A Scottish university will set up a centre for the prevention of stalking this month to help reduce "abusive" and "harmful" behaviour.
The University of the West of Scotland has unveiled plans for an Action Against Stalking centre, run in partnership with the namesake charity.
The project will involve research into the issue, as well as studying coercion and control on children and young people, the motivations of perpetrators, and cyber-stalking.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon: Women's health plan to feature in NHS recovery strategy
It will be unveiled at the first-ever international conference on the problem. The three-day event will take place online from April 20, during National Stalking Awareness Week.
The Dynamics Between the Stalker and the Victim summit will bring together global experts from police bodies, universities and charities.
Ross Deuchar, professor of criminology and criminal justice at the university, will be interim director of the centre.
He said: “I’m delighted to be involved in the launch of the new centre for Action Against Stalking – an international centre against abusive and harmful behaviour.
“I am pleased that we are able to launch the centre as part of the first-ever international stalking conference, which brings together world-leading stalking experts for a ground-breaking three-day event.”
READ MORE: Highland: online support service for pregnant women
Ann Moulds, founder of AAS, said stalking can “happen to anyone, any age, anywhere”.
She added: “Having held two UK conferences on stalking, AAS is delighted to join forces with the University of the West of Scotland in this first-ever international conference and summit on stalking.
“We welcome our international cast of speakers and delegates. This is evidence of the interest and commitment across the globe to take a stand against stalking.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here