Dowson v Chief Constable of Northumbria Police

Where a pattern of alleged harassment develops with no single underlying cause, employees are increasingly seeking to make claims under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Under this act, it is an offence for individuals to pursue a course of conduct, on at least two occasions, which they know or ought to know amounts to the harassment (or alarm or distress) of another person. It is not necessary to show intention on the part of the harasser, but purely to prove that a reasonable person should know that harassment would be the outcome of the conduct involved.