person beside them were a woman. Female close protection officers hold the same SIA Close Protection licence and BS 7858 vetting as every officer we deploy.
Cover can start from 24 hours’ notice, and we sign your non-disclosure agreement as a matter of course. The FAQ answers how confidentiality and a first conversation work.
Common questions
Should I block the person?
Screenshot everything first. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust notes that earlier messages can disappear when you block someone, and that on some platforms a blocked person can still send messages you would see only if you unblocked them. Whether to keep a channel open to preserve evidence is a decision to weigh with the police or the helpline.
What is a Stalking Protection Order?
A civil order under the Stalking Protection Act 2019, in England and Wales, for which a chief officer of police can apply to a magistrates’ court. It can prohibit the person from doing things, or require them to do things, to protect someone from stalking, and breaching it without reasonable excuse is a criminal offence. Whether one fits your case is a question for the police.
Do I need a bodyguard if I am being stalked?
Usually not as a first step, and rarely full time. Where an officer is proportionate, the work is presence at the most predictable moments — leaving the house, arriving at work, the walk to the car — planned from a risk assessment. An officer does not follow, watch or confront the person. What officers and drivers cost is set out in the guide to close protection costs.
Written by the founder, First Class Executive Security
30+ years in the security industry, 20+ in close protection
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