Suzy Lamplugh Trust is a small charity, with significant UK-wide impact. We grew from the tragic disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, a 25-year-old estate agent, who went missing during a property viewing, never returned, was never found and declared deceased 7 years later in 1993. Since then, we have been the UK’s founding personal safety charity and leading stalking authority.
We are widely regarded as field experts in lone-working, and personal safety training and policy implementation, and work across all sectors to help reduce the risk of harassment, violence, and aggression to employees in the workplace, as well as across all aspects of their lives. We do this by upskilling employees and employers on how to effectively assess, mitigate and manage risks that can lead to aggressive and violent behaviours in the workplace, leading to potential psychological, emotional and physical harm, as well as fatalities. This is done through conflict de-escalation management.
Parallel to this, the Trust also has a long history of working within the violence against women and girls sector, specialising in stalking, given that it is believed, and indeed the evidence suggests Suzy may have been targeted by a stalker. We run the National Stalking Helpline, which has helped over 36,000 victims since its inception in 2010. Stalking is as pervasive as domestic violence and present in 90% femicides. It is therefore aligned with our core objective to reduce the prevalence of aggression and violence across society.
"A few years ago I attended one of your personal safety courses through my work as a carer. In dealing with how we considered risk the woman talking to us said, "just imagine your parents being told that you have been killed or hurt at work". I sat there putting two and two together, facing up to reality, realising that if I didn't leave my abusive partner it could be my parents getting the news. That sentence gave me the strength to leave, and probably saved my life. Thank you."
Our vision is a society in which people are safer - and feel safer - from violence and aggression; we want people to be able to live life to the full.
Our mission is to reduce the risk of violence and aggression through campaigning, education and support.
Suzy Lamplugh Trust works across the public, private and voluntary sectors through its education and training provision, with courses designed to drive behavioural change, so that common sense in personal safety becomes common practice. Our training helps staff minimise and mitigate risks they face at work, manage incidents when needed, and become more confident in managing their own personal safety.
At Suzy Lamplugh Trust we campaign heavily to raise greater awareness of personal safety and stalking issues, demand systematic change where needed, influence public policy and promote a society in which people are safer and feel safer. Our longest running campaign has been the licensing of the operators and drivers of minicabs and private hire vehicles. It begun back in 1998, because every year hundreds of crimes, including many sexual assaults are linked to illegal and unlicensed minicab drivers. Working in conjunction with many stalking victims and services, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust campaigning and policy work has been pivotal to changes in legislation and practice nationally – including in the introduction of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, which introduced specific offences for stalking, and the new stalking protection orders in January 2020.
Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s National Stalking Helpline is a service that begun in 2010 to provide support, advice and advocacy to victims of stalking, helping them regain control of their lives. It is worth remembering that stalking is a crime that includes, under its overarching umbrella many other crimes, including domestic abuse, sexual violence and homicide. The service has since helped over 36,000 victims through phone and email contact. Paralleled to this and on behalf of victims who are at serious risk of harm, we regularly represent serious cases to local police forces through our advocacy work, driving prompt action when required.
