Starting a Claim for Harassment & Stalking

There has been an increase in harassment cases in recent years, in large part due to the rise in the use of internet platforms which allow users personal and continual access to others, in ways which have not been possible in the past. 

What Counts As Harassment?

Harassment is a course of conduct which causes the victim to feel alarmed, harassed, anxious and distressed. A “course of conduct” means that the harassment needs to be repeated by the defendant on more than one occasion. This means you would not be able to claim you have ben harassed if there has only been a one off incident.

There are many different ways in which someone can be harassed. For example:

• spreading untrue and malicious rumours about you in your local area;
• sending you unwanted and threatening communications such as text messages or making repeated phones calls to you;
• following your social media accounts and making repeated unwarranted public statements about you;
• tagging you in unpleasant social media content, which is designed to threaten you and make you feel harassed;
• setting up social media accounts in your name and pretending to be you;
• contacting your friends, family or employer and making allegations or complaints about you;
• signing you up to subscription services so you are bombarded with communications from third parties;
• encouraging other third parties, such as the defendant's own social media followers, to contact you unnecessarily;
• publishing private personal details about you online, such as your address or information about your physical or mental health;
• starting arguments with you in public places;
• physically following you; or
• driving past or waiting outside your property, and making you feel intimidated.

By its very nature, harassment is incredibly upsetting for the victim, particularly where the harassment has been going on for a long time. Dealing with harassment claims quickly and sensitively is therefore very important and that is where we can help.

Is Stalking the Same as Harassment?

Stalking is a specific type of harassment where someone targets you and your life, tries to find out as much as possible as they can about you, and makes you feel like you are being continually harassed. 

A typical stalking situation is where an ex-partner will not leave you alone, and makes extended efforts to keep in touch with you and find out everything about your life without them, particularly if you have moved on and have a new partner. 

Stalking can also involve a defendant contacting members of your family, your employer, or your friends, to find out information about you.

There are national stalking organisations who can help with this specific issue, and details of you being stalked can also be included in a civil claim for damages, which is set out in more detail bellow. 

Should I Report Harassment to the Police?

In many cases, the harassment or stalking will be so serious that we will advise you to speak to the police as well as instructing us, if you have not already done so.

If you have been seriously harassed, you will be entitled to claim monetary compensation from your harasser, using our services, as well as the police dealing with them via criminal proceedings. Criminal and civil proceedings for harassment can run in conjunction with each other at the same time, and can be a very effective way of putting as much pressure as possible upon your harasser to stop their behaviour. 

The criminal justice system can impose remedies upon your opponent, such as stalking prevention orders, harassment prevention orders, or non-molestation orders, which can be a very effective way to get the harassment and stalking to stop immediately, at minimal cost to you. However, this does not provide you with any financial compensation. 

It is therefore usually a good idea to report the harassment to the police, even if they do not feel the case is serious enough to take immediate action, as well as pursuing a civil claim for damages. 

How do I Prove Harassment?

In order to bring a claim for harassment, it is very important that you preserve the evidence of your harassment, in as much detail as possible. There are steps that you can take to prepare and preserve evidence of your harassment, as follows:

• any emails or text messages you have received should not be deleted, no matter how distressing they are;
• any messages or comments about you which appear on social media should be captured in screenshots as quickly as possible, as once they are deleted they are almost impossible to retrieve;
• you should ask any family, friends or other third parties who have been contacted by your harasser to preserve evidence for you in the same way;
• if your harasser is regularly appearing outside your home or at your place of work, you should consider installing CCTV to capture what they are doing; and
• it is also very important to keep a diary of the harassing events, in chronological order, so that you can refer back to this at a later date if necessary.

If you are able to put together a comprehensive evidence pack detailing the harassment that you have suffered, this can be presented to the police as well as being used in a civil claim for damages. We can help you with capturing the evidence and putting together a catalogue of the harassment, if you do not feel able to do this yourself.

How do I Claim for Harassment?

If you want to bring a claim for harassment, this may be because you simply want the harassment to stop, or because you want to claim financial compensation for the harm which has been caused to you. 

The first step is to send a letter of claim to your harasser, setting out their incidents of harassment against you and threatening to sue if they do not stop and pay you compensation. In some cases, this letter alone will be sufficient to stop the harassment. However, in other cases, the harassment can continue or even escalate, and you may want to start court proceedings. 

The claim for harassment is very likely to include a request for an injunction, financial compensation for the harm caused to you and payment of your legal costs. If your case is successful, and your harasser is made subject to an injunction, if they breach it by harassing you again, they can be sent to prison. 

If you are being harassed or stalked, you don't need to put up with it. The law will intervene to stop the stalking or harassment happening, but there are steps that you need to take first, to make sure all of the necessary evidence has been preserved, in the hope that we or the police would be able to make the harassment stop.

In the first instance, you should contact us for a no obligation discussion about how we can help and about whether should involve the police in your matter.