Jenny Pickering has endured months of torment at the hands of a stalker she’d only ever met once. She was left too terrified to even close her eyes in the shower after her stalker, Jan Schlossar, bombarded her with sexual messages, moved house to be closer to her, and even proposed to her at her place of work. Despite being given a lifetime restraining order and spending three stints in prison, Jenny fears he will ‘never give up’. In a bid to encourage other women to report similar harassment, she’s joining us alongside Criminal Psychiatrist Dr Sohom Das. 

    Broadcast on 08/04/2024
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    now our next guest has endured years of Torment at the hands of a stalker she only ever met once yes Jenny Pickering thanks for joining us Jenny was left too terrified to even close her eyes in the shower after her stalker Yan schler bombarded her with sexual messages we’ve close to to be close mov near to her house to be closer to her and even proposed to her at a workplace as her Tormentor is set to be released from jail for a third time Jenny is joining us to open up about her shocking ordal in the hope that helping others she can help uh she’s here with criminologist psychologist Dr sham Das morning to both morning both of you thank you for joining us let’s start off with you Jennifer because uh you worked in a a center which hired recruited people and you were just going about your day as normal and tell us from that moment what happened so I put an advert out and as with everything um I got a lot of response the person that responded to the advert lived in Petra and this was Yan um I was working in Leicester at the time and he wanted to be a driver as driving hours are you can’t actually drive over a certain amount per day he wanted to add a two-hour Journey onto that which was already strange for me so I kind of pushed back a little bit but he was quite determined that he wanted this job so I said okay bear in mind you’ll be traveling an hour there an hour back he came into the office he spent four hours filling an application form that took 4 to5 minutes why was it taking so long it was strange situation but he was kind of just sitting at the end of the office didn’t need any help with it it but you can’t force anybody to sort of say you know I need to F this in can you leave so you just have to sort of carry on yeah carry on um he was very much wanted the position so I put him forward and he got the job and which then meant that he was working kind of with me on a weekly basis with checking in time sheets and making sure his hours were all correct but Jenny just for context here this you’ve already met him in person once once this is and for how long probably spent 10 minutes talking to him four hours in the same building his FL in the same building and then you’re contact with them after that is just you checking in schedule wise and time sheets once a week so when did the red flag start immediately really um he started to send me Texas each day and just to say I’ve had this you know I’ve had a good day I’ve done this done that they started to get more frequent they started to become in the middle of the night I kind of felt sorry for him to begin with I thought okay he’s a lonely driver he works long hours it’s just the situation that he’s in but then I started to realize that this is a little bit more um when I started to feel really uncomfortable um we reported it so we reported it to the police was that just a gradual thing became I mean obviously out of office hours is is bad but did it become inappropriate it did become inappropriate when it was reported it kind of happened within 48 hours so it was again he was sending me a lot of messages and then all of a sudden it became he was sending me pictures of himself dressed up in a suit saying I’m dressed up for you I’m standing outside the car park are you here in Leicester yeah there’s about four or five mul story car Parks I’d use and he would go to each car park and send me a picture always tored me with the car park behind saying which car are you driving I’ll be here at 4:30 so every time I finished work I knew he was going to be looking for me because he knew where I worked he just wasn’t Brazen enough to sort of come in to me at the time um it escalated and he did then turn up I’d already reported it to the police and he turned up he stood at the window with flowers and a ring and he wanted to get married to me um so did all your colleagues know what was going on yeah so we were talking about it on a regular basis and saying look it’s starting to get a little bit weird we were in office of women we didn’t have any men in there at the time and we all sort of are were of the same opinion we know that as as a woman you know that you can have unwanted attention but you kind of ignore it and it will go away but then it got to the stage where I’d said stop doing this it’s making me feel uncomfortable and you will lose your job if you carry on and he carried on and I think that’s when we all started to say what the hell’s going on because we don’t you don’t know him um do you think he’s enjoying the fact that he’s upsetting you I think at the start he POS possibly did pray on the fact that it was just women in the office CU he was very aware of that so when he turned over at the window he came in and he was told to leave but he did force himself he didn’t push anybody he didn’t forced physically but he forced himself back in the office on a second time that day and that’s when he was arrested um and he was given a live time restraining order wasn’t immediately so he was arrested and that’s where it became scary so I already felt uneasy when they arrested him they found a lot of things on his phone he had been actively stalking me he’d been staying in a hotel that was next door but then wrapped over the top of the office he’d been staying in the hotel he’d been in cafes across the road he’d been for some reason taking a bust that looped around past the office just to look through um and at that very moment when they he was arrested that day he they found out that he’d actually moved on that day from Peter to live probably about 2 minutes from my house he’d over heard as he was satting the 4 hours where I and he moved that day think what have I done to deserve like I literally spend like 45 minutes in your company and that’s it yeah I couldn’t believe it trying to get him a job trying to help him as well unbelievable they literally rang the half 11 they said we’re just releasing him by the way he is going to be living within 2 minutes of your house so it now feels like you’re in this cycle of he’s got this liftime