Part 9: Miscellaneous and General Pardons for certain abolished offences etc Section 175: Sentences for offences of putting people in fear of violence etc
Section 4A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 provides for the offence of stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress. Section 4 of that Act provides for the offence of putting people in fear of violence. These are the most serious forms of such offences. This section increases the maximum sentence for these two offences from five to ten years' imprisonment (subsection (1)).
	Subsection (2) amends the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 in order to increase the maximum sentence for the racially or religously aggravated version of both these offences from seven to 14 years' imprisonment.
	The increase in penalties applies only to offences committed on or after the date that this section comes into force (subsection (3)). Where the offence took place over more than one day, for the purposes of subsection (3) the offence must be taken to have been committed on the last of those days (subsection (4)).