The Protection from Harassment Act 1997

July 9, 2025

Harassment and Defamation: Legal Protection Under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (PHA 1997) is a UK law enacted to combat stalking and to protect individuals from harassment in a wide range of situations. It makes harassment both a criminal offence and a civil action, providing victims with multiple avenues of protection. Originally prompted by concerns over stalkers, the Act’s scope is broad: it has been used to address bullying at work, persistent media intrusion, aggressive debt-collection tactics, and online harassment, among other scenarios. In essence, the Act aims to prevent people from being subjected to alarming, distressing, or oppressive conduct, whether by individuals or even by companies, for example, a news outlet or agency orchestrating a harassment campaign.

If you are facing harassment, reputational harm or misuse of private information, our experienced solicitors can help. We advise on complex claims under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, often in conjunction with defamation and misuse of private information. Contact Carruthers Law today on 0151 541 2040 or 0203 846 2862, email us at info@carruthers-law.co.uk, or use our online enquiry form.

Legal Elements of Harassment under the Act

Section 1(1) of the PHA 1997 provides that “a person must not pursue a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another, and which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment”. In other words, the law forbids engaging in repeated behaviour that harasses someone, where the perpetrator has, or should have, awareness that their conduct is harassing.

“Harassment” defined:

The Act does not exhaustively define harassment, but it clarifies that it includes causing a person alarm or distress. Harassment is understood in its ordinary sense to mean oppressive and unacceptable conduct that goes beyond mere annoyance or trivial upset. Courts have described it as a persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable and oppressive conduct, targeted at another person, which is calculated to and does cause that person alarm, fear or distress. In short, the behaviour must be of a serious character, more than everyday slights or irritations, such that a reasonable person would consider it genuinely distressing or alarming. The required level of gravity is often said to be that which would sustain criminal liability; the law is not meant to catch minor inconveniences of daily life. Furthermore, not every incident that causes offence or upset will amount to harassment: the course of conduct as a whole is assessed, and it must cross a certain threshold of oppressiveness or unwarranted severity before it is labelled harassment.

Course of conduct requirement:

Harassment in the Act inherently involves a course of conduct, meaning the behaviour must occur on at least two occasions. A one-off incident will not usually qualify, except in some special contexts discussed below. For a single victim, the harasser must have harassed that person twice or more. If the conduct is directed at a group of people, then each person must be harassed at least once and the incidents taken together form a course of conduct. This prevents a harasser from evading liability by targeting different members of, say, a family or organisation on separate occasions. In such cases, all victims can be protected if there is a common pattern. Notably, speech can constitute conduct: harassing phone calls, letters, emails, social media posts, etc. are fully covered. The Act’s definition of conduct explicitly includes speech in order to encompass verbal and written harassment, not just physical acts.

Mental element (knowledge):

The perpetrator’s knowledge, or intent, is judged by a partly objective test. It is not required that the harasser subjectively realised their conduct was harassing; it is enough that a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the conduct amounted to harassment. In other words, a defendant ought to know their behaviour is harassment if any ordinary person would foresee the distress being caused.

Victims (who is protected):

The Act protects individuals. Only a person who is an individual can be a claimant under PHA 1997. Companies or organisations, for example, cannot sue for harassment on their own behalf. However, companies can be defendants. In other words, an entity, such as a newspaper or an employer, may be found liable if it is responsible for a campaign of harassment through its agents. A notable extension established by case law is that a harassment claim is not confined to the primary target of the conduct. If someone’s oppressive course of conduct is targeted at Person A, but foreseeably and directly causes harm to Person B, then Person B can also be considered a victim and may bring a claim.

Statutory Defences and Exceptions

The PHA 1997 recognises that not all repeated conduct, even if distressing, should incur liability. However, there are certain exceptions where a course of conduct is permitted. Section 1(3) of the Act provides specific defences a defendant can rely on to show their conduct was lawful. The defendant must prove that their conduct was:

• pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime;
• pursued under statutory authority or rule of law (i.e. compliance with an enactment or a legal duty); or
• in the particular circumstances, reasonable.