restraining order but theoretically and he’s not allowed to live in less of it theoretically he could be living five miles away from you and that’s okay 100% And every time he comes out he just reoffends yeah he doesn’t anything so then they just put him back in prison but he doesn’t care so every time he comes out he does the same thing yeah so he’s breaching it every single time every time he did it within two hours he came out of prison on one occasion and he went straight into a shop bought a phone and rang me within two hours of his release and he just said hi baby it’s me and I was just sat there I didn’t even know he’d come out of prison and my mouth just hit the floor and how the police been they’ve been amazing really good I understand that the law isn’t NE necessarily great against stalkers at the moment so they had to wait and it it was hard to begin with because I was a Sitting Duck they had to wait for laws to be broken for anything to happen in in a way I mean they did at one point tell me that I needed to collect DNA underneath my fingernails what and put my hands in my pockets because they thought he was going to attack me and that would then give them the evidence to charge him and that left me very scared to think that something’s going to have to happen to me I hope well hopefully that that doesn’t happen obviously he’s put face book um statuses on that he’s with you and things like that it’s unbelievable how has this impacted your life it’s changed me completely um I used to be really outgoing and I’m not anymore I just don’t want to meet anybody because I don’t know what they’re going to do or who they are and it’s not that everybody’s a bad person but I never expected in a million years for somebody to be this unhinged and I’m very caring as a person and I think I Justified it a lot to say you don’t know what somebody’s going through they might be lonely and it actually you need to stand up straight away as soon as it feels uncomfortable stand up and say because honestly it’s only going to be you that suffers you’re being a nice person aren’t you but that you deserve your happiness and you deserve your privacy and your be able to live a normal life yeah uh SE I’m sorry I haven’t come to you first it’s just such a a sort of compelling story so okay what firstly why does someone how does someone become a stalker why does someone become a stalker what sort of stalkers are there yeah so there’s there’s different categories of uh of stalkers and we can categorize them in terms of their motivation right so you can get your rejected stalker who is somebody that’s already been in a relationship with the victim and they’re trying to reconcile the relationship they won’t take no for an answer then you have a resentful stalker which is not necessarily about a romantic connection but it’s somebody who feels agreed they feel like the victim it could be an argument over property for example and they do whatever they can to make the stalker the victim’s life hell and then you have an incompetent sutor which is what I think is relevant in Jenny’s case so that’s somebody who genuinely thinks that that what they’re doing from their perspective is romantic a fantasist kind of yeah fantasist and and there’s even a a subcategory of that called a rotam Mania which is a mental illness and I do wonder whether Denny stalker has this even though he’s not been diagnosed with this and that’s having delusional ideas so actually believing that you’re in a relationship see what I don’t understand though is how he how he’s been declared Saint because it just doesn’t sound like rational Sint Behavior no it’s it’s hard hard to know for definite without assessing him in person but is it’s it’s not inconceivable that he could hidden his thoughts and his and his delusional beliefs because he knew that it would be the quickest way for him to leave hospital because I believe he was in a psychiatric year he was yeah and he was calling me from the psychiatric hospital oh my god do you think these stalkers can really love in their head it depends on the category so if you got somebody like a resentful stalker or the one that had mentioned yet which is the predatory stalker who gets a perverse pleasure from making their victim feel uncomfortable and I think there is an element that stalker I don’t think those people can or want to change but if it’s something like a mental illness which can be treated in theory with medication or if there’s risk factors so for an example uh substances misuse is highly correlated with stalking behavior right so you have people that become disinhibited when they drink or take drugs for example so you remove those kind of risk factors through Rehabilitation then you reduce the risk of of the stalking Dr Shaham Can you spot early on the signs of someone who could potentially be a stalker yeah I think if you’re if you’re previously in a relationship with them then there are red flag signs like somebody being controlling dominating controlling somebody’s finances watching where they go I think in Jenny’s case there was there wasn’t enough time to spot it really I mean it happened so quickly so worrying Behavior would be anything that makes the victim feel uncomfortable whether it’s unwanted attention text messages like happen in your case or anything that’s just a bit that’s just pushing the boundaries that feels uncomfortable to the victim Jenny before we let you go obviously we so many people in the sofa that like just circumstance and life happens to them and then you know they’re become unintentional expert in the world they find themselves in what would you like to see change is there is there a law that could be more robust here I’d like to see a lot more support for people that are going through this kind of situation because the first thing that I found was when it happened to me everybody thought I’d been in a relationship with this person and I had to keep explaining I don’t know him don’t know him met him once there’s no advice that I could go even the stalker’s heline was geared up to say it was your ex-boyfriend and it was just I felt so lonely and I think because we’re all sort of you know all online and a lot of more internet stalking happens this is something that is actually really common but doesn’t get bought first and foremost to the attention of you know the nation or go into the paper because it’s just so it’s online it’s on Facebook and it gets close de so I think there’s a lot more that needs to be done with regards to support for people that don’t know the stalker um and I would like to yeah thank you so much for sharing your story thank you and Dr charm thank you so much for joining us

