Gracie’s Law
A few days after Gracie’s tragic death, a government petition was started by Jackie Barnett Wheatcroft, a resident of Chesterfield, to highlight and bring more attention to the problems of stalking.
“The Government should provide more funding for stalking advocates for victims of stalking. This would help support victims, and should also help the police to investigate cases more thoroughly, potentially helping prevent threats to life”
The Gracie’s Law petition
The Gracie’s Law petition was set up in August 2021. Petitions attaining 100,000 signatures are debated in Parliament and the hope was, and still is, to request the Government to pass legislation or provide funding within exiting Police budgets to tackle the ever-growing issue of stalking: be that training for officers, the provision of specialist anti-stalking units and funding for independent stalking advocates.
The campaign, publicised within the local community, through social media and through the brave actions of her parents appearing on local & national news programmes, started to grow and within a few days there were thousands of signatures from all over the country, During the summer of 2021, various events, promotions, raffles, social media, word of mouth and media coverage helped the signatures grow towards the target. The support from the people of Chesterfield and beyond was incredible
The 100,000 target was reached in early 2022. On 31.01.22, the family and organiser, Jackie Barnett-Wheatcroft, set off to London to watch the debate in the Houses of Parliament. They were supported at the debate, by Lee Rowley, Conservative MP for North East Derbyshire and MP Toby Perkins, Labour MP for Chesterfield, Toby Perkins spoke on the family’s behalf at the debate. Rachel Mclean, Secretary of State for Safeguarding, represented the Government and outlined the changes she had already made and outlined additional changes that could be considered.
What’s Next
The aim of the petition was to raise awareness of the issues of stalking and the immediate need for Government and police forces to take the issues more seriously and implement changes in legislation, funding, and procedures to ensure violence against women becomes a thing of the past.
The on-going aim for Gracie’s Law, and her legacy, is to see every police force in the country, have robust and standardised procedures to handle stalking cases, exemplary training for all officers and dedicated stalking units or officers; for the Government to ensure that police forces have the necessary budgets and funding to adequately tackle stalking and for additional funding to be made available to organisations and charities, such as the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and Paladin, so that further independent stalking advocates can be employed to directly help victims with all manner of stalking-related issues.