These defences are narrowly interpreted. For example, a person cannot escape liability by simply claiming they believed they were preventing crime if that belief was irrational or a pretext. The Supreme Court has ruled in Hayes v Willoughby [2013] UKSC 17) that the preventing/detecting crime defence requires a rational connection between the conduct and a legitimate crime-prevention purpose. If someone engages in a personal vendetta or conspiracy-fuelled harassment campaign under the ostensible banner of investigating crime, courts will reject the defence unless the actions were rationally directed to uncovering or thwarting actual crime.

The conduct must be judged by an objective standard of rationality: genuine but delusional or obsessively unreasonable crime prevention efforts do not qualify. Similarly, the  defence (s.1(3)(c)) will only succeed if a reasonable person would regard the course of conduct as justified. This might cover, say, repeated warnings to a person about something in a context where it is socially or legally expected to do so, but it is a high bar to meet. In practice, these defences are seldom applicable outside of clear-cut scenarios, such as authorities performing lawful investigations, or protestors acting within lawful bounds. The burden is on the defendant to prove a s.1(3) defence, once a course of harassing conduct is shown.

Civil Remedies for Harassment (Injunctions and Damages)

Harassment as a tort:

Section 3 of the Act creates a civil cause of action, meaning a victim of harassment can sue the perpetrator in the civil courts. Importantly, this includes the ability to act against an apprehended breach of the Act. One need not wait until they have been harassed multiple times. If there is evidence that a course of conduct is about to happen or continue, an injunction can be sought proactively. Civil proceedings under PHA 1997 are often used to obtain urgent injunctive relief: the court can grant an injunction forbidding the harasser from continuing their course of conduct. Injunctions can be tailored; for example, they may prohibit any contact or communication with the victim, or order a person to stay away from certain locations. If the harassment is ongoing or imminent, the courts may grant an interim injunction quickly to protect the victim.

Breach of injunction:

A critical aspect of the Act is that breaching a PHA injunction is a criminal offence in itself. If a harasser disobeys the court’s injunction without reasonable excuse, they can be arrested and prosecuted, and face up to 5 years’ imprisonment for that breach.

Damages:

In a civil claim, the victim can also seek damages. The Act specifically allows recovery of damages for “any anxiety caused by the harassment and any financial loss resulting from the harassment.Emotional distress, such as anxiety, fear, depression caused by being harassed, is recoverable, even if no physical injury occurred. Courts assess the level of distress and its effects on the claimant’s life; awards can also cover specific financial losses, for example, lost earnings due to stress-related illness, costs of security measures, etc, In some cases, damages for harassment overlap with or supplement other claims, for example, a victim of workplace harassment might also have an employment law claim. There is no strict cap on harassment damages, but they are influenced by the severity and duration of the harassment and its consequences. 

Vicarious liability:

Because harassment is a tort, the normal principles of vicarious liability in civil law apply. The House of Lords confirmed that an employer can be vicariously liable for harassment committed by its employee in the course of employment. In the case Majrowski v Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS Trust [2006] UKHL 34, an employee who was bullied by his manager, a course of conduct found to be harassment, was entitled to sue not only the manager but also the employer hospital for damages. Unless the statute indicates otherwise, an employer is liable for torts committed by employees as part of their job functions or workplace activities; the PHA 1997 did not exclude such liability. This means organisations have a duty to prevent harassment by their staff.

Criminal Offences and Penalties

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 establishes a number of criminal offences. The general offence of harassment under section 2 prohibits a course of conduct which amounts to harassment and which the defendant knows or ought to know amounts to harassment. More serious cases, where the victim is placed in fear of violence on at least two occasions, fall within section 4. These offences carry penalties ranging from fines to terms of imprisonment, with the most serious cases (under section 4) attracting a maximum sentence of ten years’ custody on indictment.

