Did you know ... a law passed to protect people from stalkers is being used by the government to prosecute protesters
One of the most heartbreaking articles I have ever read was a response column published recently in the Guardian. Edward Countryman explained that he was writing on behalf of his wife, Evonne Powell-Von Heussen, "who could not bear to face" the unintended consequences of the thing she had created.
For 17 years she was the victim of an aggressive stalker, who attacked her and held her captive. She spent five years running a brave and vigorous campaign for an anti-stalking law, to ensure that nobody else's life could be ruined as hers was. Now she has seen how that law – the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act – is being used for a completely different purpose. She is so upset by the "perversion of its intentions" that she cannot bring herself to confront it.
Powell-Von Heussen "took great care that the act would protect frightened, endangered individuals from their assailants, and only such persons". But the first three people to be prosecuted under it were all peaceful protesters. Since then it has been used by the police and courts to criminalise almost all forms of dissent.
The law creates an offence of pursuing "a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another". Harassment is defined as "alarming the person or causing the person distress". The act can be used to impose injunctions on people, criminalising their previously lawful activities. As the injunctions use civil law to create criminal offences, they require a much lower standard of proof: hearsay evidence and untested and unproven allegations can be used to criminalise any action the police or the courts wish to stop.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/05/anti-stalking-liberty-central
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Great blog post.
ReplyDeleteI've come foul of this 'wonderful' law myself.
I have previously been cautioned, but thankfully not charged, under the Harrassment act for making it a habit of mine to have an evening cigarette on my own front doorstep.
My next door neighbour at the time was not a big fan of mine purely because of my Pagan beliefs. She complained to the police that she was upset and distressed by my appearance on my doorstep every evening as she was 'able to see me from her upstairs bedroom window'.
Laughable I know, and I can only imagine that the fact that she was having private 'relations' with the particular officer that cautioned me might have had something to do with it.
Yes, this law has been seriously perverted and I have huge sympathy for Evonne Powell-Von Heussen. It must greatly sadden her.