Brighton student 'degraded and disgusted' by stalker asking for sex

A woman who was asked for sex by a stranger who pursued her in the street has said sexual harassment is an "everyday thing".

Reanna Burns, 25, said she was approached as she made the 10-minute walk home after finishing her shift at a Brighton nightclub on 5 November.

She said when she confronted him he "asked me for 'sex for £100?'"

The number of reported cases of stalking and harassment in Kent, Sussex and Surrey have increased year-on-year.

Ms Burns said: "I sort of got the vibe that a guy was following me for about five minutes. Then I was crossing the road and he was almost beckoning me over and calling me 'gorgeous'.

"I stopped, turned round and confronted him and for some reason in that moment I just felt like I should record it.

"Then he asked me 'sex for £100?'."

She posted the video of herself confronting the man on Instagram and TikTok, where it has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

She said: "I don't want to have kids anytime soon. If they are females they are going to have to grow up experiencing this every day. It's horrible, it's an everyday thing."

"I'm disgusted. It makes you feel so degraded.

"It makes you feel like people are staring at you, looking at you almost as an object that they could use."

Ms Burns, a University of Brighton student, did not report the incident to police because she feels sexual harassment is "not really taken seriously".

The number of recorded crimes of stalking and harassment has increased in parts of the South East, according to the latest crime statistics.

In Sussex, police recorded 12,848 incidents of stalking and harassment between July 2020 and June 2021, an increase of 18% over the previous year.

During the same period in Surrey there were 7,789 cases of stalking and harassment, an increase of 19% on the previous year.

In Kent there were 28,869 recorded crimes of the same nature, an increase of 42% on the previous year.

Kent Police said lockdown led to an increase in stalking and harassment.

Det Ch Supt Emma Banks said: "Certainly it's changed the type of offending that we've seen in terms of people offending online, being more abusive online.

"We've also seen victims that were targeted in their own homes because their routines have been more predictable.

"For us, it doesn't matter what the offence is, we'd encourage anyone to report it."

Kent Police also said the murder of Sarah Everard had led to more women reporting crimes to police.

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