Section 1: Prohibition of harassment.

Protection from Harassment Act 1997 · 1997 c. 40View on legislation.gov.uk

A person must not pursue a course of conduct—

which amounts to harassment of another, and
which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.

A person must not pursue a course of conduct —

which involves harassment of two or more persons, and
which he knows or ought to know involves harassment of those persons, and
by which he intends to persuade any person (whether or not one of those mentioned above)—
not to do something that he is entitled or required to do, or
to do something that he is not under any obligation to do.

For the purposes of this section or section 2A(2)(c), the person whose course of conduct is in question ought to know that it amounts to or involves harassment of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other.

Subsection (1) or (1A) does not apply to a course of conduct if the person who pursued it shows—

that it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime,
that it was pursued under any enactment or rule of law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any enactment, or
that in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.