A man who was stalked and harassed by his former partner has accused police of failing to take the case seriously because he was a gay man. 

Jack* and his partner of five years, Paul*, who both live in Harrogate, broke up in early 2021.  

Although the split was instigated by his partner, and was initially amicable, Jack said Paul soon began to turn up at his house and at places he would usually visit. 

Jack said: 

“Though there was no physical altercation, he often targeted my home. He tried to gain entry and would often appear in the garden – on one occasion my dog was nearly killed.

“He’d shout at people visiting my home from his car, monitor my friends and families activities. He used to set up dating profiles attempting to send abuse. There were occasions where he used my credit card details for online purchases, turned up at my place of work, approach me in restaurants…

“There were numerous situations like that over the course of five months. He started locating me and rev his car next to me if I was out walking.

“It meant I couldn’t operate a normal life without some kind of obstruction and feeling very unsafe and frightened.”

Eventually, after realising how much Paul’s actions were affecting his social and work life, Jack decided to contact the police last June. 

He was initially uncertain whether the situation was something the police would deal with, but was reassured by the call handler. 

“Immediately, they said it was stalking and harassment. They said they would send someone out, and he called later that day to organise a visit. He came to take a statement within a couple of days. 

“He repeated to me that it was serious and said my ex would be brought in and arrested and they would impose bail conditions to keep him away from me.” 

Relieved

Jack said he felt relieved he was being taken seriously and waited to receive an update from the officer. 

However, he never received a call. 

“A month went by and nothing had happened. I tried to get in contact and had no response. 

“Another month went by of the same thing. I heard there was a warrant out for his arrest, but after that a lot of time went by with nothing, no arrest, no feedback.” 

Meanwhile, Paul’s behaviour continued to make Jack feel uncomfortable. Jack reported further instances of stalking and harassment, but never heard anything back. 

He received a call from a specialist police officer who advised getting new locks, increasing home security and changing his routine. While Jack appreciated the advice, it also served as a reminder that he could be in danger. 

Jack was advised by specialist police to change his locks and increase his home security

By mid-September, Jack said he felt frustrated that he had still heard nothing and submitted a complaint to the police by email. It took six weeks for them to respond. 

The answer from an inspector in early November was that the PC assigned to his case was inexperienced, and had been given advice about his work.  

Paul had now been interviewed, he said, and a file would be submitted to the CPS for advice about charging him. 

In an email seen by the Stray Ferret, the inspector added: 

“I am sorry that you didn’t receive the service you expected, but this was purely down to [the officer’s] relative inexperience, managing competing pressures of his workload and his thought process in not thinking it appropriate to ring [Paul] or visit his work premises.” 

Yet more time passed with no information from the police. Jack emailed again asking for updates, and for a copy of his original statement, but received no response. 

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He heard no further until February this year, when IDAS – the domestic abuse charity which he had been put in touch with by police after he first called them – told him the case had been dropped five weeks earlier. 

The reason was nothing to do with evidence or proof. Rather, Jack said, it was because the officer dealing with the case had only passed the file to the CPS a week before charges had to be made or the case had to be dropped. 

Effectively, there was not enough time for the CPS to process it before the six-month deadline for dealing with the case had passed. 

While he accepts there is nothing he can do in his case, Jack said he hopes raising the issue publicly will help other victims who might face similar problems. 

He believes complaints of stalking and harassment are taken more seriously when made by women about men, but said that shouldn’t be the case. 

Jack said: 

“I have spoken to women in Harrogate who have been in the same situation and that’s not what happened for them. I have no doubt, if I had been a woman, it would have been very different. 

“It’s not about being homophobic. But when it’s a man complaining about a man, it’s treated differently.” 

Jack has now taken his complaint to the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, Zoe Metcalfe. He is awaiting a response from her. 

He said: 

“If I had read a story about this situation six or eight months ago, I would have done something sooner. I would have known it was not normal procedure – a lot of people would just assume you can’t complain [about the police] and what they say goes, but it’s not always the case.” 

Zoe Metcalfe, North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner

The Stray Ferret contacted North Yorkshire Police, but we were told they could not respond while the case was being investigated by the PFCC.  

The PFCC’s office said it could not comment on an individual case because of data protection. A spokesperson declined to comment on the issue of whether gender or sexuality could play a part in officers’ handling of cases, but added: 

“If somebody is not happy with anything that the police do, they should contact our office and make a complaint and we will investigate it.

