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• Harassment motivated by race or religion: -
• Some types of anti-social behaviour: -
• Some forms of protest.
The Act gives both criminal and civil remedies such as two different criminal
offences: -
• Pursuing a course of conduct amounting to harassment: -
• A more serious offence where the conduct puts the victim in fear of violence.
Harassing any person(s) includes any of the following: -
• Alarming a person(s) or: -
• Causing a person(s) distress.
The key element to be contained within an incident is a negative “course of
conduct”, which can include speech, should normally involve conduct on at least
two occasions, although there are exceptions to this.
In addition to the criminal offences, a civil court can impose civil injunctions in
harassment cases as well as awarding damages to the victim for the harassment.
Section 1 of the 1997 Act states: - that a person must not pursue a course of
conduct which “amounts to harassment of another” and which “he knows or
ought to know” amounts to such harassment. Such conduct should lead to a
criminal penalty (under section 2).
Section 7(2) of the Harassment Act 1997 states, that, “harassing a person
includes alarming the person or causing the person distress”. A “course of
conduct” is defined in section 7(3) creating an understanding that conduct should
be made on at least two occasions.
The definition of a “course of conduct”
Is defined in section 7 of the 1997 harassment Act and makes it clear that the Act
protects an individual from collective harassment by two or more people.
The Act provides three possible defences to a charge or allegation of harassment.
Where harassment has been proved, the defendant would have to show one of the
following: -
1. That the conduct was for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime: -
2. It was pursued under an enactment or rule of law; or: -
3. In the particular circumstances the conduct was reasonable; it is for the courts
to decide whether the conduct was in fact reasonable in the circumstances.
Section 2 of the 1997 Act states the following: -
“A person who pursues a course of conduct that is in breach of section 1 is guilty
of an offence”.
The offence is subject to a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, or a
fine of up to £5,000, or both, and is arrestable. Conduct includes Speech relating
towards verbal harassment.
There are three elements of the offence:
459,
(i) There must be a “course of conduct”, not just a single act
(ii) It has to amount to harassment.
(iii) The person must know, or ought to know, that the conduct amounts to
harassment.
For the last point, section 1(2) makes it clear that the person should know that the
conduct amounts to harassment “if a reasonable person(s) in possession of the
same information” would think that it did as well.
Harassment Civil Provisions Section 3 of the 1997 Act: -