CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews To Catch A Stalker: This stalking exposé ramped up the emotion but left out the facts

Daily Mail​

13 hours ago

To Catch A Stalker
That's the gulf between Gen Z and the rest of us. It's not the lip fillers, nor the fact you probably remember Zara McDermott from Strictly Come Dancing instead of Love Island.
What makes the gap unbridgeable is her technique for slicing pizza. She uses scissors. And she's proud of it.
'It's a good idea, to be fair,' she crowed, snipping up her evening meal as she chatted to a harassment victim on To Catch A Stalker. 'I cut loads of things with scissors: bacon, cheese . . .'
What's wrong with a knife and fork? It's true many parents now regard it as harmful, even abusive, to ask their children to help with household chores. But is it too oppressive to teach them to use cutlery?
Zara was visiting Jen, a recruitment consultant whose life is being made hell by a man she met once, in 2022, when he answered a job advert. Since then, he has bombarded her with bizarre and sometimes threatening messages, from declarations of undying love to creepy sexual fantasies.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 80 per cent of victims are female, and more than 20 per cent of women in Britain have experienced stalking — two statistics that Zara didn't think to mention.
Jen's tormentor has been jailed three times for stalking her, and was sectioned in a psychiatric unit following his latest release. But Jen still lives in terror: the hospital is just 20 minutes drive from her home.
Clearly, he is mentally ill and requires treatment, but it's inexplicable that his health needs are apparently being prioritised over Jen's safety. Police have told her to 'use your common sense' to avoid being attacked, and this dismissive attitude seems typical of that displayed by many forces.
Perhaps we shouldn't be overly surprised: in the past two years, officers from Avon and Somerset police, the Met and North Yorkshire have admitted charges of stalking.
Zara didn't tell us that either, but this two-part documentary, aired as a 90-minute double bill on both BBC1 and BBC3, was more concerned with the emotional context than data and stats. When Jen promised she would try not to cry, Zara assured her, 'No, honestly, it's not a problem.'
In an ill-judged effort to heighten this sense of vulnerability, the camera kept zooming in so tightly on faces that the women's eyes and mouths filled the screen. Perhaps this is effective if you're watching on a phone, but the result is bizarre on a widescreen telly.
The show tipped over into melodrama when Zara spent a night at one woman's home, waiting to see if her ex would come and lurk in the bushes outside.
Whispering urgently in the darkness, Zara could have been presenting a ghost-hunting foray. The stalker failed to show up, and there was no paranormal activity either.