Proof of Stalking by Private Detectives

When Kurtz Detective Agency Nuremberg commenced its operations in 2013, stalking had only been a criminal offence for six years (§ 238 German Criminal Code “Stalking”). When confronted with the accounts of stalking victims, it quickly became clear to us that this still very young criminal offence fell far short of what was required and that countless victims continued to feel abandoned by the justice system. In 2017, an important expansion of the stalking paragraph followed, which primarily addressed assaults using new digital means of communication and was not suitable to finally tackle the core problem adequately. As is unfortunately all too often the case in Germany, a stalking case near Regensburg (Alteglofsheim) first had to escalate to a life-threatening level before the perpetrator, following the legislative amendment, was sentenced to one year and nine months’ imprisonment — suspended, no less. At the time of sentencing, the 30-year-old student had been repeatedly harassing a young woman, Doris Englbrecht, since 2009 and seeking her proximity against her will. In 2012, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. In 2014, he was first given a suspended sentence for an assault against Ms Englbrecht. On New Year’s Eve 2016/17, under the influence of one litre of vodka and orange juice, masked and armed with an axe, he broke into the parental home of the object of his obsession. Ms Englbrecht was not present at the time, but her father stabbed the intruder approaching him with a folding knife in self-defence. In the struggle between the two men, not only was the stalker life-threateningly injured to the chest, shoulder and arms, but the father also suffered a neck wound near the carotid artery, a severed submandibular salivary gland and injuries to his hands. Even stern TV reported on the case a year later and again at the end of 2021.

When determining the sentence, the perpetrator benefited from both his alcohol-related disinhibition and his serious injuries, as well as from his expert-certified stalking disorder. While the affected family subsequently required psychological support, the perpetrator remained at liberty and repeatedly violated the conditions of his suspended sentence without any consequent imprisonment. Although Ms Englbrecht had already been suffering from the stalking for years, the judiciary demonstrated powerlessness, apart from contact bans, exclusion orders and warnings. Yet it has been well known for decades that stalkers cannot simply be dismissed as harmless eccentrics: in around 20 per cent of documented cases, physical violence is inflicted on the victims, who are female in approximately 80 per cent of cases. The consequence of the lax prosecution of stalkers: the same perpetrator from Bavaria sought out a new victim after the public attention surrounding his actions and was convicted again in 2020 — once more only with a suspended sentence. In view of such events, which — sadly — stand out from the mass of stalking offences less because of any extraordinary severity than because of their heightened public profile, many victims feel abandoned by the justice system. The work of our private detective agency in Nuremberg offers them an alternative in order to at least obtain court-admissible proof of the assaults. For one thing is also clear: not only do most stalkers get away with absurdly lenient judicial sentences, but even at the stage of taking statements at local police stations there is often an attitude that makes it difficult for victims to feel taken seriously.

What Is Stalking and What Can Be Done About It?

The term “stalking” originates from English and in particular from hunting terminology, where it roughly means “to creep up on”. The famous deerstalker hat, known from numerous Sherlock Holmes adaptations (although never explicitly mentioned by Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle), literally serves the purpose of allowing one to creep up unnoticed on red deer. A stalker is a person who obsessively pursues, harasses, threatens or, in the worst case, injures another person. In more than 80 per cent of cases, stalking is based on one of various forms of interpersonal relationships; for example, the victim and perpetrator may be former partners or colleagues, friends or neighbours, patients or clients. The perpetrators are mostly men, the victims mostly women, and the average duration of stalking, according to information from various law enforcement authorities and a study by TU Darmstadt, is 28 months. One in eight Germans will be the victim of such persecution at least once in their lifetime. Our private detectives from Nuremberg have for years been committed to supporting stalking victims in criminal prosecution, so that they have a chance to regain the ease and security in life that the stalkers have taken from them.

In order to prove that the offence of stalking — officially “Nachstellung” — is present, all attempts at contact (that is, letters, SMS, emails, voicemail messages etc.) should first be documented in the greatest possible detail. After all, as the argument often goes in court, an annoying admirer is still a long way from being an obsessive stalker. In other words: the burden of proof always lies with the victim. And this is precisely where our detectives from Nuremberg come into play (more on methodology below). Once the offence has been proven, contact bans can be obtained that ensure the stalker may neither contact the victim by telephone nor in any other way and may be prosecuted if they approach — at least in theory. In practice, however, many police officers, public prosecutors and judges feel that their hands are tied as long as there is no physical violence.