“Let us know about it, because people should be happy. We don’t like it when people are unhappy with the service that’s provided by the police.”

*names changed to protect identities 

A candidate for the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) by-election has launched her manifesto with a single policy.

Dr Hannah Barham-Brown, on behalf of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP), has written a manifesto with a single policy to end violence against women and girls.

She unveiled her manifesto today at Oatlands community centre in Harrogate before she said she would bring a revolutionary approach to the role of PFCC.

The WEP candidate then said she would work with politicians to urge them to do more for women concerned about the threats they face.

Dr Hannah Barham-Brown said:

“I am contesting this election for one reason and for one reason only: to put ending violence against women and girls front and centre in our policing and political priorities in North Yorkshire, and I challenge all of my fellow candidates to join me in this.

“So far in the campaign, I’ve seen other candidates pay lip-service to ending violence, but offering no clear plan on how they’ll do so. Enough is enough.

“While this doesn’t mean I won’t engage with residents’ concerns on a wide range of topics, it does mean I will be singularly focused on ending violence in my campaign.”

During her speech Dr Barham-Brown added that women and girls had been badly let down by Philip Allott, who stepped down as PFCC after his comments on the Sarah Everard case.

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If elected, she has pledged to fund specialist support for those who have reported abuse or sexual violence, introduce an expert scrutiny panel for rape and sexual violence cases.

Her plan also includes rooting out misogyny in the police force, addressing racism in domestic abuse cases and guaranteeing that migrant women have access to specialist support.

She added:

“This violence is not inevitable, but we are at this point because of a total failure of political leadership.

“Politicians of all parties are consistently failing to show up for women, except when it’s already too late.

“Women and girls deserve a PFCC who focuses on ending violence against women – not just managing it – every day and not just when it hits the headlines.

“I promise to deliver that. Women and girls in North Yorkshire deserve to live free from threat and fear of violence, and with the right political leadership we can make that happen.”

Other candidates for the PFCC role

• The Liberal Democrats have selected James Barker
• The Conservatives have selected Zoe Metcalfe
• Labour has selected Emma Scott-Spivey
• Keith Tordoff is standing as an independent candidate

The election of North Yorkshire PFCC will be held on November 25.

North Yorkshire’s fire and rescue service faces a bleak outlook due to chronic underfunding, systemic on-call staffing shortages, crumbling buildings and out of date vehicles, a meeting has heard,

North Yorkshire’s police, fire and crime panel was told the Office of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner and the fire service, which serves about 824,000 people across the county, was working “exceptionally hard” to break even this year.

Chief financial officer Michael Porter told the meeting the service would be drawing on £638,000 of reserves to balance the books until April, but “next year is looking like it is going to be really challenging”.

Mr Porter said a £390,000 deficit had initially been forecast for 2022/23 from reserves to balance the 2022/23 budget, but that was likely to deepen significantly due to pay awards, soaring utility bills and increases in national insurance contributions.

The meeting heard unless restrictions on fire services increasing their council tax demands were eased by the government, the service would need to make more savings. Mr Porter said:

“There’s an awful lot of additional pressures that are lining up for the fire service for next year. Initial views on the settlement for next year are that it is probably not as generous as it has been for the police and the police have more scope to increase precept.”

The meeting heard members question why some £365,000 had been spent on “minor works” to fire service buildings, before hearing they were built as medium-term premises up to 70 years ago and constructed with interiors designed for a different time, when there were few female firefighters.

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Mr Porter said the service’s 30 buildings across the county and its fleet of vehicles had been significantly under-invested in for some time.

“There are a significant number of properties within the estate that are in dire need of replacement, as opposed to maintenance. The longer that we leave it or are unable to replace the buildings, the more we will have to spend patching them up.

“We have got an aged estate that doesn’t meet modern requirements and standards it is an inhibitor of what the organisation wants to do as it moves forward. We almost have to borrow every single penny we have to invest in the capital programme as it is. It is not a rosy picture.”

Sharing buildings

The meeting was told the fire service was considering sharing more buildings with other emergency services to cut costs, but the fire service needed to have bases spread across the county to reach emergencies in good time.

City of York Council leader Councillor Keith Aspden told the meeting recruitment issues over on-call firefighters had persisted for a long time, but overall funding was the key issue.

“Every time I see the fire minister I ask about capital grants for fire services and precept flexibility.  Unless something happens nationally things are going to get very difficult, particularly for services like this with relatively small budgets and rural areas.”