    48 Comments

    1. I was stalked by an ex partner and that was scary enough, he did go to prison for it…but I can’t imagine being stalked by a stranger it must be worse in ways.

    2. I was stalked by my best 'friend'. We'd been close for years, I'd been there for her through so much, she kept professing her love for me and I'd have to tell her I don't see her that way. She lied and told everyone I'd led her on, that we'd slept together, that we were supposed to be getting into a relationship with each other, she turned a lot of people against me and spread so many lies about me. She'd make up illnesses about herself and her son just to get my attention, we'd fall out all of the time because she became over bearing, it got to the point where'd I'd see her almost every day, and then she'd still want to WhatsApp me all night. She tried to turn my parents against me, and my friend I grew up with, she caused problems for me with other people, she'd stalk me at work, she used to walk past my house every night to see if I was home, she vandalised my mother's property. We found her cigarettes outside of our house, she smokes menthols and my parents smoke normal cigarettes. She lied about her neighbours breaking into her home etc. to try to get me to talk her again. She'd get angry if I became friends with anyone else, or if I would date anyone. She'd scream at me on the phone and harass me, call me names. No one realises, until they go through it how mentally exhausting it is to deal with people like this, and how scary it is sometimes. I was afraid to walk alone, friends and family used to have to take me home after work because she'd be waiting for me. Things got worse and worse when I blocked her and stopped forgiving her. I genuinely feared for my life, I moved cities and I'm still scared to visit my family sometimes in case I see her

    3. If the Law fails to protect you then you are justified for taking the Law into your own hands. If the Law fails the former than it cannot justify judging you for the latter!

    4. Wow not only is this story horrific but so are some of the comments from the nameless people trolling in the comments section. I really feel for this woman. Stalking is really serious and life changing. I hope she can become free of him.

