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CRIMINAL LAW, EVIDENCE AND PROCEDURE - HARASSMENT – COURSE OF CONDUCT – EVIDENCE BEFORE COURT OF TWO INCIDENTS FOUR MONTHS APART – WHETHER INCIDENTS CONSTITUTING A COURSE OF CONDUCT – PROTECTION FROM HARASSMENT ACT 1997, S 2.
The appellant and the victim were boyfriend and girlfriend. In November 1998, the appellant went to the victim’s home address and slapped her across the face. In March 1999, the victim formed a relationship with another man. On 19 March the appellant arrived at the victim’s house and, in her presence, threatened her new boyfriend who phoned the police.
The appellant was arrested and charged with an offence of pursuing a course of conduct which amounted to harassment and which he knew or ought to have known amounted to harassment contrary to s 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The magistrate was of the opinion that there had been a course of conduct and convicted the appellant. The appellant appealed by way of case stated.
Held The appeal would be allowed.
Although it was accepted that for the purposes of the 1997 Act the incidents which had to be proved did not need to exceed two, the fewer the occasions and the wider they were spread the less likely it would be that a finding of harassment could reasonably be made. It was possible to conceive of circumstances where incidents as far apart as one year could constitute a course of conduct, such as a threat to do something on a person’s birthday, but the broad proposition had to be that if there were only two incidents it would be necessary to consider whether those incidents could be described as a course of conduct.
In the instant case, the magistrate had erred, the evidence before him did not reveal sufficient material to enable him to conclude that there had been a course of conduct since on the first occasion the violence had been directed at the victim whereas in the second it was the victim’s boyfriend who had been threatened.
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