Has Conn made harassment a high-threshold offence? ask Tim Lawson-Cruttenden and Catherine Atkinson
Many believe that the use of harassment law has expanded far beyond the intentions of Parliament. So has the recent case of v City Council ([2007] EWCA Civ 1492), [2007] All ER (D) 99 (Nov) stemmed that unwarranted expansion, or has it narrowed the definition of harassment so severely that protection is afforded to no one? The decision in may have successfully prevented claimants trying to use harassment law to pursue stress claims but is the decision limited to those cases or does it have ramifications for all harassment claims?
Parliament enacted the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (PHA 1997) to prevent behaviour that could not be remedied by the existing criminal law. Section 1(1) states that 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”. Breach of s 1 is a criminal offence (s 2) and an actual or apprehended breach