    5. I had a girl steal my identity and stalk me and the police said they couldn't help as she hadn't physically hurt me. It shouldn't need to get to that point for police to step in 😢

    6. Having been 'stalked' (although not as badly as this poor woman) I was shocked and horrified to find that it is not possible to stop someone leaving voice messages on your mobile no.Yes, you can block them, but they are still able to leave messages, I think this really needs to be reviewed as it is so wrong!!

    7. this isn't stalking this is called erotomania. a serious mental illness. and it has 3 stages: hope that the relationship is going to happen – depression because the relationship isn't happening – anger and despair. stage 3 the person is succeptible to try to unalive themselves, the other person or both. this is so so so serious her life really is in danger

    8. I’ve been stalked by who I now know as my neighbour on 3 occasions. Today (literally) I got a letter from the police saying they’d closed the case. They have CCTV for the first and 3rd time and still they don’t have enough evidence to “prove it” I have never met this man, but he can see my house from his window, follows me close enough to breathe in my ear and waits at the end of my road. Just breaks my heart that this is happening and the victims are no protected. My last communication from the police was that I needed essentially 3-4 more occasions for them to take it seriously again!

    9. It's when the stalking gets you followed, whilst out shopping. Or out having a coffee with your wife. Triggering hypervigilance symptoms. And your gp makes an assessment to see how the stress of being stalked is affecting your daily & nocturnal flashbacks. Resulting in a psychosis episode, a rare diagnosis of ptsd schizophrenia. Monthly appointment check ups with Gp And referal to the local mental health nurse for home visits and hopefully seeing or witnessing the stalker or Brian Glencorses textbook narcassistic toxic Replacement Gaslighting Stalkers is it a disability hate crime favour for Roland cashel I think so. Our local stalkers will be planing something online like Gaslighting strategies and with the regent cafe Hamilton. But once a formal neurological dictated letter of diagnosis is made by a neuro-psychologist or neurologist. Medicaly documented written and Mri evidence of emotional distress, and increased nightime trauma flashbacks, insomnia, constantly daily hypervigilance during the day into the evening. etc and legal advice from a lawyer. They are also using corporate buisnesses to threaten us we've taken photos of damaged food items anything for our controling male stalker and his mates at the regent cafe. But with blink you can open multiple accounts so having an extra blink cctv account for the police to check is a good idea.

    10. This is horrific. Unfortunately, the law never seem to take drastic action until it's too late and only then they admit "lesson's should be learnt". I was stalked and the police didnt care until I was seriously attacked then he got jailed for 13 years

    11. She should move somewhere else like the UAE, safer country, he won't be able to afford to move to her and even if he did, the laws are so strict at the very least he'd be deported and never allowed to return to the country.

    12. I was with a man in staffs he said to me ive seen you putting things together i felt a bit uncomfortable with it he had a hook nose and was dark asain with dry skin but by the time he said anything else he mentioned that all calls are recorded which made me feel better because initially i thought "well what do you mean putting people together thinking back to my elders load then that satisfied me enough to say alright i'm on it if you see my new missus tell her i'm on the bus man licking the seat cover ❤

    13. I feel very sorry for what this lady has been through.
      Obviously every stalking case is different and the stalker has a category.
      I once worked with a guy where a girl in the office tried to paint him as a weird stalker. The truth was that she had a fiance and had been having an affair with the guy in the office. She simply got scared when he fell for her, so she denied the affair and painted a picture. Nasty piece of work.
      Not saying that this is the case here of course, which is obviously genuine, but it just shows you what can be the case.

    14. Thats Madness .. cant imagine! Women get your LTC if your state and laws allow it.. restraining orders don't work when it comes to crazy people.. do whatever it takes to protect yourself and your family..

    15. Strange Question. Can stalkers love ???
      Of course not. What is the definition of love ??
      Love is good, kind, compassionate, respectful.
      This stalker is everything the opposite. He has no goodness, no kindness, no compassion, no respect for this lady's wishes or privacy.
      He is delusional and a lunatic and a danger to society.

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