Source: https://choptheknot.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/conn-v-sunderland-city-council-2007-ewca-civ-1492/
Timestamp: 2017-08-18 10:45:08
Document Index: 355669909

Matched Legal Cases: ['EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'UKSC ']

Conn v Sunderland City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 1492 | Chop the Knot
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5 responses to “Conn v Sunderland City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 1492”
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Are you saying conduct must sustain criminal liability or not?
Surely, Conn, states it should.
What I am saying (and which is my opinion) is that Conn is wrong if it is taken to mean that each incident in a course of conduct has to be of a criminal nature before the course of conduct can be considered to be harassment. The purpose of the Act was to criminalise conduct which, while not criminal in and of itself, had the effect of being harassment.
Asking whether the conduct must sustain criminal liability is to ask the wrong question. The question is whether the totality of the incidents amounts to a course of conduct which “… is a persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable and oppressive conduct, targeted at another person, which is calculated to and does cause that person alarm, fear or distress …” (per Lord Sumption JSC in Hayes v Willoughby [2013] UKSC 17).
If it does then it is criminal under s2 of the Act. The point is that the Act makes the course of conduct criminal; it is not the conduct being criminal which makes it harassment.
I see your point when you state:
“If it does then it is criminal under s2 of the Act. The point is that the Act makes the course of conduct criminal; it is not the conduct being criminal which makes it harassment.”
Has the Appeal or Supreme court ruled this to be the case? Have there been cases since Hayes?
Then there is the issue of “ought to know”. There are cases where the police investigate harassment, conclude the acts are nowhere near the threshold and then a civil claim is made for an injunction and the judge claims “a reasonable person ought to know the conduct was harassment”. Effectively, the judge rules the police are not reasonable people.
Has there been a ruling on “ought to know the conduct amounted to harassment?”