Interim Chief Fire Officer Jon Foster told members on-call recruitment remained a challenge due to changes in people’s lifestyles and covid had further impacted on it.

He said the service was examining changing terms and conditions and flexibility of being an on-call firefighter as the system was very outdated, paying a small amount for being available and a larger amount to attend calls.

After the meeting, the panel’s chair, Councillor Carl Les said:

“I think the situation is bleak. The fundamental problem is the overall funding for the fire and rescue service.

“Arguments will be made that the government grant could and should be increased, but also the fact that the precept regime with the fire and rescue service is very limited.

“I think we need to lobby the government that for small rural forces like North Yorkshire it would be useful if there was flexibility to go above the two per cent increase cap and levy an extra £5 or £10.

“We know that delivering services in rural areas is more expensive than delivering services in cities.

“For a number of years resources have been difficult to find to allocate for things like buildings and machinery that are getting older.”

North Yorkshire’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner has estimated a loss of around £1.6 million in income this year for the county’s police force due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The commissioner’s office said the estimated figure was an “early indication” and included areas such as a loss in speed camera income and no sports events to police.

In a report to the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel, the commissioner’s office said it feared a lower collection rates for council tax could also leave a gap in finances in future.

It comes as both Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council have also estimated their own financial gaps as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

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The report said the PFCC was preparing for financial uncertainty amid the pandemic and that it would keep the plans under review in the coming months.

Michael Porter, chief finance officer at the commissioner’s office, told a meeting of the police, fire and crime panel: 

“I think it would would be no surprise if I were to say that it is challenging times for all public sector organisations and organisations wider than that and some of that will start to play through into some of the financial reports.

“I think in terms of those challenges, you can see in relation to some of income forecasts at this point in time that there are a significant number of areas of concern for us in relation to some of the receipts we were expecting to receive in the current financial year.

“Forecasting for this year, we might be around £1.6 million short from an income perspective. That is a very early indication of those forecasts. There is an awful lot of information that we do not have in those areas. We are trying to be as robust as we can.”

Julia Mulligan, Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire

Julia Mulligan, North Yorkshire PFCC, said the force needed more certainty from central government over funding.

She said:

“We are in a very uncertain environment at the moment and the biggest risk that we have got which will be shared with local authority colleagues is council tax receipts and the impact that may have on our finances.

“That is applicable to both fire and policing. Although, I have to say, from a covid point of view the fire service is probably in a more robust position.

“We have lost quite a lot of revenue from various different parts from policing in particular and we would hope that some of that lost revenue will be compensated for.”

More fines were issued for breaching coronavirus regulations by North Yorkshire Police than by any other force in England.

With 1,082 fines issued from the start of lockdown until Monday, June 8, the force handed out 19 more fines than the Metropolitan Police.

West Yorkshire Police issued 826 fines in the same period, South Yorkshire gave 377, and Lincolnshire 231.

The North Yorkshire force said more than half of its fines were issued to visitors to the county. Assistant Chief Constable Mike Walker said:

“The police’s overarching aim in the response to Covid-19 has been to keep people safe, to protect the NHS and save lives. We took that responsibility seriously.

“Although we planned for the worst case scenario, we have seen a much lower than expected absence rate among our officers and staff, enabling us to provide increased patrols in our communities.

“We are thankful that out of thousands of interactions with the public, we rarely had to enforce the regulations. The vast majority of people understood and supported the role of the police in this public health emergency and we are grateful for all of the support and positive engagement we have had from members of the public.

“There was a minority who didn’t understand or believed the rules did not apply to them. And where people have not responded to our engagement approach, when we have explained the regulations and encouraged them to follow them, but they have still refused, we have resorted to enforcement – as the public would expect us to.”

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Mr Walker said the attractions of North Yorkshire had drawn people to the county even when regulations told them not to travel, resulting in the large number of fines and the high percentage issued to people from outside the area.

He said the fines issued have been scrutinised by the criminal records office and by a panel led by North Yorkshire’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC), Julia Mulligan. She said:

“I want to place on record my thanks to the officers and staff who have worked so hard to protect us, and thank the majority across North Yorkshire who have followed the law and stayed at home as much as possible.

“We may be over the peak, but this crisis is not over and as we move towards having to take more personal responsibility as we stay alert to the threat of the virus, I encourage everyone to continue to follow the restrictions and guidelines.”