The Alice Ruggles Trust was established in October 2017 after the tragic murder of Alice in October 2016 by Trimaan Dhillon following a relentless stalking campaign.
The Alice Ruggles Trust’s primary focus is to educate young people about stalking. This has been done through developing PSHE lessons which educate about healthy and unhealthy relationships, recognising and responding to unwanted attention, how to help a friend, and managing your own negative behaviour. To date our lessons have been downloaded 6,000 times.
Beyond this core work has been a focus to upskill professionals in contact with young people to help them recognise and respond appropriately to stalking. The Alice Ruggles Trust have delivered more than 120 talks to criminal justice and social and healthcare professionals and have trained more than 500 people through our SAfEE courses.
The Trust is an active member of the National Stalking Consortium.
Stalking is a pattern of fixated and obsessive behaviour which is intrusive and causes fear of violence or engenders alarm or distress.
According to the Crime Survey of England and Wales 2020 395,000 women and girls aged 16-24 experience stalking each year, while 523,000 young people overall experience stalking.
Stalking as a behaviour is not widely understood by society and even less so by young people. A survey of 12,000 young people aged 13-24, conducted by VICE UK, found that 35% had personally experienced stalking. Worryingly, 1 in 4 of the young people surveyed didn’t know that stalking was a crime and an even greater number “didn’t think that attempting to contact someone [repeatedly] by any means possible counts as stalking”.
And yet, stalking is a horrendous crime which leads to PTSD, anxiety, and in the most extreme cases such as Alice’s, murder.
Enthusiasm for making a difference and supporting us in trying to bring stalking to an end.
We are only charity dedicated entirely to raising awareness of stalking amongst young people, who provide resources for free and work exclusively in this space.
Our Opportunities
Stalking is a horrific crime affecting 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men. We want your help raising awareness of stalking amongst school students and to try and prevent it from happening.