Over 3,000 stalking offences were reported in Hertfordshire over the last year, according to the county's police chief, with less than 10% of cases solved.

Data from 12 months to the end of March 2026 shows just over 3,000 stalking offences were recorded by Herts Constabulary – an increase of around 10% over the previous year, when under 2,700 stalking crimes were recorded

Chief Constable Andy Prophet revealed the figures to Hertfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Jonathan Ash-Edwards during their monthly performance and accountability meeting.

The PCC said: "Stalking [is] a crime type that can be quite horrific in terms of the impact that it has on people's lives and confidence…in tackling violence against women and girls."

The PCC then asked the chief constable for the number of stalking cases recorded by Herts Constabulary over the last year and the outcomes.

Mr Prophet said: "Stalking is a really awful crime, where an individual will deliberately go out of their way to cause misery to another by stalking them, maybe physically or in the online space. It's a really serious matter and often tends to be connected with domestic abuse-type issues.

"In the 12 months to March this year, the constabulary recorded just over 3,000 stalking offences. That compared to the previous 12 months of just short of 2,700 stalking offences. So, we saw an increase of about 10% over the last 12 months.

"They are difficult offences to investigate very often, and sadly, we are not solving as many of them as I would like. In the last 12 months, we have successfully solved 256 cases, which is just short of 10%.

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"We clearly have work to do and a very clear ambition to do better than that. If you take the last three months of data, we've started to do marginally better, but it is marginally better – solving 11.5% [of cases].

"There's a really clear focus for the constabulary and my teams to work really hard to get better at investigating and solving this horrible crime."

The PCC pointed to the year-on-year increase and mentioned that stalking was previously identified as an under-recorded crime in Hertfordshire by watchdog HMICFRS.

Mr Ash-Edwards asked: "Is that 10% increase primarily linked in your view to improved recording rather than increased crime, and are you satisfied the historic under-recording of stalking offences has now been properly resolved?"

The chief constable responded: "Yes, that is my insight and my assumption. The constabulary put a huge amount of effort into getting our recording practices right, as we've talked about on a number of previous occasions.

"Right from the very initial contact we have, our systems prompt our officers and staff with the right information to identify the right offences and get the right crimes recorded. We've trained significantly and extensively specialist teams of officers and staff to get the recording and risk assessments right.

"We track and monitor the rate at which we record stalking and harassment cases really carefully. We are seeing that year-on-year increase, which we believe is because we are getting it right.

"I think we possibly are also building confidence around it in terms of victims having the confidence to report things because they're getting a better service when they do contact us, and we oversee this on a monthly basis to make sure that we aren't slipping back in that focus."

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The PCC asked about how the quality and timings of stalking investigations were assessed.

The chief constable said: "Because it is such an important crime… because of the impact being stalked has on people, every single month we dip sample stalking investigations and we look at the quality – have we got the facts recorded?

"Is the investigation progressing with the right lines of inquiry? Have we got the right interventions of safeguarding, support and advice around the victim? Have we arrested the offender? With this evidence, are we going to arrest the offender?

"So that is what we look at meticulously on a dip sample basis, month on month. With any shortcomings, are they corrected? And [the dip sample cases] are taken to two oversight boards in the organisation, one chaired by my assistant chief constable, who leads crime fighting – the 'solving crime' board…and that is ultimately overseen by my deputy chief constable at the force's monthly performance board. So clear dip sampling and learning processing."