Harassment is a strange statutory creature in that, under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (“the Act”) it is both capable of being a civil tort and a criminal offence. Prior to the inclusion of section 1(1A) to the Act, it was unclear whether a company could, in fact, be harassed at all.
Thankfully, the position is now beyond any doubt. A company can be harassed if someone carries out a course of conduct against at least two or more people connected to the company, with such a person knowing (or when they should know) that the conduct involves the harassment of those people. Such behaviour must be in an effort by the perpetrator to either force the ‘victim’ to do something the victim has no obligation to do or to prevent the victim from doing something they are lawfully entitled to do. There is, also, a defence to a claim under the Act if the course of conduct was, in the particular circumstances, reasonable, pursued for the purposes of detecting or preventing crime or pursued in accordance with any law (“the Exceptions”).
The remedies available to a harassed company are set out in section 3A of the Act and limit any such relief to the company to obtaining an injunction to prevent the conduct from continuing. Such an order will include a penal notice that could land the perpetrator in contempt of court if they persist with the behaviour. Importantly, there is no ability for a company to claim damages for any harassment suffered.
The question must then be asked about what happens when a course of conduct is deployed against a company in a manner that the company considers is unjustified but the person committing the conduct is asserting is in furtherance of one of the Exceptions.
A prime example can be found in the case of Travelers Insurance Company Ltd and Others v Baldwin [2025] EWHC 2957 (KB) where the Claimants sort the striking out of Mr Baldwin’s Defence to the Claimants’ claim for harassment under the Act and for summary judgment to be entered against Mr Baldwin so as to bring the proceedings to an end at an early stage and long before trial.
Mr Baldwin was the father of a previous client of one the Claimants. Mr Baldwin made a complaint to one of the Claimants and then took matters to the Legal Ombudsman where a small payment was made to Mr Baldwin’s daughter. Mr Baldwin, being unhappy with the outcome, then took to attending one of the Claimants’ offices which caused the police to be caused. Mr Baldwin then reported one of the Claimants to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and copied into certain emails parties connected to the Legal Services Board, the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority and Lloyd’s of London. Mr Baldwin then embarked upon inflicting a blizzard of correspondence on the Claimants alleging that they had committed fraud and other complaints whilst also demanding payment of over £100,000.00. Mr Baldwin maintained that he was attempting to uncover unscrupulous conduct by the Claimants and his actions were a means to achieve that aim.
Unfortunately, the court disagreed.
Mr Baldwin, who was a litigant in person, had provided various documents purporting to be his ‘Defence’ but he had not specifically responded to each allegation of harassment in contravention of CPR 16.5 so as to allow the Claimants the ability to understand Mr Baldwin’s position. Mr Baldwin, rather than dealing with the allegations, just repeated what he considered to be his claim against the Claimants for fraud. The court permitted the strike out:
Despite the absence of an application to amend, and the lack of clarity in the submissions, I have considered the contents of the defence of 10 October 2025 along with the earlier documents before reaching my conclusions on the application to strike out. In my assessment of the various documents put forward as a defence, none of them comes anywhere close to fulfilling the procedural requirements…
This is not merely a technicality. None of the defence documents addresses the allegations in the Particulars of Claim or the course of conduct that is the basis of the harassment claim as required…
In these circumstances it is impossible for the claimants to understand any basis for the defence in this claim and I therefore strike out the defence.
When considering whether to allow Mr Baldwin to amend his pleadings or to enter summary judgment against Mr Baldwin, the court looked at the ‘Defence’, i.e. that Mr Baldwin was trying to uncover fraud apparently committed by the Claimants and, therefore, there should be a separate trial for those issues to be ventilated. The court refused and confirmed that whether allegations are true or not does not permit a person to undertake a course of conduct that is harassing. The court cited paragraph 40 of Merlin Entertainments Plc:
… Harassment can take different forms. Where the harassment which is alleged involves statements which a defendant will seek to justify at trial, there may be cases where an interim injunction will be appropriate. These are cases where such statements are part of the harassment which is relied on, but where that harassment has additional elements of oppression, persistence or unpleasantness, which are distinct from the content of the statements. An example might be a defendant who pursues an admitted adulterer through the streets for a lengthy period, shouting “You are an adulterer” through a megaphone. The fact that the statement is true, and could and would be justified at trial, would not necessarily prevent the conduct from being harassment, or prevent a court from restraining it at an interlocutory stage.
The court also placed emphasis on paragraph 43 of Pattinson v Winsor [2024] EWHC 1910 (KB):
…truth is not a defence to a claim in harassment… The communication of well-founded allegations to a body with a proper interest in receiving and investigating them is unlikely to be harassment, but the relentless scatter-gun repetition of allegations to all and sundry is likely to be harassment even if there were some truth in what is being said.”
The courts have deliberately refused to nail down the precise definition of what constitutes harassment on the basis that the court is more than capable of deciding for itself, in each particular set of circumstances, where behaviour has crossed the line from unpleasant to oppressive. Even if what is being alleged by the perpetrator is true, that does not provide carte blanche for a person or company to act as they see fit in pursuing their allegations.
Colman Coyle’s Matt Champ has extensive experience of dealing with harassment claims on behalf of companies and individuals. If you are having any difficulties then please feel free to contact Matt to see whether he and his team can assist on +44 (0)20 7704 3426 or at matt.champ@colmancoyle.com
