Independent Working Group on Antisocial Behaviour: review report

Victims

The Working Group heard evidence from a range of sources throughout its engagement phase about the impact of antisocial behaviour on victims and the harm that it causes. Education Scotland reported the mental health impacts on young people subject to antisocial behaviour as well as missed educational opportunities through non-attendance at school. Local authority staff and police officers discussed the impact on victims as well as communities and engagement sessions with the retail sector and transport sector provided insight in relation to commerce, communities, businesses and employees as victims.

In order to gather additional insights into the experiences of victims of antisocial behaviour who are members of the public the Working Group held a specific engagement session related to victims, this included Victim Support Scotland staff, volunteers and a local authority mediator. The Working Group was also keen to hear directly from victims as well as the people that support them. The Local Authority Antisocial Behaviour Officers’ Forum (ASBOF) and Victim Support Scotland identified victims who wanted to share their experiences with the Working Group in more detail and four victims consented to this. All four consented for their stories to be shared in the final report. These case studies were gathered by individual interviews with Victim Support Scotland’s engagement officer. These interviews were transcribed and anonymised and are provided at appendix 4.

Victim Support Scotland is an independent charity, set up in 1985, that provides emotional and practical support to victims of ‘any type of crime or similarly damaging behaviour’. Historically Victim Support Scotland has provided support to victims of antisocial behaviour for many years and was funded by several local authorities to provide specific support to victims of antisocial behaviour in their areas. However, in recent years this funding has declined significantly (seven local authorities provided specific funding in 2018/19) and currently only one local authority does this and this funding is also under threat.

Given Victim Support Scotland’s long history of supporting victims of antisocial behaviour, this session was illuminating and highlighted the long-term impact that antisocial behaviour, particularly within people’s home environments can cause.

Looking across the rich data gathered from and about victims of antisocial behaviour across the Group’s engagement there are several themes that emerge:

Features of antisocial behaviour

The impact of antisocial behaviour varied between behaviour that occurred in public spaces and that which occurred in private contexts, e.g. within the home or immediate vicinity.

There is no single age grouping that carried out antisocial behaviour more than any other. This is particularly evident when including definitions within the home / ‘private space’ as opposed to antisocial behaviour that occurs in more public contexts. This is not simply a young person’s issue.

“It affected me in every way, with this stamping and shouting, every second of my life. There wasn’t a moment any day where I wasn’t aware this might happen. It affected every waking hour and in what was supposed to be my sleeping hours. It happened not only to me, it happened to everyone who was living there in the flats.” (victim of ASB)

“It has to happen time and time again before anything is done. During that time, that is your living experience. Time and time again, day and night.” (victim of ASB)

A Victim Support Scotland volunteer sums up the distinction:

"I find it one of the most challenging crime types to support. It is so hard to see and to hear the impact of people's safe space being taken away from them.”

Victim Support Scotland noted a high correlation between antisocial behaviour and other types of crime, for example hate crime. Disability hate crime was one of the most commonly seen linked crimes with people targeted because they had a disability or long term health condition.

“This perpetrator knew my partner was terminally ill and he seemed to get a kick out of this…He started banging on our doors and our windows and dropping heavy objects onto his floor. He sent children round to scream outside and let air out of our car tyres. He smashed glass over our path and spread excrement over our front door. He would sharpen homemade knives outside our window and box my car in - once for 10 days. He started following me to my workplace. Then he started a fire in the communal garden, using hazardous waste. The carers and I were worried that we wouldn’t be able to get my partner out the house if there was another fire.”

(victim of ASB)

Moreover, escalations into violence, threatening and intimidating behaviour and other serious issues were reported as commonplace.

“ It came to a head when the neighbour threatened my life. He told me not to contact police, though obviously I did. It was a very traumatic experience, having somebody less than an inch from my face. He was arrested after a few days but then again in another few days released to continue to do whatever he wanted. It was like the court did not take the threat to my life seriously.” (victim of ASB)

Impact of antisocial behaviour

The harm caused by antisocial behaviour was, at times, very high and long-term. Victims reported significant impacts on their mental health, physical health, financial situation, ability to retain employment and relationships with others. Most of the victims who came forward to share their experiences had been enduring the behaviour for many years without adequate support.

