This was however said to be determined on the particular facts of each case. The law has moved on since then and attitudes have probably strengthened in this regard such that a similar finding is unlikely to be made now. Also if the images, which are offensive, are being directed at the individual through email the detrimental treatment may be more personal and the claim more likely to succeed. Because we have no law prohibiting sexual harassment we have no set definition as to what amounts to such harassment. A European Commission Code of Practice defines sexual harassment as unwanted conduct of a sexual nature or other conduct based on sex affecting the dignity of women and men at work and it is this definition, which is generally used as the test for assessing treatment.
Sexual harassment is assessed in the eyes of the recipient.
Different people have different standards of behaviour, which they consider offensive. If the recipient considers the behaviour offensive then it may be the basis of a harassment claim. There are obvious examples of behaviour which all recipients will consider offensive and those matters will be harassment even as a one off incident. For other matters it will be necessary for the recipient to make known to the harasser that the behaviour is offensive before repeated treatment will become harassment. The difficulty is having identified the treatment what course of action to recommend to resolve the problem.