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Protection from Harassment Act 1997
1997 CHAPTER 40
An Act to make provision for protecting persons from harassment and similar conduct.[21st March 1997]
Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
England and Wales
Prohibition of harassment. 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.
(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to a course of conduct if the person who pursued it shows—
- (a) that it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime,
- (b) that it was pursued under any enactment or rule of law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any enactment, or
- (c) that in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable.
Offence of harassment. 2.—(1) A person who pursues a course of conduct in breach of section 1 is guilty of an offence.