When a Man Is the Victim — Even a Solicitor Powerless

How far legislation lags behind the real phenomenon of stalking is shown by the case of a Nuremberg solicitor who, despite all his professional expertise, found no way to get rid of his pursuer. Hannes W. was harassed by the same woman for more than 20 years; she had approached him in the early 1990s as a potential client and was already so intrusive at that time that Hannes W. felt compelled to terminate the client relationship. For several months thereafter, he received abusive, incoherent letters from the woman, until the stream of letters dried up. As a solicitor, W. of course knew what he could do against the stalker: he obtained a contact and approach ban and documented every letter, call, etc., just as our Nuremberg private detectives urgently recommend to their clients.

More than ten years later, in 2008, abusive letters nevertheless reappeared, along with calls to the law firm and unwanted gifts from a woman who imagined herself to be the solicitor’s wife. She sent worn underwear and was suspected of removing mail from the firm’s letterbox and placing it in other boxes. At least two other solicitors in Franconia were also harassed by the same perpetrator. Yet legally there was no remedy; twice the proceedings initiated by Hannes W. against her were discontinued, the reasoning being that the woman was mentally ill but not dangerous. As, in the absence of sufficient indications of danger to others or herself, compulsory admission was not an option, there was little left for the affected solicitors to do but hope that the woman would soon leave them alone. In such cases, we as detectives in Nuremberg must fairly concede that we would probably not even be of much help. For there was no lack of evidence of the fulfilment of the offence of stalking, but rather a lack of consistency in criminal prosecution in Germany.

What Do Detectives Do in Cases of Stalking?

Due to the sheer number of stalking cases (around 20,000 reports per year, with an estimated dark figure of up to one million), the police are unable to provide police protection or time-consuming investigations for every individual case. And even if they could: less than three per cent of registered perpetrators are charged, a laughable one to two per cent are convicted, and, as the above-described Doris Englbrecht case shows, even convictions usually offer no effective protection for the victims, not even in the short term. What, in view of this, can competent detectives such as those at our Nuremberg private detective agency achieve? Above all, we bridge the hurdle that in most cases is cited as the obstacle to charges and convictions: we provide court-admissible proof of stalking assaults. Not only do we gladly assist, where required, in identifying and securing existing evidence, but above all we expand it through surveillance — usually of the client, that is, the victim. One could also describe this tactic as counter-stalking: by accompanying the victim, all pursuers can be identified and documented photographically; moreover, our private investigators can intervene immediately in cases of imminent danger and thus prevent further escalation. At the same time, however, there are also cases in which it may be more sensible, for example, to keep a specific residential property under surveillance in order to detect stalking assaults in the absence of the victims. In addition, we confront — but only at the explicit request of the client — the perpetrators by means of a risk offender approach, if necessary in conjunction with a consultation psychotherapist.

We are also happy to arrange personal protection for victims of stalking; however, in a society that considers itself progressive, this should of course not be a permanent solution for those affected, who ultimately simply want to lead a normal life again without constant fear of attacks and harassment. Another alternative to regain a degree of personal security is the installation of video systems and motion detectors; here too, the experts in evidence preservation from our corporate investigation division in Nuremberg, throughout Franconia and Bavaria, as well as nationally and worldwide, are at your disposal. We are happy to discuss everything else with you in a personal conversation in order to address you and your individual case in the best possible way.

Instructing Kurtz Detective Agency Nuremberg in Stalking Cases

The stalking case of Doris Englbrecht described above is one of, unfortunately, extremely numerous examples of how the German justice system fails to achieve the balancing act between victim protection and a — fundamentally commendable — understanding of the individual circumstances of perpetrators. In practice, victims all too often suffer restrictions that are far too severe and disproportionate to the measures imposed on the perpetrator by the courts. To return to the origin of the term “stalking”: in English, one would describe the German justice system’s excessive empathy for perpetrators as “overdoing”. This is a phenomenon that currently contributes significantly to the division of German society.

Should you or a loved one be the victim of a stalker and wish to have this documented in a manner admissible in court, you can instruct our private detectives in Nuremberg at any time for one or more assignments. We are at your disposal with surveillance operations, digital and analogue research, on-site investigations (often involving the creation of cover stories), the arrangement of personal protection and much more. You can reach us at any time via our contact form, by email (kontakt@kurtz-detektei-nuernberg.de) and — during our business hours from Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 20:00 — by telephone on the following number: +49 911 378 201 54.