The 28th of July marked 33 years since Suzy Lamplugh’s disappearance. At 12:40 on Monday 28th July 1986, Suzy left her office for an appointment with a ‘Mr Kipper’ and never returned. It was over 6 hours before anyone realised that she had not returned and reported her missing. To this day, no one knows what happened to Suzy.
We ran a social media campaign on Monday, the 29th (33 years to that day) to remind people of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s work to help people to Live Life Safe. We provided information about our history, posted videos, shared information about the work we do including the National Stalking Helpline and how we support victims through this service. We shared statistics and news on personal safety and stalking awareness, including tips on how to stay safe.
Appointment BookSome of our corporate clients joined us to promote awareness on this anniversary, including Savills, FareShare, Octavia Foundation, Greenfields Housing Association, Belfast & Lisburn Women’s Aid, along with not-for-profit news platform Charity Today who posted about the importance of our work over the past 33 years. Across all the main social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram – Suzy Lamplugh Trust posted messages designed to remind as many people as possible about personal safety in all aspects of life.
Our initial post on the day has had over 52,000 impressions alone on Twitter, and on Facebook, the reach was over 15,000. Throughout the day, our messages were shared, retweeted, and commented on from policymakers, government departments and survivors, amongst others.
Our vision remains the same today as it was 33 years ago: a society in which people are safer – and feel safer – from violence and aggression. We continue to deliver personal safety training and run awareness campaigns, and in 2018 alone, we trained over 4,000 delegates on personal safety. So far, in 2019 we have trained over 2,000 delegates. We advise on practical tips to Live Life Safe, personally as well as professionally. This includes using a ‘buddy’ or tracing system, which is being increasingly implemented by organisations to ensure that someone in the office knows where their colleague is during external appointments.
Elsewhere, Suzy Lamplugh Trust continues to provide support to victims, as an authority on stalking. We do this through the National Stalking Helpline which has given advice and support to over 30,000 victims of stalking since its inception in 2010, and long-term advocacy support to over 300 victims. We work tirelessly to make effective changes in UK law and policy, including lobbying for the introduction of the 2019 Stalking Protection Act, with Stalking Protection Orders (SPO) for victims. Suzy Lamplugh Trust has also been working with the UK government to implement national legislative standards for taxi and minicab drivers.
We want everyone to be, and feel safer, and prevent what happened to Suzy being experienced by anyone else.