I've had to support a colleague who's messed up this week. He's a big (enormous) teddybear of a man, who utterly heartbroken following a break up, sent too many messages over a 2 week period and twice sat in his car out side her house while sending the messages.
He has accepted a "simple caution" for "Stalking without fear/harm/distress between x and y dates". This is all factual, I have seen the paperwork, which sets out the timeline of events.
There is no suggestion at all that there was any threat or violence and the victim doesn't claim to have been scared of him, but obviously he was a damn nuisance and the behaviour was just not OK.
He accepted the caution without any legal advice (although offered) because he just wanted it over with. Unfortunately, as he works with children, this will impact him forever, no doubt some will say rightly so. It shouldn't prevent him working with children but it will come up and need to be declared/discussed/risk assessed evey time he has a dbs check for a new job.
I wonder if he did the right thing accepting the caution? Police told him he would have been charged and prosecuted if he hadn't, but I wonder? Would it have been considered in the public interest to bring this prosecution? He's guilty of sending some messages and twice sitting outside, but would a court have defined that as stalking when it was over such a short period?
It's good that quick and decisive action was taken, after so long when women were complaining of long term and nasty stalking were ignored, but I do wonder if it's the correct priority when they cant atrend burglaries and street robberies! I'm also a bit shocked at the pressure put on a young man in distress to accept a caution, but no doubt that's my naivety.
Obviously male toxicity against women can't be dismissed and I've got myself into trouble three times this week on just this issue. Once calling out "banter" at work, again objecting to offensive chanting against a female physio at football and by trying to explain that "good" dad's teaching their DDs to be princesses is less helpful than teaching them everything they need to know to never be dependent on a man! So usually, I'd be very much on favour of this behaviour being called out and it's right that he was "spoken to" and it stopped, but is this sensible policing? Would the charge have been made and prosecuted?
He's just ready to learn from it and move on, I'm interested in it as a bit of social commentary on (rightly) changing times.