How to stop a stalker online when the police are unhelpful
Having an online stalker could change your life dramatically. If you have found yourself being stalked online, you are often facing the risk of becoming as obsessed as your stalker. Having an online stalker is likely to damage your mental health. It is therefore important to not allow your online stalker take over your life. The police might be a first point of call in identifying your online stalker and having him or her warned or even arrested for their harassing conduct. However, in many cases, the police struggle to trace online stalkers, let lone putting an end to their harassing conduct.
How an online stalker may harm your mental health
Why you should not let your online stalker become part of your daily life
Can the police help you with how to stop a stalker
#What to do if your stalker is from another country
How to trace and then get rid of your online stalker
How an online stalker may harm your mental health
Being stalked by someone online could result in serious mental health harm, lack of sleep and heavy depression. You will likely to feel distraught, frustrated and worried, as well as not knowing where to go for help. The problem is that whilst you may want your stalker to go away as soon as possible, his or her conduct may be escalating and consume your every day thoughts to the extent that it would start affecting your whole life.
You may know the stalker and might be worried about what will happen if you did get someone to help you in how to stop a stalker and then confronting them. Just because you are on the internet and/or are an active social media platform or forum user, it doesn't mean that you should accept any kind of harassment, stalking or any form of online abuse.
Why you should not let your online stalker become part of your daily life
You do not sign up for harassment when you open up any online account and you do not sign up for your speech freedom, privacy and security, reputation and feelings of safety being threatened. Freedom of speech does not mean anything if individuals do not feel safe and are not free from abuse and harassment. Although the line between hate speech and free speech is a difficult one to draw, people should be held accountable for what they say and do on the internet.
Can the police help you with how to stop a stalker
Unfortunately, the police are not very helpful to victims of online stalking. Often, you find that the technology is beyond the education of most police officers. Sadly, common advice which the police often gives to victims of internet stalking is that they switch off their computer and walk away. If only it was that easy.
The ubiquity of the world wide web does not allow for any switching off and walking away and certainly not from a mental aspect. Stalkers never go away and they will wait for you online whenever you go back. They might also operate in the background by looking at your friends and family social media accounts.
Being stalked online does not only mean that someone is following you wherever you go. It is not the following you that makes stalking such a harassing conduct, it is rather the knowledge by you that you are being stalked that creates the harassment and distress. For this reason, if you are being stalked on the internet, you cannot become complacent and accept online abuse as a regular and acceptable occurrence. Any type of online harassment that is directed at you or about you, via images, impersonation or words are not more defensible on the internet than they are if it was offline.
The police cannot keep up with the challenge of policing in the digital age and they need new skills, capabilities, training and funding to deal with the huge number of online stalking cases. Until the internet develops its own system of effective policing, cyberstalking, online abuse, online trolling and harassment is only going to become more complex to investigate and the police do not have the expertise, time or the tools.
Knowing this does not help because if you are a victim of an online stalker, who stalks you in any form, you want a solution that is effective and you want it now. The most effective way to remove your stalker from your life is to challenge them and do so through lawyers. The challenge against your stalker has to be decisive and it must succeed. A half hearted approach could backfire and make matters much worst for you.
What to do if your stalker is from another country
If your stalker is from another country, this might present legal difficulties in identifying your harasser and then in bringing him to justice.
However, a creative lawyer can still assist you in overcoming the legal challenges that are often associated with cross jurisdiction harassment particularly if your harasser or stalker is from England and you live in another country.
How to trace and then get rid of your online stalker
In most cases, you will need a specialist law firm to use its experience and knowledge to help you track down your online stalker and eventually make him or her go away. The reason why the most effective way to stop a stalker is to challenge them through lawyers, is that this will eventually remove from them the belief that they are in control, of you and of your life. If you do ask a lawyer to intervene, you must be committed to go all the way. Otherwise, your stalker might feel that their control over you has increased. The worst thing you can do is to start a legal case against an online stalker and not see it through.
You should consider going to a law firm that is dedicated entirely to internet law and who know the complexities of the internet, how it works and the links and the comprehensive loops and also, of course the legal side. Once they have helped you clear up the internet of any harassing posts, defamation and images, they can work on making the perpetrator accountable and securing legally-binding, long term solutions so that they do not repeat the conduct.
You may go to any law firm that specialises in online harassment and internet stalking. Just make sure that the firm is specialising in this niche legal field and are experienced in how to stop a stalker. We have been collectively assisting people that have suffered online abuse for over 20 years. Obtaining legal representation can be daunting for many, for various reasons.
When you call us, you will feel such relief. Talking about your online abuse with someone that understands and knows what to do to help you, is the start of your journey to freedom. We would advise you to call us for a confidential consultation where we can discuss the various options as well as the route we can take in getting your freedom back. Read about why our legal advice consultations about online abuse are extremely popular. Cohen Davis are passionate about helping targets of online harassment. 0800 612 7211.