Voluntary interview for harassment

Harassment cases can be challenging. That’s because harassing conduct can take almost any form.

Harassment allegations often involve one party accusing another of repeatedly bothering them. This can be through phone calls, emails, texts, tweets, or in person.

It’s important to know that harassment doesn’t have to be the same thing happening over and over again. Different actions can still count as harassment if they add up and happen more than once. 

If  you are accused of harassment, you can defend yourself by showing that your actions were reasonable (presuming they were). This means that your behaviour was understandable and not excessive.

The offence of Harassment

If you pursue a course of conduct which amounts to harassment, and which you know or ought to know amounts to harassment, you may have committed an offence under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

If you can show that in the particular circumstances your conduct was reasonable, you will not have committed an offence.

What is Harassment?

Harassment is not legally defined, but it includes alarming a person or causing them distress (s.7 Protection from Harassment Act 1997).

Harassment describes conduct targeted at an individual which is calculated to alarm a person or cause them distress, and which is oppressive and unreasonable (Thomas v News Group Newspapers Ltd 2001).

In the Court of Appeal case of R v Haque (2011) it was said:

“..the conduct must be calculated to produce the consequences described in section 7 (alarming the person or causing the person distress). Conduct would, it seems to us, to be calculated to produce the consequences described in section 7 if the defendant intended to alarm the complainant or cause him distress (or, perhaps, was reckless as to the consequences)..”

The fact that harassment is not legally legally defined leaves the court with a considerable amount of discretion when deciding whether any particular conduct is harassment or not.

Although harassment includes causing a person alarm or distress, it doesn’t mean that every time a person is caused alarm or distress, that will be harassment.

In the Court of Appeal case of R v Curtis 2010, it was said:

“To harass as defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Tenth Edition, is to “torment by subjecting to constant interference or intimidation”. The conduct must be unacceptable to a degree which would sustain criminal liability and also must be oppressive.”

Thomas v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2001]

In Thomas v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2001] the judgment stated:

“Section 7 of the 1997 Act does not purport to provide a comprehensive definition of harassment. There are many actions that foreseeably alarm or cause a person distress that could not possibly be described as harassment…The Act does not attempt to define the type of conduct that is capable of constituting harassment. “Harassment” is, however, a word which has a meaning which is generally understood. It describes conduct targeted at an individual which is calculated to produce the consequences described in s.7 (alarming the person or causing them distress) and which is oppressive and unreasonable. The practice of stalking is a prime example of such conduct.”

Majrowski v Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust [2007]

In Majrowski v Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust [2007] it was said:

“…courts will have in mind that irritations, annoyances, even a measure of upset, arise at times in everybody’s day-today dealings with other people. Courts are well able to recognise the boundary between conduct which is unattractive, even unreasonable, and conduct which is oppressive and unacceptable. To cross the boundary from the regrettable to the unacceptable the gravity of the misconduct must be of an order which would sustained criminal liability under section 2.”

To be found guilty of harassment, the course of conduct complained about must be grave ( Ferguson v British Gas Trading LTD 2009).

The course of conduct must amount to harassment

To have committed an offence, your course of conduct must amount to harassment. There must be at least two incidents for there to be a course of conduct.

If the allegation against you refers to a single incident, this will not amount to harassment.

The fewer the incidents, and longer apart they are, the less likely it is they will amount to a course of conduct.

R v Curtis [2010] ECWA

In the case of Curtis referred to above, the judge stated:

“Assessment of a defendant’s conduct for the purposes of section 1 involves, of course, consideration of whether the conduct can be described as a course of conduct but that course of conduct must be conduct amounting to harassment, as so defined.

The two limbs are inter-related in that an analysis of the course of conduct, including the frequency of acts, may well throw light on whether it amounts to harassment.

In the present case, the jury would have been entitled, if they saw fit, to conclude that, over the course of the relationship, the appellant’s conduct was deplorable and worse than that of Donna. The incidents were far from trivial and significant force was on occasion used. However, we cannot conclude that, in this volatile relationship, the six incidents over a nine month period amounted to a course of conduct amounting to harassment within the meaning of the statute.

The spontaneous outbursts of ill-temper and bad behaviour, with aggression on both sides, which are the hallmarks of the present case, interspersed as those outbursts were with considerable periods of affectionate life, cannot be described as such a course of conduct.

We do not exclude the possibility that harassment in section 1 may include harassment of a co-habitee but the appellant’s conduct in this case could not properly be categorised as a course of conduct amounting to harassment within the meaning of the Act.”

Read the judgement here >

R v Hills (2001)

R v Hills (2001) was a case which involved two incidents six months apart between partners who lived together. The judge commented:

“It is to be borne in mind that the state of affairs which was relied upon by the prosecution was miles away from the “stalking” type of offence for which the Act was intended. That is not to say that it is never appropriate so to charge a person who is making a nuisance of himself to his partner or wife when they have become estranged. However, in a situation such as this, when they were frequently coming back together and intercourse was taking place (apparently a video was taken of them having intercourse) it is unrealistic to think that this fell within the stalking category which either postulates a stranger or an estranged spouse…”

You knew or ought to have known your actions amount to harassment

The prosecution must prove that you knew the course of conduct amounted to harassment. You will be presumed to have known this if a reasonable person would think the course of conduct would amount to harassment.

Legal advice for allegations of harassment

When it comes to these kinds of allegations, it’s important to thoroughly analyse everything. That means looking at the nature of the events, the reasons behind them, and the history of the relationship between the people involved.