There is a particular kind of institutional uselessness that does not arrive wearing a clown wig. It arrives in calm tones, blank processes, missing crime numbers and the strange dead air that follows when a person reports something serious and the system decides the easiest thing to do is not really see it.
This is about stalking. Alleged stalking, for the lawyers and the screenshot goblins. A long-running pattern from a jealous ex of an ex-partner, Michael Williams, former Royal Navy no less, has followed me across years, properties, devices and private space. A pattern I say Durham Police were told about. Numerous times. A pattern which, as far as I can tell, did not even earn the dignity of a properly logged crime number when I tried to report it. On one occasion, a 999 call, they refused to deploy an officer.
The problem here is that the story sounds extreme and fanciful. Not because it is. It just sounds extreme. I was being surveilled and as such, the Police’s failure to take me seriously emboldened the attacks. They were, of course, designed to go undetected. Did the Police expect to find surveillance vans and large CCTV cameras, complete with notice of recording, on my property? Surveillance is be design hidden. And because I could only describe what was happening, and not how the attacks were happening, Durham Police decided to mental health frame it. Because I have a history of anxiety, not pyschosis.
That is not policing. That is administrative evaporation.
The man I allege is involved is from Newton Aycliffe. I am not publishing his full identifying details in this first article because the public-interest point here is bigger than one local goblin with boundary issues. The point is what happens when a person reports stalking-type behaviour and the police response appears to be a procedural shrug.
I say this has gone on for years. Not one odd incident. Not one misunderstanding. Not one awkward social overlap. Years. I say the conduct crossed two properties. I say I have had reason to believe my flat and devices were being accessed or interfered with. I say the pattern was not subtle to me, because the timing and selection of incidents made it feel like I was being watched. I say the conduct appeared to intensify or surface when my inhibitions were perceived to be lower, when the person responsible may have thought I was less likely to process it clearly, challenge it cleanly or be believed.
That is one of the dirtiest features of this kind of thing. The behaviour does not always arrive like a horror film. It arrives as small invasions. A shifted sense of privacy. A device behaving oddly. A home that no longer feels sealed. A person who somehow seems to know too much, appear at the wrong times, push at the wrong moments and vanish behind deniability when challenged.
Then, when you try to explain the pattern, the system asks for the sort of neat evidence that stalking rarely gifts to its target. A signed confession. A camera angle. A convenient witness. A little bow around the whole rotten parcel.
That is why stalking needs proper investigation. Because patterns matter. Timing matters. Repetition matters. Technology matters. Access matters. Prior relationships matter. Motive matters. The fact that something is difficult to prove at first contact does not make it unserious. It means somebody trained should be looking at the pattern instead of waiting for the victim to turn into their own detective, forensic technician, locksmith, cyber-security analyst and trauma manager.
The alleged motive, as I understand it, was old-fashioned small-town jealousy with a nasty aftertaste. I became involved with a woman he had previously been with. She has made serious allegations about him. I am not presenting those allegations as court-proven findings in this article. I am saying they formed part of the context known to me, and they matter because stalking does not happen in a vacuum. It often sits inside grievance, entitlement, wounded ego and control.
He served in the Royal Navy. Whether any surveillance tactics were learned there is unknown. He may have learned nothing useful there at all. He may simply be an experienced stalker. He may be someone who understands enough about timing, plausible deniability and selective intrusion to stay just the right side of visible proof while still making the target’s life smaller, stranger and more contaminated.
That is not a compliment. It is the problem.
The law already recognises that stalking can involve watching, spying, monitoring electronic communications and interfering with property. This is not some wild TCAP invention cooked up over coffee and righteous fury. These are recognised stalking-type behaviours in England and Wales. The question is whether Durham Police treated the report like that kind of risk, or whether they did the familiar British public-authority dance: nod, blur, minimise, lose the shape of the complaint, and leave the person reporting it standing there with nothing useful in their hand. Durham Police loves a good old spurious victory when it challenges men when women make complaints. Men, it seems, aren’t offered the same protection.
