Harassment & stalking.
Harassment law is arithmetic: a course of conduct means at least two occasions, and everything after "please stop contacting me" counts differently. That makes the case a counting-and-timeline problem — message volume, timing, and the precise moment consent to contact was withdrawn.
Part of our Legal Guides series. General information, not legal advice.
Harassment, stalking, and the family-law overlap.
Harassment is a course of conduct that the perpetrator knows, or ought to know, alarms or distresses the target — repeated unwanted messages, turning up uninvited, contacting employers and family. Stalking is an aggravated form: fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repeated behaviour such as following, monitoring online activity, or relentless contact by any means.
In family disputes this typically appears after separation: barrages of messages at all hours, contact through new numbers and accounts after being blocked, messages routed "via the children", and monitoring disguised as co-parenting logistics.
Protective routes that run alongside any criminal complaint:
- Non-molestation order (Family Law Act 1996 s42) — breach is a criminal offence.
- Occupation order (FLA 1996 s33) — regulates who lives in the family home.
- Stalking Protection Order (Stalking Protection Act 2019) — applied for by police, with interim orders available.
- Civil claim under PHA 1997 s3 — damages and injunctions.
The statutes.
"A person must not pursue a course of conduct— (a) which amounts to harassment of another, and (b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other."Protection from Harassment Act 1997, section 1(1). A "course of conduct" requires conduct on at least two occasions. The s2 offence is triable in the magistrates' court.
"The following are examples of acts or omissions which, in particular circumstances, are ones associated with stalking— (a) following a person, (b) contacting, or attempting to contact, a person by any means, … (d) monitoring the use by a person of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication …"Protection from Harassment Act 1997, section 2A(3) — the stalking offence, added in 2012.
The aggravated offences carry real weight: s4 (putting a person in fear of violence) and s4A (stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress with a substantial adverse effect on day-to-day activities) are each punishable with up to ten years' imprisonment. The Stalking Protection Act 2019 lets police obtain civil Stalking Protection Orders quickly, with criminal penalties for breach — see the Home Office statutory guidance for police.
How decision-makers approach it.
- CPS charging guidance: stalking or harassment — how prosecutors distinguish the offences, assess the course of conduct, and treat breaches of orders as aggravating features.
- Non-molestation orders — the family court can act within days (without notice in urgent cases); breach of a non-mol is a criminal offence carrying up to five years (FLA 1996 Part IV).
- Stalking Protection Orders — designed for early police intervention "before entrenched patterns develop"; interim SPOs can impose immediate no-contact conditions.
Two occasions, oughtness, and the "stop" moment.
- Course of conduct — at least two occasions; the more occasions, the stronger the inference. Volume matters.
- Knowledge — would a reasonable person, with the same information, know the conduct amounts to harassment? A recorded "please stop contacting me" makes this near-impossible to deny.
- Persistence through blocking — new numbers, new accounts, contact via third parties: each workaround is further evidence of fixation.
- Effect — changed routines, fear, lost sleep and work: the s4A "substantial adverse effect" territory.
In children proceedings the same conduct also falls within the statutory definition of domestic abuse (harassment and stalking between ex-partners are expressly recognised), engaging PD12J in any child-arrangements dispute — see our domestic abuse guide.
Count everything. Date everything.
Harassment cases are won with logs: every contact attempt, on every channel, with timestamps — and the exact moment you asked for contact to stop. Deleting the messages that upset you is the single most common evidential mistake.
- The full contact log — messages, calls, voicemails, emails, social contacts, per day, per channel.
- The "asked to stop" anchor — the dated message withdrawing consent to contact. Everything after it is on notice.
- Escalation after blocking — a spike from a new number the day after a block is a pattern, not a coincidence.
- Late-night distribution — 2am message clusters speak to intent and to effect.
- Context — the whole thread, so an alleged "campaign" can't be reframed as a two-sided argument (or vice versa).
Contact attempts per day Illustrative example
Fictional data, for illustration only. Each bar is one day's total contact attempts (messages + calls). The gold line marks the recorded "please stop contacting me" message — note the escalation after it, including a spike from a new number after blocking.
The contact log builds itself.
Drop in exports from every channel and LegallyHeard produces the per-day contact log, flags the "asked to stop" moment, tracks persistence across numbers and platforms, and packages it with timestamps and hash-chained pages — the format police, the CPS and family judges can actually use.
Check the sources yourself.
- Protection from Harassment Act 1997 — ss1, 2, 2A, 4, 4A (legislation.gov.uk).
- Stalking Protection Act 2019 — Stalking Protection Orders.
- Home Office: Stalking Protection Act statutory guidance for the police — gov.uk publication page (guidance downloadable as PDF).
- Family Law Act 1996, Part IV — non-molestation (s42) and occupation orders (s33).
- CPS legal guidance: stalking or harassment.
- Suzy Lamplugh Trust — runs the National Stalking Helpline (0808 802 0300).
- Gov.uk: domestic abuse — how to get help.
Two occasions is the threshold. Show all forty.
Run our fictional harassment sample through the live demo and watch the per-day contact pattern — and the escalation after "please stop" — draw itself.