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Director Of Public Prosecutions v Ramsdale
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION (DIVISIONAL COURT)
[2001] EWHC Admin 106, CO/1229/2000, (Transcript: Smith Bernal)
HEARING-DATES: 12 FEBRUARY 2001
12 FEBRUARY 2001

INTRODUCTION:
ROSE LJ:

[1] Mr Justice Penry-Davey will give the first judgment.

COUNSEL:
S Reed for the Claimant; R Crane for the Defendant

PANEL: ROSE LJ, PENRY-DAVEY J

JUDGMENTBY-1: PENRY-DAVEY J
JUDGMENT-1:
PENRY-DAVEY J:

[2] This is an appeal by way of case stated against the decision of the Lincoln Justices on 8 November 1999 acquitting the respondent of an offence of harassment contrary to s 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The charge was in the following words:
"Between 1st of January 1998 and 1st of July 1999 at Lincoln in the County of Lincolnshire pursued a course of conduct which amounted to the harassment of Lorraine Samways and which you knew, or ought to have known, amounted to the harassment of her in that you took photographs without permission of Lorraine Samways, you sent her and delivered by hand three letters on the following dates: 4 November 1998, 16 November 1998 and 30 November 1998, the later two containing matters of a sexual nature. You attended her house on 25 June 1999 and entered her home address without authority through an insecure bathroom window where you were confronted by Lorraine Samways which caused her to be very distressed, contrary to Section 2(1) and (2) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997."

[3] Section 1 of the Act provides as follows:
"1(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct:
(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and
(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.
(2) For the purposes of this section, the person whose course of conduct is in question ought to know that it amounts to harassment of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other."

[4] Section 2 recreates the offence of harassment and s 7 reads relevantly as follows:
"7. (1) This section applies for the interpretation of ss 1 to 5.
(2) References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress.
(3) A 'course of conduct' must involve conduct on at least two occasions."

[5] The case stated contains what is described as a short statement of the evidence which runs to about 16 close-typed pages. The witnesses called for the Crown were the claimant, her husband, two women friends of the claimant who had witnessed some of the events relied on and two police officers who arrested and interviewed the respondent. He gave evidence in his own defence.

[6] The evidence disclosed that the complainant and the respondent had met in late 1997 as a result of their children attending the same school. On Valentine's day 1998 the claimant received a card and a red rose from the respondent. She and a friend sent him a card. Shortly after she agreed to meet him at Asda. He told her that he loved her. She said she was flattered but not interested. Between February and July 1998 he asked her for a photograph and she refused. He took a photograph of her in Asda while she was shopping with her son. She said that she felt embarrassed and was angry that the photographs had been taken against her will. The respondent agreed in evidence that she had looked apprehensive and that she appeared to want it over quickly.

[7] In July 1998 he took photographs and a video of her at a school gala. She told him to go away and stop following her. She felt "silly and stupid", not threatened. The respondent said that the photographs were not objected to and the claimant chose one which he kept in his wallet.

[8] In November 1998 he sent her three letters which were produced in evidence, part of whose contents was explicitly sexual. She said she was shocked by the first letter; the second made her feel cold, disgusted and sick; and the third made her distressed upset and partly angry.

[9] In January 1999 the respondent claimed that the complainant had telephoned him on his mobile telephone for 20 minutes asking to come and stay with him. He had phoned her back and they had spoken for over an hour. His telephone bill showed a call from him to her, but no recorded call to his number.

[10] On 14 February 1999 he sent her a Valentine's card and put a poem on the windscreen of her car. She told him she was not happy with him following her and sending cards. About this time she told a friend what was happening and showed her the letters. The complainant appeared to the friend agitated and concerned.

[11] Finally, on 25 June 1999 the complainant saw the respondent in a car when she was returning from school. When she returned home he arrived, rang the bell a few times, knocked on the door and rang her on his mobile. She pretended to be out. Later he returned and repeatedly rang the doorbell. He climbed the high fence and broke into the house via the bathroom. She persuaded him to leave. He returned 15 minutes later, came to the door again and tried to phone her. She rang a friend who found her crying, shaking and on the verge of hysterics. The friend answered the call from the respondent who apologised but persisted in asking to speak to the complainant.

[12] When the defendant was interviewed at length he said that she had invited him around in January 1999 for 45 minutes and that had ended with a cuddle. On the Saturday before 25 June she had visited his house downloading items from the internet. He accepted that she told him straight in November that she had had enough and that she had finished the relationship in February 1999. He honestly believed up to November 1998 that she was interested in him. In November he had gone too far. After Valentine's day 1999 she had said she would do him for sexual harassment. He tried again to see if she was willing.

