Victim says actions of the Met and IPCC were more harmful than harassment

Richard Jan targeted about 200 victims. Photograph: PA

A social worker who was forced into hiding by a man dubbed Britain's most prolific stalker has spoken out for the first time over "appalling" failures of the Metropolitan police in investigating her harassment, followed by what she describes as an "incompetent" internal inquiry into its own conduct.

Shauna Bailey was stalked for more than six years by Richard Jan after a mental health assessment team, of which she was part, visited his west London home in 1996 at the request of his mother. The biochemist subsequently made numerous silent phone calls to the social worker, attacked and attempted to torch her car and twice assaulted her, once beating her face repeatedly with a brick. About 200 other victims were also targeted by Jan before he was arrested and charged in 2003.

Bailey was forced to flee her job and home in 2001, fearing for her life, and now lives under witness protection using a new identity. But, speaking at length for the first time since she was first stalked, Bailey told the Guardian that failures by the Met in investigating his crimes and, later, its own conduct, and by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which oversaw the internal police review, had been more harmful than Jan's violent harassment.

Speaking from a secret location, she said: "I am clear that … the actions of the police and the IPCC together have done me more harm psychologically than Richard Jan ever did."

She was speaking out, she said, because she thought "police forces need to learn to think about ... what happens to victims when they experience crime again and again and again". She had fled because, feeling unprotected by the authorities, the strain of waiting to be attacked and possibly killed was worse than the fear of death itself.

Jan was finally detained in February 2003, six and a half years after his ­harassment began, after a new chief inspector took charge of the investigation. He was jailed for life the following year, when Judge Henry Blacksell told Jan it defied belief "that you were allowed to do it for as long as you were".

The new chief inspector called Jan "undoubtedly Britain's worst stalker".

Solicitors for Bailey have written to the IPCC detailing what they describe as a "shocking" history of "inaction and incompetence" on the part of the Met, which they argue permitted Jan "to continue his terrifying campaign with apparent impunity".

The letter details a succession of alleged serious failings:

• Countless abusive or threatening phone calls – one victim received 393 calls – acts of criminal damage and physical assaults "were simply permitted to continue despite a clearly identified suspect".

• Officers "did not undertake even the most basic investigations" after Bailey's car was first attacked in 1998.

• Records from 1999 seen by Bailey state that despite multiple crime reports naming Jan, police said they did not "really know what we can do".

• No action was taken against Jan even after he ignored formal warnings about harassment, breached a restraining order and made specific threats about kidnapping a social worker just two days after he had assaulted Bailey.

• A property associated with Jan was not searched until 2003, when "a substantial body of incriminating evidence" was found.

• Fire-setting equipment found in Jan's car in 2002 was not linked to detritus from an arson attempt on Bailey's car the year before, despite her repeated complaints against him.

Her solicitors also outline what they say are serious institutional failures in the Met's internal review, after she made a formal complaint in 2003. They describe a "woefully inadequate" history of obfuscation and obstruction.

Among a catalogue of alleged failures are charges that the final report, which took three years to compile, did not investigate allegations against specific officers or examine the Met's "failure to marshall the … terrifying reports from several individuals".

Home Office guidance on policing cases of stalking, published in 2000, lists detailed steps that should be followed. Bailey believes the complaint investigating officer's approach was "highly selective".

Bailey's solicitors say the conduct of the IPCC in overseeing the Met's inquiry was so flawed as to be "complicit in the additional appalling distress" that she has suffered.

In August 2006 the IPCC declared itself happy with the Met's internal investigation and ruled that it should be closed. But in April 2008, Bailey says, she was told by the IPCC commissioner, David Petch, that the report should not have been signed off as satisfactory.

No officer has been disciplined in relation to Jan's case. Bailey says she was told by the IPCC that "in their view it was the system rather than individuals that had failed [her]".

In a statement, the IPCC said it had "inherited the case from the previous complaints system, and this meant our role and powers were severely restricted compared with how a similar case would be handled today".

It added: "However, even allowing for these constraints, we accept that in this case our overall response was not good enough. In a meeting with the complainant in May 2008 we apologised to her and we repeat that apology now."

Following the Police Reform Act 2002, it said, the IPCC "can independently investigate the most serious complaints", and now "operates with a positive duty to be as open as possible".

Bailey's solicitor said the IPCC did not apologise, other than for delay, until contacted by the Guardian.

The Metropolitan police said it could not comment in detail on Bailey's letter without reviewing it fully, but that it had conducted a "lengthy and comprehensive investigation" into the police handling of the case, "in accordance with the procedures and standards that existed at that time".

"While this investigation identified no misconduct matters against any individual officer, it did in fact highlight a number of areas of learning and made recommendations for improving practices, which have since been acted on."

Thirteen years after her ordeal began, Bailey speaks about it without self-pity. Having run out of legal options, her solicitors' letter asks merely for "an acknowledgment of reality" about the extent of IPCC and police failings.

"Throughout this, reality has been denied," she said. "Richard Jan said I was the problem, not him. And the police, in their initial investigation from 1996 until 2003, have not grasped or acted on the reality of his offences … And then the complaint investigation has [not acknowledged] the failures of the investigation up until 2003. And the IPCC has absolutely colluded with that. But I think an acknowledgment of ­reality is always helpful. It leaves us feeling sadder, but saner."