What is Harassment?
Harassment includes unwanted behaviour or conduct which has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment, or causing a person distress or alarm.
Harassment may consist of persistent behaviour, although one single act may be considered sufficiently serious to warrant disciplinary action.
Actions may be harassment whether or not the person behaving in that way intends to cause offence. Actions may also be considered harassment if they are conducted online.
These behaviours or conduct might be because of, or connected to, one or more of the following protected characteristics:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- race
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
Under our definition, we understand harassment to include domestic violence and abuse (which can also involve control, coercion and threats) and stalking.
We would also consider harassment to include any incidents of physical violence towards another person(s) on the basis of a protected characteristic.
What is Stalking?
Stalking is a specific type of harassment which involves a pattern of unwanted, fixated, or obsessive behaviour that is intrusive and causes fear or distress. Stalking can occur both online and in person.
What makes stalking particularly hard to cope with is that it can go on for a long time, making you feel constantly anxious and afraid. Sometimes the problem can build up slowly and it can take a while for you to realise you’re caught up in an ongoing campaign of abuse.
Social media and the internet are often used for stalking, and ‘cyber-stalking’ or online threats can be just as intimidating.
If you’re experiencing persistent and unwanted attention, and the behaviour is making you feel fearful, harassed or anxious, then you are a victim of stalking.
Examples of Stalking
- Regularly following someone, watching or spying on them
- Hanging around somewhere they know the person often visits
- Repeatedly going uninvited to their home
- Checking someone’s internet use, email or social media accounts, or impersonating them
- Leaving offensive items on a doorstep or in a garden
- Damaging property
Online Stalking and Harassment
Stalking and harassment is often carried out online, in the following ways:
- Hacking into the victim's accounts to retrieve information
- Using tracking devices, GPS, or spyware to monitor a person’s location and internet activity.
- Unwanted calls, texts, emails, social media, creating fake accounts and messaging the victim
- Creating fake social media profiles to harass, follow, or ruin a person's reputation.
- Identity theft (signing up to services, buying things in someone’s name)
- Threats to share private information, photos or copies of messages