The Act Schedule 9: Additional powers and duties of designated persons Part 4: Public order and conduct in public places etc. Section 125: Harassment intended to deter lawful activities
302.A number of companies have been granted injunctions under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (“the 1997 Act”) to protect their employees from harassment by animal rights protestors. Despite this, it is not clear how far the 1997 Act can be used to protect employees of a company or a company itself.
303.Under section 1 of the 1997 Act the term “harassment” applies to a course of conduct which harasses or alarms another or which causes that person distress. The conduct has to take place on at least two occasions. Section 2 of the 1997 Act makes it a criminal offence for a person to pursue a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another and which that person knows amounts to harassment of the other. Section 3 provides a civil remedy which enables a victim to seek an injunction against a person who is harassing them or may be likely to do so. To secure a conviction under section 2 it needs to be proven that there is a course of conduct in which one person harassed another on at least two occasions. The courts have applied a strict interpretation of the word “another” which has confined the application of this provision to harassment of individuals and thus it is unclear how far employees of a company can benefit from this provision when they have not previously themselves been harassed even though a fellow employee has been.
304.Section 125 seeks to address this. Subsection (2) amends section 1 of the 1997 Act by inserting a new subsection (1A) which makes it an offence for a person to pursue a course of conduct involving the harassment of two or more persons on separate occasions which he knows or ought to know involves harassment and the purpose of which is to persuade any person (not necessarily one of the persons being harassed) not to do something he is entitled to do or to do something he is not under any obligation to do. It is not intended to catch lawful lobbying or peaceful protesting. A person distributing leaflets outside a shop about which they are protesting, for example, would not be caught unless they were to actually threaten or intimidate the person to whom they were handing out the leaflet and that person felt harassed, alarmed or distress. There would also have to be at least two separate incidents amounting to a course of conduct. The sort of behaviour which will engage the new offence is activity involving threats and intimidation which forces an individual or individuals to stop doing lawful business with another company or with another individual.
305.Subsection (5) inserts a new section 3A in the 1997 Act. This new section allows for an injunction to be sought where there is an actual or apprehended breach of new section 1(1A). New section 3A(2) defines who can apply to the High Court or county court for an injunction, namely the person who is the victim of the course of conduct or any person at whom the persuasion is aimed. In other words, where people who work for a particular company are being harassed in order to persuade them not to work for that company, or in order to persuade the company not to supply another company, either the employees themselves or the company in question could apply for an injunction.
306.Subsection (7) amends the definition of course of conduct in section 7(3) of the 1997 Act to clarify that, in the case of conduct in relation to two or more persons, course of conduct means conduct on at least one occasion in relation to each person.