Stalkers beware: The FTAC is on the case…sometimes.

/ 12/10/2015

Good news! If you’re a politician, member of the Royal Family, or other public figure in the UK, and you’re being stalked by some loony who thinks you’re a baby-murdering, blood-drinking, child-raping cannibal, you have a place to turn for help.

The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) is a joint police/mental health unit set up in October 2006 by the Home Office, the Department of Health and Metropolitan Police Service to assess and manage the risk to politicians, members of the British Royal Family, and other public figures from obsessive individuals.

FTAC-GuardianThe above article describes the threat posed by people with pathological fixations on certain individuals or causes, and the efforts being made to sort out the common-or-garden loon from the one who’ll take up arms and go hunting.

At the FTAC, a full-time complement of mental health professionals and police works to analyse the threat posed by angry people who’ve become obsessed with certain ideas. In the above example, the accusation that the government owed the man £300bn pounds for acts of ‘criminal negligence’ sounds eerily like some of Neelu Berry’s rantings.

What would the FTAC make of the barrage of death threats—many very explicit—that have been levelled against Ricky Dearman over the past 8 months? Or the constant urging of Hoaxtead hawkers like Charlotte Ward Alton, Angela Power-Disney, Bronwyn Llewellyn, Deborah Mahmoudieh and their ilk, who regularly promote the most extreme kind of vigilantism to their gullible readership?

How would the FTAC feel about people like Code 2222 stalking the resident of Christ Church Cottage and her young child, threatening them on-camera?

We will never know, because the FTAC does not direct its efforts toward average citizens like the beleaguered parents and children of Hampstead, or the priest and parishioners at Christ Church.

The FTAC’s very specific mandate is to protect ‘higher level’ people from the kinds of threat faced daily by Hampstead’s less-public innocent citizens.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink that overly restrictive mandate, and make this valuable service available to all who need it.

We know where they could start.

stalker

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14 thoughts on “Stalkers beware: The FTAC is on the case…sometimes.”

  2. They could start near home:

    ‘FTAC is staffed by ten police officers from the Metropolitan Police Service, three full-time senior forensic nurses, a full-time senior social worker and a number of senior forensic psychiatrists and psychologists from the *Barnet* Enfield and Haringey NHS Trust and the Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust. FTAC receives around 1,000 referrals a year of people who have engaged in threatening or harassing communications …..They may then be referred to local health services for further assessment and potential involuntary commitment. In some cases, they may be detained by police under the section 136 powers of the Mental Health Act 1983 prior to referral.’

    I think they have other specialist services in the UK too for various services to work together eg MAPPA. Perhaps a new type of service is called for now, with the advent of the internet,and the new types of harassment that social media networking etc seem to have made possible.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I like to favour protection for all citizens rather than the famous, wealthy and powerful. Justice is about treating everyone the same regardless of circumstance, so when a MP can have someone committed to a mental institution but a private family who is similarly harassed by for example Neelu Berry, nothing happens, and that is unjust.

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    • I think the founder sees the benefit to things like the FTAC being introduced more widely. Mr and Mrs Bloggs just have to make do with normal police without this specialist understanding though.

      People can be a danger to themselves too, not just others.

      This caught my eye “Vexatious, no-hope legal actions, James [founder of FTAC] says, are often ‘a very bad sign”

      http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2007/aug/26/features.magazine67

      Liked by 2 people

      • Vexatious, no-hope litigants…hang on, I’m sure I’ve seen one or two of those about…just let me think for a minute, I’m sure it’ll come to me.

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        • Not all will turn out to be violent. Although Norman “Chainsaw Fiend” Scarth, Bishop “Mrs I Whip Children” Musa and Maurice “Mr Punchy” Kirk could perhaps be described that way, in certain circumstances.

          Liked by 1 person

      • I can really see the benefit of this squad as it is more likely those who get attacked are lower down the ‘food chain’. If you note in all the freeman common law Youtube videos where they attack ordinary police officers for doing their job- spewing out hate and insults towards them & claiming they work for the ‘cult’ or Freemasons etc etc.
        Powerful people usually have bodyguards (a good friend of mine was the son of a Lord in Waiting, since deceased but his job it was to walk behind The Queen and take those little posies / presents she was handed in case it was a bomb !)
        Have the police been given training in dealing with these people? I’m actually amazed at the patience shown by the coppers as seen outside the Hampstead church. But in some cases I see that by being patient or talking calmly it often makes this lot even angrier.

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        • I think it’s a question of risk assessment, combined with excellent police training. As far as ‘internet terrorism’ goes, additional training would be needed to help police get to grips with anonymous posters, or those who stir up shit from an ocean away, then sit back and enjoy the repercussions of their hate-mongering. (Charlotte Ward Alton and Bronwyn Llewellyn, I am looking at you.)

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  4. I was really pleased to read that authorities take this matter seriously. Remember in the US the ‘freeman common law’ lot have encouraged or inspired many deaths including the awful Oklahoma Federal building bombing that killed so many. The bombers were so-called ‘freeman’.
    So while “common law lawyer” Patrick Cullianane may only goes as far as abusing & insulting innocent coppers guarding a court house, we don’t know who he may inspire to take deadly action. There is a point where these freeman may move on from council tax or speeding fines to direct & deadly action. They are dangerous.

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