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Criminal law – Harassment – Course of conduct – Evidence before court of several incidents – Whether incidents constituting a course of conduct – Protection from Harassment Act 1997, ss 1, 2.
Notes
This case shows the kinds of activity that the courts will allow as constituting "harassment". Although in this case the defendant gave the victim a gift and delivered her a letter , it was ruled that these did not in themselves amount to harassment as they were not repeated and were not abusive.
The police had also discovered when they visited the defendant's home that he had been making videos of the victim and it was ruled that making repeated video films of the victim did amount to harassment. This seems to be an odd ruling, for unless the victim knew that she was being filmed, it is hard to see how she was caused harssment by it. Unfortunately we do not at present have the full transcript of the case to ascertain this.
This case demonstrates the often subjective nature of harssment judges - another High Court judge may well have reached a different conclusion.
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