Health (Victims)

Mental Health

Victim Support Scotland stated that it was reporting an average of 1.6 safeguarding concerns per week specifically in relation to antisocial behaviour across 2024. This means that almost two people a week were considered to be at high enough risk either from themselves or others, in relation to antisocial behaviour, that Victim Support Scotland was raising this with other agencies. To put this in context this is between a quarter and a third of all Victim Support Scotland safeguarding incidents across all crime types.

Victims described a wide range of impacts on mental health including fear, anxiety, stress, loss of confidence, isolation and in some cases victims described symptoms of trauma.

Physical health

Some victims reported lack of sleep, stress that affected their physical health and impacted on other aspects of their lives.

One victim described the stress he was under when the person who was carrying out antisocial behaviour was released from prison, he says “at that time where he was being released, I had a mild stroke. Many friends and family of mine believed that the stroke was caused by the stress of what was happening with the behaviour.”

Some victims were targeted because of their own health conditions and for some who had carers visiting their home the behaviour impacted on their carers being able to carry out their role. “My partner was confused and frightened due to the late stages of dementia, but one of the few words my partner could say when the noise started above was ‘help’, which was soul destroying. My own health was starting to suffer too, I was physically drained due to the lack of sleep and collapsed a couple of times.”

Financial

A variety of financial impacts were described, some victims had to pay for repairs to damage caused by those carrying out the antisocial behaviour, some had to resort to purchasing security equipment in an attempt to deter the behaviour, some had to move home to get away from the behaviour. One victim described losing her job due to the impact on her abilities to carry out her tasks because of lack of sleep over a prolonged period of time.

“It stopped happening because I moved away from the flat that I was living in. I shouldn’t have to be the one to do that. It has affected me financially…and I am now having to pay rent. I was the one having to move because they weren’t going to move him. But how come it now costs me monthly rent to pay for the place they moved me.” (victim of ASB)

Social

Some victims reported a detrimental impact on their relationships with friends and family. Some did not want to share their experiences with loved ones as they did not want to burden them, others described the strain that was being put on their personal relationships due to the stress of experiencing antisocial behaviour.

“I was calling the police when anything happened, but I didn’t want my family to feel concerned or think of me suffering there. I didn’t want to upset them as well.”

(victim of ASB)

“I was fearful that if I went to sit outside I was getting abused on a daily basis. And I’m at home now. I’m very much a prisoner in my own home.” (victim of ASB)

Response by agencies

Many victims felt the impacts on them, of antisocial behaviour, were underestimated or even trivialised by professionals and that responses were inadequate and ineffective as a result. Many victims received no help.

“It has been going on for over two years. Almost every day we’ve had to contact the Police/Council. We have received no help at all…Communication with the housing association has been absolutely horrific. We have sent over 200 emails between ourselves in our flat and along with other neighbours in the stair… More than half remain unanswered.” (victim of ASB)

“We have not been offered support from any support organisations. The support we got from the police was telling us to put earplugs in. As if that can do anything when everything is vibrating and there are almost earthquake levels of noise.”

(victim of ASB)

In addition this was an area where victim-blaming was felt to be commonplace. Victims felt that they were often viewed as not being tolerant enough of others and were themselves being unreasonable. Many victims felt by raising issues they were treated as ‘serial complainers’ by agencies and were not taken seriously and the harm caused was minimised.