Sections 2A and 4A, inserted by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, create specific offences of stalking and stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress. These provisions recognise the particular harm caused by obsessive or intrusive conduct and allow for more tailored prosecutions.

Where harassment is racially or religiously aggravated, offences may be prosecuted under sections 32(1)(a) or (b) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which carry enhanced sentencing powers.

Under sections 5 and 5A of the 1997 Act, the criminal courts have the power to impose restraining orders following conviction or acquittal. Such orders may prohibit further harassment or contact and are enforceable by arrest. Breach of a restraining order is itself a criminal offence punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.

Harassment Threshold in Case Law: “Oppressive and Unacceptable” Conduct

Over the years, courts have developed guidance on what kinds of behaviour meet the threshold of harassment. Several key principles emerge from the case law, in Hayden v Dickenson [2020] EWHC 3291 (QB) and earlier authorities:

Not trivial

Harassment is a persistent and deliberate course of unacceptable and oppressive conduct targeted at someone, which is calculated to cause and actually causes alarm or distress. There must be a continuing, oppressive nature to the behaviour. Repeated rudeness or minor annoyances, especially if not intended to cause distress, generally will not suffice. The conduct should be such that it would justify the intervention of the courts and, if criminal, the punishment of the offender.. In practical terms, harassment might manifest as (for example) stalking and surveillance, a barrage of unsolicited communications, repeated false allegations or slanders, sustained intimidation, or other forms of targeted abuse. The cumulative effect is crucial: while one phone call or one argument might not be harassment, a string of incidents viewed together can be.

Not automatically met by distress:

Just because someone feels harassed or distressed does not automatically mean the law is violated. The courts have cautioned that any course of conduct which causes alarm or distress does not automatically amount to harassment.

There is a balancing act:

trivial acts can upset people, but the law targets a certain level of seriousness. The reasonable person standard is used to judge this: would a reasonable person in the victim’s position have felt harassed by this conduct, and would a reasonable person in the defendant’s position realise that their actions were unacceptable? If the answer is yes, then the threshold is likely met. If the situation is one of oversensitivity or misunderstanding by the victim, it may not qualify. The frequency, persistence, and tone of the incidents matter. For example, two unpleasant emails a year apart might not be harassment; but weekly aggressive emails over a few months likely would be.

Objective test and the claimant’s perspective:

The test for liability is largely objective: the perpetrator ought to know their conduct is harassment if a reasonable person would realise it. The claimant’s subjective feelings and particular vulnerabilities can be relevant to damages, but liability does not depend on the victim’s unique sensitivity. It depends on whether the conduct was such that it would cause (and did cause) a person of ordinary robustness to suffer anxiety or fear. The law thereby avoids catering to hyper-sensitivity, but it also protects those who may be especially vulnerable since even a reasonable person would know, for instance, that stalking a person with known PTSD could be extremely distressing. In Hayden, Nicklin J emphasised that the focus is on the “cumulatively oppressive” nature of the behaviour and that the feelings of the claimant alone cannot define harassment. A claimant cannot simply say “I felt harassed”; they must show the court a pattern of behaviour that meets the legal standard.

Targeted conduct:

While (as noted in Levi v Bates) the conduct need not be exclusively focused on the claimant, it must be directed at someone, or a group, in a manner that a court can identify as intended, or at least likely, to cause distress. What is required is a deliberate or consciously reckless campaign of conduct directed at a person or persons, as opposed to incidental or negligent acts.

Multiple victims and group harassment:

If a harasser targets one person, others who are directly harmed can claim. Conversely, if a person engages in similar harassing acts against multiple people, e.g. sending threatening letters to two different officials to pressure an outcome, the law (after 2005 amendments) can treat that as a single course of conduct even though no single victim got two incidents. This was done to cover, for example, animal rights protesters or campaigners who might harass various staff of a company one time each; now their conduct is aggregated. In practice, such scenarios are less common in civil claims, since each victim usually has at least two incidents to point to, but it’s a useful tool for prosecutors in certain cases.