[13] The justices found the following facts:
"a There was only one occasion when Lorraine Samways was caused significant harassment, alarm and distress when Stephen Ramsdale entered her house through the bathroom window.
b We found that the other incidents of 'a course of conduct alleged to constitute an offence' were either condoned or encouraged by Lorraine Samways, or not rebuffed by her.
c As a consequence we did not find two occasions to constitute the alleged offence."

[14] The questions for this court are whether the decision of the Justices was perverse and secondly, given the conduct admitted by the respondent over a period of 18 months, whether the justices properly directed themselves in law as to what constituted a course of conduct.

[15] There was some reliance on the taking of the photographs and that appeared, as I indicated, in the charge. That Miss Reed abandons, but she does rely on the sending of the three letters in November and the events of 25 June 1999 when the respondent attended the complainant's address on a number of occasions and forcibly entered through the bathroom window.

[16] The definition of harassment in s 7 is relied on as inclusive not exhaustive. That, in my judgment, is plainly right and it is submitted that it includes negative emotion by repeated molestation, for example, annoyance or worry. It is submitted that the test the Justices applied was wrong and further that the events of 25 June 1999 amounted, in themselves, to more than one occasion of harassment so as to amount in any event to "a course of conduct."

[17] The respondent submits that the Justices in stating that there was only one occasion when the complainant was caused significant harassment, alarm and distress were merely reflecting that there must be a minimal level or degree of alarm or distress suffered by the victim before it amounts to harassment within the meaning of the Act.

[18] The respondent points out that in relation to events, other than those on 25 June, the Justices found that the other incidents were either condoned or encouraged by the complainant or not rebuffed by her. There was, submits the respondent, clear evidence of a friendship between the claimant and the respondent which included the Valentine card sent by her; her acceptance in evidence that the respondent would ring her frequently and the calls would last up to half an hour, with their speaking two to three times a week; her admission that she confided in the respondent with some of her problems and that they got on well as friends; and that after receiving the first two letters the complainant had telephoned the respondent on a friendly basis. She had agreed that she got on well with the respondent as a friend and his evidence was that she had visited him on the Saturday prior to 25 June at his house. The respondent submits, in relation to 25 June, that the Justices properly considered the events on that day as one incident.

[19] In my judgment it is clear from the review of the evidence in this case that there were substantial issues of fact and credibility which the Justices had to resolve. It is clear that they had regard to s 7(2) of the Act in coming to their conclusion that there was only one occasion, namely 25 June 1999, when the complainant was caused "significant harassment, alarm and distress", and in so stating, in my judgment, they were saying nothing more than that there had to be a minimum level of alarm or distress suffered to constitute harassment under the Act.

[20] It appears that they took the words "alarm and distress" conjunctively. If so, in my judgment, they were clearly wrong in so doing and should have taken them, as is clear from the wording of s 7(2), disjunctively. They only had to be satisfied of one or the other, but it is equally clear, in my judgment, that had they not made that error they would still have concluded, in the light of their conclusions of fact, that the offence was not made out.

[21] Equally, in my judgment, they were properly entitled to conclude on the evidence that the events of 25 June 1999, and more particularly the entry into the house, constituted conduct on one occasion and thus to conclude by reason of s 7(3) that the offence was not made out.

[22] The issues raised by the appellant are issues, essentially, of credibility on the evidence which were for the Justices to resolve; they did resolve them. In my judgment, apart from the one matter I have mentioned which would have made no difference, their approach discloses no error in law. Accordingly, I would dismiss this appeal.

JUDGMENTBY-2: ROSE LJ
JUDGMENT-2:

ROSE LJ: [23] It is understandable in this case that the complainant is upset that the Justices did not reach a conclusion different from that which they did reach. It is possible that other justices might have reached a different conclusion. The crucial question in relation to this appeal, however, is whether it can be said that these Justices reached a conclusion which was perverse in that it was not one which it was not open to them to reach. In my judgment that cannot be said.

[24] On the evidence which is very fully set out in the case stated, depending on the view which the Justices took in relation to credibility as it effected various aspects of this case, it was open to the Justices to make the findings which they did, as set out in para 3(a) and (b) of the case, and as recited by my Lord. There was, as it seems to me, no material misdirection by the Justices as to the law which they should apply and it follows that for the reasons given by my Lord this appeal must be dismissed.

DISPOSITION:
Appeal dismissed.
SOLICITORS:
CPS Lincoln Branch, Lincoln; Burton & Co, Lincoln