By Tristan Kirk

Copyright standard

The UK’s next Victims Commissioner is calling on the government to change the law to stop stalkers from weaponising the courts to continue their campaigns of harassment.

Claire Waxman OBE has suffered for more than 20 years at the hands of former TV producer Elliot Fogel, as he has been convicted of stalking and harassment, repeatedly broken court orders, and spent periods of time in prison.

Criminal cases have been punctuated by repeated legal applications by Fogel, leading Ms Waxman to believe he is using court processes as a form of harassment.

She has now spoken out to call for the Labour government to toughen up the law around stalking, to protect victims like herself from endless litigation which the courts appear unable to shutdown.

“I increasingly hear from victims whose offenders, like mine, use the courts to further their control and abuse”, she told The Standard.

“Each time there is an appeal, an application to vary a protective order, an unmeritorious civil claim, victims are dragged back into contact with their abuser.

“The justice system needs to get wise to stalking by litigation, and the Government should use the opportunity of the Victims and Courts Bill to prevent stalkers exploiting and wasting valuable court time and better protect victims.”

Her words come after Fogel made his latest court application, to try to water down the orders that ban him from going near to the homes of Ms Waxman and her family.

A judge rejected the bid, but also refused a suggestion by the Crown Prosecution Service that he should be blocked for ten years from bringing any court applications.

Ms Waxman, who has spent the last eight years as London’s dedicated Victims Commissioner, is due to step up to the national role from January next year.

Fogel, now 50, was first convicted in 2003 over repeated phone calls to Ms Waxman, someone he had met briefly when they were in the same year at Sixth Form college.

In 2005, Fogel, a former Sky Sports News producer, was handed a lifelong restraining order, but he continued to rack up convictions for stalking and harassment which culminated in a three-year prison sentence in 2015.

Over the years, courts have heard how Fogel obsessively Googled Ms Waxman’s name – allegedly 40,000 times in one year – he is said to have had images of her wedding on his computer, and also had a satellite image of her home.

Judges have also heard about the devastating impact on Ms Waxman’s life, with the spectre of Fogel looming large for more than two decades.

He made a failed application in April to vary the terms of the exclusion zone he is obliged to abide by in north London and Hertfordshire.

Then, in the summer, he was convicted of breaching that exclusion zone, leading to the imposition of a short prison sentence.

However Fogel had already served enough time on remand awaiting his trial, and he walked free once the trial was over.

At Harrow crown court on Friday, he made a new bid to change the exclusion zone, which was roundly rejected by Judge John Lodge.

CPS barrister Patrick Dennis then urged the judge to impose a ten-year ban on Fogel making further applications to the court.

“This has got to stop”, he said. “It’s a vicious circle, and there has to be finality in litigation.

“The victim and her family can’t keep having appeals and applications hanging over them. Enough is enough.”

And he added: “At least in part, Mr Fogel is doing this to prolong the harassment of the victim. She finds it very distressing, she can’t get on with her life with this barrage of applications.”

However the judge denied the request, saying he feared he would be making the situation even worse by introducing the prospect of Fogel making a future application to the court, being charged with a criminal offence, and having to stand trial in front of a jury.

Judge Lodge did, however, indicate that any future applications by Fogel is likely to be dealt with administratively – without a full court hearing – and will be rejected swiftly if there is nothing valid to consider.

Fogel insisted in court that he would not be appealing the judge’s decision, suggesting he was content that his arguments had been considered.

“I didn’t come here to cause harassment”, he asserted.

But Mr Dennis was sceptical: “History suggests this is not likely to be true, and we will be back here in 18 months, arguing the same thing.”

In April, Ms Waxman spoke out about inequality in the court system, where offenders are often given plenty of chances to bring appeals while victims are limited to just days to challenge a court order.

The criminal courts in England and Wales are chronically overloaded, with an estimated 80,000 cases now in the Crown Court backlog.

Cases involving allegations of stalking and harassment are often delayed for years before reaching trial, prolonging the suffering of the victims.

In July, The Standard reported on the case of James Farrer-Fisher, who pursued his ex-girlfriend to a family festive break to the Caribbean island after she ended their relationship.

He was charged with harassment in October 2023, but did not plead guilty until just before his trial was due to start, in March this year.

The Victims and Courts Bill was introduced to Parliament earlier this year, with the aim of improving the power and access to information for victims in the justice process.

Last week, a victim of prolonged stalking, Lynton Cohen, appeared at Isleworth crown court to deliver a powerful statement after three decades of harassment.

His tormentor, Maria Bond, had pursued him since 1997, racking up 11 convictions for 16 offences and 13 breaches of restraining order, The Times reported.

Yet she had not stopped, and Mr Cohen told the judge that he felt sidelined by the justice process.

“I feel the system has failed me, not seeing me or hearing me”, he said. “I can’t take it any more, I’m just a human being. I’m not the criminal.”

Bond’s sentencing hearing was repeatedly delayed as she underwent psychiatric assessments, which Mr Cohen lived with the fears that she would turn up at his home, follow him in the street, or bombard him with letters.

Bond is now detained in a secure hospital, and can only be released after consultation with a mental health tribunal or the justice ministry.