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Criminal law – Harassment – Course of conduct – Justices finding complainant only caused harassment alarm and distress on one occasion – Whether necessary to find complainant suffering harassment alarm and distress – Protection from Harassment Act 1997, ss 2, 7.
R and the complainant, S, met in late 1997 because their children attended the same school. They became friends. R said that he loved S and began to send her sexually explicit letters. He also took photographs of her at school events. S told him that she was not interested in him. On 25 June 1999, R entered S’s house through the bathroom window.
R was charged as follows ‘Between 1 January 1998 and 1 July 1999 … pursued a course of conduct which amounted to harassment of [S] and which you knew, or ought to have known, amounted to harassment of her in that you took photographs without permission … you sent and delivered by hand three letters … the later two containing matters of a sexual nature. You attended her house on 25 June 1999 and entered her home address without authority where you were confronted by [S] which caused her to be very distressed, contrary to s 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Section 7 of the 1977 Act provided that: ‘References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress’.
The justices found that there was only one occasion when S was caused significant harassment, alarm and distress and that was when R had broken into her house. They were of the opinion that the other incidents were either condoned or encouraged by S, or not rebuffed by her. They accordingly acquitted R on the basis that there were no two occasions of harassment such as could constitute a course of conduct for the purposes of the Act. The prosecution appealed by way of case stated.
The appeal would be dismissed.
The words harassment, alarm and distress in s 7 had to be taken disjunctively. A court only had to be satisfied that one of those feelings had been caused to the complainant for the offence under s 2 to be made out. In the instant case, although the justices had been incorrect to take the words ‘harassment, alarm and distress’ conjunctively, they had properly concluded that there was no course of conduct proved since the only occasion on which S had been caused distress was when R had entered her house.
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