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The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was directed at the prevention of stalking, anti-social behaviour by neighbours and racial harassment.
Notes
In this case the two claimants brought a civil injunction under Section 5 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 against Microsoft Corpopration. They alleged that the defendants had harassed them by, amongst other things, conducting oppressive litigation against them and suborning the police in to raiding their homes.
The judge ruled that this was not the kind of behaviour which the 1997 act had sought to prevent and struck the case out.
This case is useful for protestors when arguing that the act has been wrongly used to stifle legitimate protest activity, as this was also not the Parliamentiary intention when passing the legislation. However, more recent decisions have upheld the right of the courts to use the act against protestors when their activity is deemed to be unreasonable eg HLS v SHAC, Daiichi v SHAC.
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