The defendant appealed against conviction under section 4(1) of the 1997 Act. It was not disputed that the prosecution had to prove (1) that there had been a course of conduct on the part of the appellant, (2) that the course of conduct had caused the complainant to fear on at least two occasions that violence would be used against him; and (3) that the appellant knew or ought to have known that his course of conduct would cause the complainant to fear violence on each of those occasions. The ground of appeal was that, additionally, the prosecution had to prove that the course of conduct amounted to harassment. The appellant argued: ‘Given the definition of harassment in section 1 and given that by virtue of section 7 ‘References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress’, proof of the offence against section 4 would seem necessarily to involve proof of harassment within the meaning of section 1′; but (2) ‘the courts have added further ingredients to the definition of harassment in section 1, and the prosecution must therefore prove those additional ingredients’; and (3) this argument had been accepted by the Court of Appeal in R v Curtis’
Held:
Hooper LJ said: ‘Whilst accepting, as we must, that section 1 is so broadly defined that it may be necessary to import non-statutory requirements into the definition of the offence, we would, but for Curtis and Widdows have taken the view that the section 4(1) offence is a freestanding offence and does not require proof of harassment. It would then follow that the statement of offence should not refer to harassment’.
Judges:
Hooper LJ, Stadlen, Sweeney JJ
Citations:
[2011] EWCA Crim 1871, [2012] 1 Cr App R 5, [2011] Crim LR 962
Links:
Statutes:
Protection from Harassment Act 1997 4(1)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Pratt v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 2001
. .
Cited – Regina v Curtis CACD 9-Feb-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction under the 1977 Act. He and the complainant had been in a volatile relationship. Both were police constables. He said that though there had been incidents, they had not amounted to a course of conduct . .
Cited – Widdows, Regina v CACD 21-Jun-2011
Reasons for allowing of appeal from conviction of offence of putting someone in fear.
Held: ‘The emphasis in the summing up was not on what amounts to harassment but what amounts to assault. Further direction was required as to what can be a . .
Cited by:
Cited – Gerrard and Another v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Ltd and Another QBD 27-Nov-2020
The claimants, a solicitor and his wife, sought damages in harassment and data protection, against a party to proceedings in which he was acting professionally, and against the investigative firm instructed by them. The defendants now requested the . .
Cited – Plavelil v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 2014
Moses LJ said: ‘The Crown Court was undoubtedly correct to follow the guidance of the Court of Appeal in R v Haque. The three requirements identified include as a second requirement the conduct must be calculated to produce the consequences . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 29 May 2022; Ref: scu.442192