Harassment vs. Freedom of Expression and Legitimate Conduct

Because harassment can be committed by words, including publications, journalism, protests, etc, there is a potential tension between the right to free expression and the need to protect individuals from harassment. Courts are acutely aware that the PHA must not be used to unduly chill speech or press freedom, especially since harassment can overlap with things like exposing wrongdoing (whistleblowing) or vigorous public debate. Thus, when the alleged harassment consists of speech or writing, the court will balance the rights involved, particularly under the Human Rights Act 1998:

Harassment claims against media or online speech are rare and exceptional. Courts have set a high threshold before speech-related conduct will be deemed harassment, in order to avoid encroaching on legitimate journalism or expression.

Legitimate protest and Article 11:

Another scenario is harassment claims arising from protests or demonstrations. Peaceful protests are protected by Article 11 (freedom of assembly) and Article 10. The PHA has been invoked in cases of activists targeting individuals or companies, for example, animal rights protesters harassing laboratory staff.

The courts will ask if the protest crossed the line into a coordinated campaign of intimidation (e.g., personal harassment of employees at their homes, threats, etc.). If so, injunctive relief under the PHA can be given, but if the activity is more in the realm of normal protest, signs, chants, boycotts, without direct harassment, then the Act is less likely to apply. The 2005 amendment adding section 1A (harassment of two or more persons to compel someone to act/not act) was specifically to address protest harassment of corporations. Still, the courts remain careful: any injunction must be proportionate and not unduly infringe lawful protest.

The harassment regime must be applied with regard to fundamental rights. Courts strive to strike a balance: protecting individuals from serious harassment while safeguarding freedom of expression and other legitimate conduct. The result is that clear-cut harassment, stalking, true bullying, menacing campaigns, is stopped in its tracks, whereas close cases involving speech are given more nuanced scrutiny. The PHA has thus far survived challenges that it might violate free expression, precisely because of this careful, proportional approach by the judiciary.

Recent Developments

2023 (LCG v OVD [2023] EWHC 2058 (KB)) reaffirmed the high threshold for harassment: the claimants alleged harassment alongside other torts in a complex family dispute, but the High Court ultimately dismissed the harassment claim, applying the stringent tests from Hayden. The judge found that various alleged incidents, when scrutinised, either lacked the oppressive quality required or were not sufficiently targeted at the claimant, or did not in fact cause the level of harm alleged. This outcome underlines that courts will dissect the evidence of each incident in a harassment course and ensure the legal standard is met; mere assertions of feeling harassed are not enough if objectively the conduct was not so unreasonable or was not actually aimed at the claimant. Thus, while the PHA is a powerful tool, judges also guard against its misuse in ordinary disputes or as a catch-all add-on to every grievance.

Conclusion

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 has evolved into a powerful and versatile instrument in English law, providing both criminal and civil remedies to those subjected to oppressive conduct. Its application now extends far beyond its original focus on stalking, encompassing workplace bullying, intrusive journalism, persistent online abuse, and coordinated campaigns of intimidation. Crucially, its interaction with defamation law enables claimants to pursue robust action in cases where reputational harm is coupled with sustained, targeted harassment.

The courts have consistently emphasised that the threshold for liability under the Act is a high one, carefully balancing the need to protect individuals from serious and alarming conduct against the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and lawful protest. As such, while the Act is not intended to police everyday grievances or hypersensitivity, it offers significant protection where behaviour crosses the line into deliberate and oppressive wrongdoing.

For claimants facing reputational attacks, threats, or sustained harassment—particularly in conjunction with defamation, the PHA 1997 provides a vital legal route. Whether through injunctions, damages, or criminal sanctions, the framework is designed to prevent further harm and uphold the dignity and safety of those affected.

If you are facing harassment, reputational harm or misuse of private information, our experienced solicitors can help. We advise on complex claims under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, often in conjunction with defamation and misuse of private information.

Contact Carruthers Law today on 0151 541 2040 or 0203 846 2862 , email us at info@carruthers-law.co.uk, or use our online enquiry form.