A new study on stalking is expected to reveal that more people suffer from it than has ever been acknowledged. Barry Nelson asks what's being done to combat the problem.

THE devastating effects of stalking on victims' lives are to be examined in a major new study. Celebrity victims like Madonna and Steven Spielberg are just the tip of the iceberg, say experts, with some 900,000 adults in Britain stalked every year. Stalking behaviour can lead to assault, rape and even murder - and lasting psychological damage for survivors can include panic attacks and nervous breakdowns.

Despite this human cost, researchers behind the new study say many still fail to recognise the gravity of the crime and victims are too often left to suffer in silence. The research team, comprising experts from Leicester University and the charity Network for Surviving Stalking (NSS), aims to record victims' first-hand experiences. With the help of an online questionnaire, the team will ask for their views on the police's handling of their case, media reporting of the crime and how they could have been better protected in the first place. The findings will be published to coincide with Stalking Awareness Month, in January 2005.

Stalking expert Dr Lorraine Sheridan, a lecturer at Leicester University's School of Psychology, has been researching the issue for seven years.

She says: ''The work we have carried out over the last seven years has told us that normal people, not celebrities, are the vast majority of stalking victims. We also know that anyone can become the victim of a stalker, and that individual stalkers will have very different motives.

"What we want to do now is to examine for the first time the far-reaching effects that stalking has, not only on its victims, but also on numerous third parties. The physical, emotional and financial costs will be measured, and a 'roadmap' of the course and nature of stalking will be produced." Victims are being asked to log on to a website, www.stalkingsurvey.com, and fill out a questionnaire.

NSS director Tracey Morgan says: ''The results of this research are going to be crucial to the way stalking is dealt with and the way victims are treated. We cannot do this without the help of victims of stalking.

''We need to know how they feel about the stalking, the criminal justice system and how it is affecting those around them. The more people who complete this questionnaire, the better chance we have of making a real difference in the future.''

Dr Rajesh Nadkarni, a Teesside consultant psychiatrist, who set up the UK's first stalking consultation service three years ago, welcomes the initiative. Dr Nadkarni, who is forensic psychiatrist at the Hutton Centre, a medium secure unit at St Luke's Hospital in Middlesbrough, focuses on the stalker rather than the victim. Apart from training health workers, police and social services on how to deal with stalkers, Dr Nadkarni tries to "cure" stalkers before they seriously offend.

"Most stalkers are people who have difficulty in maintaining and establishing good human relationships," the psychiatrist says. "There are two broad groups - those who have difficulty dealing with rejection and those who get so fixated on the victims that they become central to their lives." Unless stalkers can be controlled by treatment they must be monitored or dealt with through the courts, he adds.