Abusive family member found my address.

sheramber

HampshireH said:

sammyjammy said:

Send it back not known at this address!

Great idea, but if a personal letter unlikely to ever get back to them as most people don't put return addresses on envelopes.

But they have put their address on the letter. 

Score through the address on the envelope and mark it not known at this address, write return to sender and put  the return  address on the envelope, seal, and put back in post box.

Mojisola

If you are concerned that they may turn up, look up your local area police neighbourhood team and make them aware of the problem.

If you do have cause to call them and your concerns are already logged, they will be better prepared.

Shelldean

HampshireH said:

sammyjammy said:

Send it back not known at this address!

Great idea, but if a personal letter unlikely to ever get back to them as most people don't put return addresses on envelopes.

I sent a cousin a letter and I included my address inside.
When he didn't collect it  ( not sure why it ended up at delivery office)
They opened it and then I got it back!

So maybe they've included their address as is customary when letter writing.
So of its returned to sender, they may well open it in a sorting office and return it?

pinkshoes

Runea said:

Hello,

I was very upset today to receive a letter from an abusive family member who I cut contact with years ago.  It's too late to do anything now, but my first question is, how did they find my address?  I have had other family members visit me, but that was more than a year ago, plus I picked them up and took them back to a train station ten miles away, I don't think they knew the actual address. I do have a mortgage on the place I live, but looking at the land registry, you can only search by address / post code / area, rather than by the actual owner?  I've since moved to another part of the country since cutting contact, so it's not a case of looking up the area where I lived when I did have contact with the family member.  

If they had a mobile phone then most have apps that log your location, so it wouldn't be difficult to find the address. Google Maps will then help you work out the house number.

Was it a nasty letter? It might be worth writing back saying that you do not wish to be contacted and any further contact will be deemed harassment and reported to the police.

pollypenny

Where does this family member work?  I was surprised to receive a phone call from a sixth former on one occasion, so asked her how she'd got my number.   Her mother worked in County Hall and had access to the details of all council staff. 

I probably should have reported her. 

Jude57

pollypenny said:

Where does this family member work?  I was surprised to receive a phone call from a sixth former on one occasion, so asked her how she'd got my number.   Her mother worked in County Hall and had access to the details of all council staff. 

I probably should have reported her. 

You absolutely should have. Anyone who works with personal data (even before GDPR) has a duty to only use that data for legitimate reasons and there are severe penalties for anyone who uses it for other reasons. For example, any police officer or civilian member of staff looking up their estranged family or noisy neighbours on police systems would be subject to disciplinary action, no matter what excuse they come up with. These days it's even more strictly enforced and rightly so. Plus, every time a computerised record is accessed, the user ID accessing it is recorded so it's very hard to argue that it wasn't you who did the search.

I'd hope that, if the OP's relative works anywhere in the Public sector, the OP reports their suspicion that their personal data has been used other than as authorised. Anything that happens to the relative subsequent to that is not OP's business or responsibility.

I spent my working life dealing with confidential information, from long before Data Protection was a thing but the consequences of misusing that information were very clearly spelled out and equally clearly understood by all concerned.

MrsStepford

Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (legislation.gov.uk)

I think after three Harassment incidences you can get police to basically tell someone to cease and desist.