A new National Stalking Advocacy Service is due to be launched officially at the House of Lords on Thursday 11th July 2013.
Founded by Co-Directors Laura Richards and Harry Fletcher, Paladin’s caseworkers will use E-CINS to manage stalking cases around the country and help provide support to victims of a crime that affects around 120,000 people, mostly women, every year.
Established in the spring of 2013 following the highly successful campaign in Stalking Law Reform Inquiry in Parliament. The Paladin team, which includes Independent Stalking Advocacy Caseworkers (ISACs), will ensure high risk victims of stalking are supported and that a co-ordinated community response is developed locally to keep victims and their children safer. The ISACs along with the Single Points of Contact (SPOCs) in each police service throughout England and Wales will be able to manage cases in a secure multi-agency environment on E-CINS.
Gary Pettengell, CEO and Founder of Empowering-Communities said ‘We know that E- CINS facilitates help and support to be quickly and effectively wrapped around victims and vulnerable persons. Empowering-Communities are really pleased to be working with Paladin to help co-ordinate a multi-agency response both nationally and locally to help keep victims safe’.
The Stalking Law Reform campaign was spearheaded by Paladin’s Co-Directors Harry Fletcher and Laura Richards. In a very short period of time parliamentarians of all parties were persuaded to join a people’s inquiry into the need for stalking law reform. That inquiry published it’s findings in February 2012 and by May that year a new stalking law had been passed by both Houses of Parliament. The two new offences of stalking were introduced on November 25th 2012.
The Inquiry was much wider than law reform. The terms of reference included training of criminal justice professionals, risk assessment of victims and perpetrators, sentencing, treatment programmes for perpetrators and advocacy for victims. The advocacy service is therefore vital to support high risk victims of stalking as well as scrutinising the implementation and application of the new law. Paladin will do both.
Laura Richards, Director at Paladin and a criminal behavioural analyst and adviser said ‘Stalkers steal lives and also take lives, if their behaviour remains unchecked and they are allowed to escalate. In many cases this has resulted in serious violence, rape and in some cases murder. This is about homicide prevention and this unique stalking advocacy service will not only save lives, it will also save money by ensuring a coordinated response and the appropriate support of victims’.
Laura continued, ‘this unique and pioneering advocacy service aims to give a voice to victims by offering support and advice. As well as helping vulnerable, high risk victims through the criminal justice and family court system and ensuring a co- ordinated community response to safeguard victims Paladin will provide expertise on risk identification, assessment and management for victims and families. This is the first service of it’s kind for stalking and Paladin’s ultimate aim is to save lives as well as money through a co-ordinated response and Empowering-Communities will help with this coordination through the use of E-CINS’.
Pettengell added ‘The use of E-CINS will speed up process and enable co-ordinated action to be taken earlier. We have created electronic versions of the new stalking referral and risk assessment forms on E-CINS. This will make it much easier for practitioners from around the country to manage stalking cases more effectively.’
For more information on Paladin please e-mail info@paladinservice.co.uk or visit www.paladinservice.co.uk
E-CINS will be used to manage stalking cases in all police force areas in England and Wales. For more information on how to access the system and the electronic DASH and other bespoke stalking forms please email info@empowering- communities.org or call 01502 537719