Worry over too few schools signing up to hear story of murdered Alice Ruggles

City leaders are concerned about the shortage of schools in Newcastle signing up for assemblies run by the Alice Ruggles Trust, set up in memory of the 24-year-old who was murdered by her former partner

Schools across Newcastle have been urged to take up a stalking prevention programme run by the Alice Ruggles Trust. Alice, aged 24 at the time, was murdered by her former partner in 2016. Her obsessive ex, former soldier Trimaan Dhillon, had launched a campaign of stalking and harassment after their brief relationship ended, before cutting Alice’s throat at her home in Gateshead.

The trust set up in her name by parents Clive Ruggles and Sue Hills now delivers free assemblies to schoolchildren across the North East, aimed at preventing another tragedy. The talks share Alice’s devastating story in order to give young people the knowledge they need to recognise the signs of stalking, seek support, or help a friend or family member who they think is at risk.

While the programme has reached more than 3,000 youngsters so far, concerns have been raised that too few schools in Newcastle are taking up the offer. In the past year, only three schools in Newcastle have signed up for an assembly – Walker Riverside Academy, the Royal Grammar School, and Sacred Heart Catholic School.

Members of the Safe Newcastle Board, the city’s community safety partnership, described the lack of takeup in the city as worrying – particularly given the case of murdered Northumberland teenager Holly Newton, who was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in Hexham in 2023. Sue told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the trust’s assemblies, which are funded through the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, can be vital to helping both young victims of stalking and reaching potential perpetrators.

She said: “The biggest problem is that young people have not got any experience of how to deal with rejection. I am talking about the people who do the stalking. They do not really have anybody telling them that is not the right thing to do and they are getting themselves into a situation where they are totally obsessed without realising that is where they are going. It is super important to reach those potential perpetrators before they get to that stage.

“And for the victims, it is so difficult. If you think about the things that a young person does if they fancy someone and want to go out with them, they do all of the things that sound like stalking – they hang around where the person is, they take opportunities to know them. It can be really difficult to distinguish between that and stalking, between what is acceptable and what is not. So it is really important that they have those discussions in class about what is acceptable.”

Helen Sammut-Smith, Newcastle City Council’s assistant director of housing services, told the Safe Newcastle Board in March that she would “expect a school to jump on having that training as an assembly every year”. She added: “If not, maybe it is a lack of understanding of how important that is.”

Steven Hume, of the Northumbria Violence Reduction Unit, admitted that bosses had not “got it right” in terms of engaging with schools and need to “package the offer in a different way”.