FOR stalking victim Perry Southall, her terrifying ordeal ended in justice. The convicted rapist who subjected her to 200 incidents in just eight months was found guilty of actual bodily harm and common assault - although he never laid a finger on the dental nurse.

Though this paradoxical conclusion by the jury amounts to common sense, the outcome is not good enough.

For stalking victims who look to the law for protection find themselves in a lottery - and, as Miss Southall discovered, open to a quite harrowing ordeal in the witness box.

The latter prospect might not be easily got over - when defence lawyers have a duty to do their utmost to protect their client, even though, as in this case, that client might have a terrible background. Such hazards that women face in going to court in stalking cases, should be removed. Often cases are based on charges that are only tenuously related to the actual behaviour of which they have allegedly been the victims.

This absurd vagueness has been highlighted in the past by the reluctance of the authorities to prosecute at all and by alleged offenders getting off "bodily harm" charges on the technicality that none was done.

This was clearly recognised by the judge in this latest case when he called for swift changes in the law to make stalking a criminal offence.

The exasperating truth is that just such a law was drafted and prepared months ago - by East Lancashire Labour MP Janet Anderson. Yet, in what looked like petty politicking, her Bill was blocked by the Tory government.

True, like Labour, the Conservatives have pledged to make stalking a criminal offence. But we may have to wait at least for the next session of Parliament for a Bill to be introduced and the looming general election could wreck that timetable.

Meantime, the legal lottery for stalking victims continues when it could and should have been ended long ago.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.