Anti-stalking legal options

If the person stalking you is a partner, ex-partner, flatmate, family member, or anyone you have had a close personal relationship with, you can apply to the Family Court for a Protection Order, Property Order and Furniture Order. If you have children together, you can apply for a Parenting Order. Police can also issue a short-term Police Safety Order.

Protection Orders

• A protection order prohibits that person from contacting, following, threatening, or harming you.
• It can also protect your children or anyone else named in the order, and it can require the person to surrender any weapons to the police. (But note that if the child is under 16, and there is an existing parenting order in place, the Protection Order will not automatically be legally prioritised over the parenting order: the parenting order will still remain in force unless replaced, discharged or varied.)
• A Protection Order can be an important tool for safety, but its effectiveness depends on the person following the order and on police enforcing it. The family violence specialists (listed here) can help you think through these considerations before applying.
• If you need immediate protection, you can apply for a temporary (without-notice) Protection Order, which means the other person will not be told about it until it has been granted. Once the order becomes final, it stays in place indefinitely unless you choose to cancel it. However, the Family Court has become more cautious about granting temporary orders, which means the other person might sometimes be notified before it is approved and given the chance to respond — this can increase risk in the short term.
• If the judge decides your case is not urgent, or if you’ve filed a non-urgent Protection Order application, the Court will let you know that your application needs to be sent to the other person involved and that no temporary order has been made. Before it is sent, you’ll have a chance to stop your application if you want to — usually within 48 hours. To stop the application, you need to file what’s called an “interlocutory application”.
• You can also apply for property and/or or furniture orders at the same time as a Protection Order (and only then):
  • A Property Order allows you to stay in the place you live while the other person has to leave.
  • A Furniture Order allows you to keep furniture (e.g. bed, fridge) or take it with you, regardless of who owns it.
• If you have children, you can also apply for a Parenting Order – for example, only allowing your co-parent to have supervised contact with the children.
• See Protection Order pages at the Ministry of Justice; and Community Law.

Police Safety Orders (PSO)

• A Police Safety Order is issued by police for protection from family violence. You cannot apply for a PSO yourself, but police can put one in place on your behalf (this may be a reason for you to report stalking to the police).
• A PSO requires the person to leave your home, stay away, and not contact you for a set period of time (up to 10 days), even if they own or normally live in the property.
• If they breach the order, police can arrest them.
• This is a short-term measure designed to give you space and time to plan for your safety and connect with support services.
• See the PSO page at NZ Police; and Community Law.

See also our info on trespass notices, reporting to police, and legal options for online stalking.

It can be helpful to record every stalking episode in as much detail as possible, and record and save any evidence. These records can be useful if you seek a court order and even more so if you decide (now or later on) to report to police.

• Useful details may include: person targeting you (if you know who they are), date, time, place, exactly what your stalker did and how you responded.
• Save all available evidence: screenshots of texts or emails, copies of letters, diary notes, photos of unwanted items left for you, voicemails, approaches on dating apps, social media interactions etc. Also, record names of anyone who witnessed any of the stalking episodes, particularly if there is little other evidence. You can also ask any witnesses to write down what they saw and share it with you.
• Record each stalking episode separately, with as much detail about each one as you can, and put them in order, so you don’t leave out any information. If you haven’t done this when the stalking began, that’s ok – it’s worth recording stalking episodes at any stage.
• If you don’t know who the person stalking you is, even small details (like part of a car’s license plate or where the person was last seen or social media profile or dating app names or handles) may help police identify them.
• If you are worried that your stalker may hack into your device, think about safer ways to store your records and evidence, such as on your work device, on a friend’s or workmate’s device, or with the Bright Sky. This free app – developed in the UK and released in Aotearoa by the NZ government “Are You OK” programme and Te Rourou, One Aotearoa Foundation – has a secure journal feature that allows you to send evidence (photos, voice memos etc) to a safe email address, removing the need to store info on a device.

Back to the top.