Shana Grice was fined for wasting police time over a stalking complaint. Five months later, she was murdered.
Update 30/07/19: The former police constable who is accused of failing to adequately investigate Shana Grice's account of being harassed by an ex-partner has defended his decision to warn the teenager for wasting police time.
Shana Grice, 19, was murdered by ex-boyfriend Michael Lane weeks after contacting police to seek protection from him after his year-long campaign of harassment against her.
Trevor Godfrey told a misconduct panel he had taken the "lenient view" of issuing Miss Grice with a formal warning after she failed to disclose that she had been in a relationship with Lane.
According to the BBC, Godfrey said messages between Shana and Lane also revealed the reason he was in an alleyway next to her home in February 2016, after previously being warned by police to stay away from her, was because he was summoned there by Shana.
"Absolutely, she did waste my time. I arrested someone as a result of her evidence on a false allegation. She had committed a criminal offence," Godfrey told the hearing.
Godfrey - who retried from Sussex Police in 2017 after 29 years - said his colleague took the decision to issue Miss Grice with a £90 fine.
"His decision, which I don't disagree with, was that she should not be able to get away with making false statements."
Shana had reported Lane to police five times in the months before she was murdered in Brighton in 2016.
Original story:
Disturbing statistics recently revealed that 94% of female murders have been preceded by stalking behaviour, as criminologists investigate a staggering correlation between between the two crimes.
The six-month study by the University of Gloucestershire found that stalking was present in 94% of the 358 cases of murders they looked at, and stalking behaviour was identified in nine out of 10 murders studied.
But despite the shocking findings, stalking offences are often not taken seriously enough by the authorities, or acknowledged as a precursor to violence and potentially fatal consequences.
Forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes and contributor to ID's crime series Faking it: Tears of a Crime told Cosmopolitan.com/uk in response to the statistics: "As a woman you are more likely to be killed by a current partner or an ex-partner, but 94% of all murders of women are proceeded by stalking behaviour.
"Not all stalkers are killers, but most killers are stalkers. It is terrifying," she said.
Shana Grice's brutal murder in 2016 is an example of how stalking can escalate into tragic circumstances. It also sadly exposed local officers' inefficiency in their policing of stalking and obsessive behaviour.
Shana - who was just 19 when she was killed - contacted police to seek protection from Michael Lane, then 27, after his year-long campaign of harassment against her.
Shockingly, officers ended up treating Shana like the criminal and fined her for wasting police time because she hadn't disclosed that Lane was a former partner of hers.
A timeline of Lane's campaign of harassment against Shana in 2016 (via BBC):
February 8: Shana contacted police over fears she was being stalked after receiving unwanted flowers from Lane. She also claimed her car had been damaged (it later transpired during the trial that Lane had hidden a tracker on her vehicle). Lane was warned by police to stay away from Shana.
March 24: Shana alleged that Lane snatched her phone and grabbed her hair. Lane was arrested on suspicion of assault but later released. Shana was given a fixed penalty notice by the police for wasting their time.
July 9: Lane used a stolen key to enter Shana's bedroom and watched her sleeping. She pretended to be asleep and called the police when he left. He was arrested for theft and given a police caution.
July 12: Shana reported to police that she was being followed by Lane. Police treated the case as "low risk", but that the investigating officer would be made aware.
August 25: Lane was arrested on suspicion of murdering Shana after her body was found in her bedroom at her home in Brighton.
March 23, 2017: Lane was jailed for life.
During a two-week trial, Lane admitted he had stalked Shana but denied murder. However, it took the jury just two hours of deliberation to return a guilty verdict. The judge said Lane would serve a minimum of 25 years.
The Judge Mr Justice Green also criticised Sussex Police by saying: "You jumped to conclusions. In other words, she was treated as the wrongdoer and having committed a criminal offence, and Michael Lane was treated as the victim.
"There was seemingly no appreciation on the part of those investigating that a young woman in a sexual relationship with a man could at one and the same time be vulnerable and at risk of serious harm.
"The police jumped to conclusions and Shana was stereotyped."
Sussex police apologised to Shana's family and referred themselves to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), with 12 members of police staff forming part of their ongoing inquiry.
So why isn't this taken seriously, and what can be done to protect victims?
The chief of media group for the National Stalking Advocacy Service Paladin, Rachel Horman, argues that a culture of misogyny in the police force is to blame. She suggests this needs to be acknowledged before it can be dismantled.
"Nearly every case I deal with a victim has reported stalking to police and they are met with an attitude of disbelief," Horman told Cosmopolitan.com/uk. "I'm dealing with cases at the moment that the police have handled badly and we have this culture of disbelief in my view which is not uncommon when it comes to crimes against women including rape and sexual abuse.
"So the biggest problem in my view is a culture of misogyny in the police, and that needs changing and it has to come from the top down. It needs to start to with an acceptance from police that it exists, and until they go on record and do that and they can make commitments to tackle it."
Following the Shana Grice case, the former Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced her intention to introduce new stalking protection orders which will enable the courts to impose restrictions on suspected stalkers at an early stage.
Under the new legislation, police can apply to the courts for an order on behalf of a victim of stalking - before a stalking suspect has been convicted or even arrested. It means victims won't have to take legal action through the courts, which is beneficial for vulnerable people and also in financial terms if the victim doesn't qualify for legal aid.
The Bill is due to have its report stage and third reading on Friday 23 November 2018.
Meanwhile, Horman says prerequisite training for all police officers should be made available, and Paladin is campaigning for the introduction of a serial stalkers register so that men and women can be made aware if their partner has a history of stalking and obsessive behaviour.
Paladin provides training for police so that they can recognise stalking, harassment and controlling behaviour, and the threat it could pose to the victim. "A serial perpetrator record is like the sexual offenders but for serial stalkers, that way this can people that haven’t been convicted and put conditions on them," she explained.
"So if they're starting a new relationship it will be a duty on them to inform the police about it, or if they change their name they would have to tell the police too. They will also have to attend rehabilitation programmes, so it very much puts the focus on the perpetrator, when up to now the focus has been on the victim."
The new protection orders, along with proper training for police and prosecutors on the risks of stalking behaviour, can only be a positive step for victims.
The Shana Grice case will feature in Faking It: Tears of a Crime with the show's experts Cliff Lansley, Body Language Analyst, Dawn Archer, Professor of Linguistics, and Kerry Daynes, Forensic Psychologist examining police videos featuring Michael Lane denying his involvement.
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