Because if a person reports a long-running pattern involving homes, devices, surveillance, and suspected access, the response should not be: no proper crime number, no meaningful investigative route, no visible grip.
It should be: record it, risk assess it, preserve the report, identify lines of enquiry, consider technology, consider property access, consider history, consider motive, consider safeguarding, and stop making the victim feel like the admin burden. I even chased up and asked if they’d spoken to Michael Williams, they were evasive. Meaning no. I asked for a crime number. They were evasive, meaning there wasn’t one.
Durham Police’s public-facing advice says people do not need to wait until they have gathered perfect evidence before reporting stalking or harassment. Excellent. Lovely. Very reassuring. Smooth website energy. But that advice means nothing if, when someone actually reports a pattern, the lived experience is that the report slides into fog. They just must mean when tackling a nasty man against a defenceless woman. They do love that narrative, their X account has taught me.
This is where public trust rots. Not in the slogan. In the gap between the slogan and the desk.
I am not asking Durham Police to convict someone on my say-so. I am asking why a serious stalking report was not treated as serious enough to log, preserve and investigate properly. I am asking why the threshold for official attention seems to require the victim to arrive with the whole case pre-built. I am asking why stalking, especially where homes and devices are alleged to be involved, is still treated as if it only becomes real once the harm is so obvious that everyone can safely pretend they would have acted sooner.
That is not good enough.
The alleged conduct affected my sense of privacy, safety and control. It fed into a wider pattern of pressure at a time when I was already dealing with litigation, disability, public authority failure and the sort of institutional bullshit TCAP now spends its time indexing for sport. If the authorities had done their job properly, this article might not exist.
But here we are.
Durham Police can explain whether they logged the report properly. They can explain whether a crime number was generated. They can explain whether stalking was considered. They can explain whether any technology-related lines of enquiry were considered. They can explain whether any safeguarding assessment happened. They can explain why someone reporting years of alleged intrusive conduct across properties and devices came away feeling brushed off rather than protected.
And if the answer is that none of that happened, then the problem is not just one alleged stalker in Newton Aycliffe.
The problem is a police response that tells people to report stalking, then apparently cannot even be arsed to give the report a proper procedural spine.
TCAP is not a police force. TCAP cannot arrest anyone. TCAP cannot seize devices, inspect locks, examine access logs or compel answers. What TCAP can do is publish the pattern, preserve the account, name the institutional failure and make sure the story does not vanish into the soft carpet of “nothing was logged, therefore nothing happened”.
That trick is tired.
This is my account. These are my allegations. Durham Police had an opportunity to treat them properly. From where I am standing, they failed.
And if public authorities do not want their failures indexed, they could always try the radical alternative. It’s worse than just stalking me, extensively including in bathrooms, it started in my mother’s house, where my 15 year old niece also visited. So well done Durham Police, there’s the innocent young woman angle you could have used/
Do the fucking job. And no, he hasn’t ceased his surveillance or attacks. I can blame him for that. He’s been on a 6 year campaign of cowardice. And yes, it DOES sound unlikely. But know this. If Durham Police had done some police work, it might have stopped years ago. They did manage to submit “vulnerable person report”, without seeking consent, to my GP. Fine, submit one. After your investigation. Fucking dick heads. I acknowledged that his crimes SOUNDED far fetched, that isn’t imagined or delusional. As officers of the law, you had a responsibility to conduct an investigation into whether psychopathic cunt. Then conclude.
You faiiled.
Cunts.
Sources
Protection from Harassment Act 1997, section 2A – stalking behaviours include monitoring electronic communication, interfering with property, watching and spying. Legislation.gov.uk
Durham Constabulary advice – stalking or harassment can be reported after two or more incidents, evidence should not delay reporting, and 999 should be used where there is immediate danger. Durham Police
College of Policing stalking/harassment investigator guidance – “think stalking first”, consider patterns, technology, victim safeguarding and reasonable lines of enquiry. College of Policing