“I just feel like they are coming along here saying ‘Our hands our [are] tied’. I even went above them and contacted the Safer Communities team and had the manager out to my home and it’s just been antisocial behaviourolutely [behaviourally] horrific. I’ve never known such a thing in my life. You know, I’ve been 28 years in my home and I’ve actually written a letter to somebody in the head of the council about getting moved, but I haven’t heard a single solitary thing back from them.” (victim of ASB)

Some victims have had to endure malicious counter-allegations accusing them of carrying out the behaviour they were experiencing from others and this exacerbated the harm caused by the antisocial behaviour. Effective approaches to tackling malicious counter-allegations was also something agencies discussed with the Working Group as this was something they felt needed improved guidance to assist them.

“I am frightened to report anything else to the police or to housing because they say it’s my word against my neighbours and I have been told that if I do report their behaviour then my neighbour is likely to report me too. I feel alone.” (victim of ASB)

Lack of long term, independent support for victims

There was a lack of long-term, holistic support and assistance for victims. Most victims said they had not been offered this. We heard many agencies describe their response which was often focussed on issue-resolution or complaint management rather than having a more holistic view of victims’ needs. Some victims were experiencing antisocial behaviour whilst also having their own complex support needs, for example mental health issues or recovering from other types of crime e.g. domestic abuse which meant that a dedicated, person-centred approach would have been beneficial but was almost never offered.

“I do have some protection, I have a non-harassment order through the court. But in the same respect my life is just not the same. I don’t leave home. Previous to that I went through an abusive relationship…. it’s just not fair and it doesn’t feel like my home any more.

I’ve not had a good life since coming out of my abusive relationship. I very much locked myself away from that, and then to encounter this, within my home boundaries, my street, my close. I was fearful that if I went to sit outside I was getting abused on a daily basis. And I’m at home now. I’m very much a prisoner in my own home.” (victim of domestic abuse previously and subsequently ASB).

For victims who were offered dedicated support it was mostly after they had experienced antisocial behaviour for a long period of time. Most victims said they would benefit from independent support to listen to their experiences and help with their emotional wellbeing as well as advocacy support. For victims who had support of this type, for example from Victim Support Scotland, they described this as life changing and something that they thought every victim should benefit from.

However, the Working Group discovered that very few areas in Scotland had dedicated, independent services for providing long-term support to victims, in fact only one area described having this in place and also raised that funding was at risk of being cut completely. Some teams described having these services available in the past but recounted resourcing challenges and budget cuts as having had a detrimental impact.

Some solutions

Victims recognised that there were times when the antisocial behaviour was perhaps not intentional but felt that there had been missed opportunities to address issues earlier, for example better sound-proofed housing stock, retaining floor coverings to help dampen noise, swift resolution when problems first arose etc.

All victims, who took part in the interviews, felt that there was a complete lack of effective responses to persistent and serious antisocial behaviour in their local area. Many felt the only option presented to them was that they left their own home. As well as feelings of unfairness of this for many victims, for example owner occupiers, this was not an option.

Many have called for the introduction of a ‘community trigger’ approach similar to what happens in England where a formal case review is called when someone causes antisocial behaviour up to three times in a six month period. Many victims felt this would be helpful. Some local areas described having their own version of this but this is not consistent across the country.

“I feel that there should be a ‘flag up’ trigger system for Police pertaining to antisocial behaviour. After the trigger has red flagged the system, through maybe a points system, then it should be reviewed by a duty Inspector.”

Actions:

• Person-centred, needs-led, long-term support for victims of antisocial behaviour in every local authority.
• Ring-fenced funding for antisocial behaviour that covers ‘situational responses’ and dealing with antisocial behaviour that is happening as well as preventative approaches.
• Explore the learning and impact from community trigger and community protection notices in England and Wales to improve responses to persistent antisocial behaviour to ensure a consistent approach across Scotland.
• Improve standards for sound-proofing for all new build housing stock.
• Abolition of registered social landlord policy to remove floor coverings when a tenancy is ended.
• Improvement in understanding across all relevant authorities (especially police, local authorities and registered social landlords) of the harm caused by antisocial behaviour and the potential long-term impact on victims.
• Antisocial Behaviour Strategies for all relevant authorities with specified outcomes for victims - improvement in responses, reduction in incidence, investment in long term support for victims.