THE head of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust has called for stalking to be taken more seriously, as the charity is still doing the same safety work 40 years after it was founded.

Ms Lamplugh’s parents set up the trust after their daughter went missing from her job as an estate agent in Fulham, west London, in 1986.

The Met Police believe a stalker may have targeted Ms Lamplugh after her employers made her sit in the window because she was considered attractive.

There are an estimated 1.5 million stalking victims in Britain, with around 40 per cent of cases reported to the National Stalking Helpline involving friends, colleagues or strangers rather than partners.

The trust’s interim chief executive Emma Lingley-Clark called it “a really sad fact” that the charity is still doing the same safety work 40 years on from its founding, saying: “From our perspective, it’s about making sure that every victim is taken seriously when they do report.

“We would like to see more people come forward, we would like more support, so ideally, we would like everybody to have access to a specialist stalking advocate.

“Often, they can access support, but it’s not somebody who actually understands stalking, understands the dynamic nature of the risk and how it changes.

“And I think more generally we would like to just have society believe that stalking is wrong.

“I think in some instances we’re still seeing quite a lot of jokes made about stalking and really not reflecting the serious nature of it and how actually it has such a big impact on victims.”

Detective Superintendent Ian Martin said stalking has changed dramatically due to technology, with victims now “tracked through online fitness apps, through social media and through a number of methodologies that weren’t even in existence back then.”