Family Law Experts In Leeds
What is harassment?
The definition of harassment is ‘pursuing a course of conduct which causes a person alarm or distress’. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 defines harassment. To be defined as ‘harassment’ there must be more than one incident of harassment that has taken place. Also when assessing whether the conduct constitutes harassment can be objective. If another person considered that conduct, they would consider it to be conduct which amounts to harassment. Harassment also includes speech.
Here are some questions it would be helpful to ask yourself when trying to establish if you are being harassed!
- Has there been repeated unwanted contact by someone on two or more occasions?
- Have you been threatened with Violence on more than one occasion?
- Is there an immediate need for an injunction? for example, has there been a threat or a potential meeting of the parties?
- Has the conduct of the offending party become escalated? For example, more aggressive or obscene conduct that is consistent and persistent.
- Would you deem the conduct to be oppressive and unacceptable?
Are you being harassed?
Harassment can occur in all areas of your life, at home or at work by neighbours, former friends, ex-partners, spouses, colleagues, acquaintances or even by people you don’t know. Harassment is a criminal and civil offence and when someone takes the step to contact a Solicitor they have often reported harassment allegations to the police first.
The Police normally advise that a Solicitor is contacted in order to potentially obtain an injunction against the offending party. If an injunction is obtained and then later this is breached the Police can intervene. Obtaining an injunction for harassment, however, can be complicated.
What is an injunction?
An injunction is an order from a court for the offending party to stop the conduct with sanctions for breaching the order.
Injunctions should be a last resort solution and the court’s preference is that the involved parties to seek to resolve the matter between themselves first. Because of this, the normal process is to write to the offending party requesting that they stop the harassment and that they will refrain from similar conduct in the future. If they don’t agree, you would then explain that you would seek an order for an injunction. The purpose of this first letter is:
- To try to stop the offending party from their conduct
- To demonstrate to a court that you have taken reasonable steps prior to making an application for an injunction, and it is now necessary for the Court to intervene.
- If after response to the first letter it appears that the offending party either will not stop its conduct; or appears to disregard the letter and continue with their actions, it could then be the appropriate time to seek an injunction against them. In most instances, a Court order imposed upon the offending party is taken seriously than a simple warning by letter. It is therefore important that measures are put into place if a warning does not stop the offending party.
- You can seek an injunction on one of two bases: with notice to the other party or without notice depending on the urgency of your matter and we can advise which is more appropriate for you.