ABSTRACT
The review of the available means of legal redress for stalking victims prior to the enactment of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 has so far revealed three key areas of difficulty. First, even in the face of years of persistent harassment, there was no basis for legal intervention unless the conduct involved the commission of an existing criminal offence. Secondly, even if a criminal offence were committed, the penalty might not appear to reflect the seriousness of the overall campaign of harassment. This might be because the offence carried a relatively low maximum penalty or because the offence formed only an infinitesimal part of the totality of the conduct. A third difficulty with the existing law was that even where the law did offer protection against harassment, this was only available to certain categories of persons in specific situations.
