< Go Back What Is The Difference Between Stalking And Harassment Posted: Nov 30, 2022Feeling that someone is paying too much attention to your actions or whereabouts can be scary and there are times when people might cross a boundary, meaning you need to take action in order to feel safe.
These feelings can be down to stalking or harassment by another party. Here’s how to understand the difference.
The Difference Between Stalking And Harassment Both stalking and harassment are caused initially by obsession. This might be driven by the desire to be with someone romantically, even if the other party doesn’t feel the same way. The issues could also begin out of a desire to control other people. Some individuals feel more powerful by putting others down and making them feel vulnerable. They are similar issues but do have some differences based on behaviour and the causes for the initial incident.
A lot of the techniques used across stalking and harassment are the same or similar and it may require criminal solicitors Leicester to help you understand where your rights come into play.
What Is Stalking? The legal definition of stalking is that it is ‘harassment that involves a course of conduct.’ This means that it goes beyond simple words and has moved on to threats of violence or intent to cause fear, harm or distress to the other person.
This behaviour is usually in higher frequency and severity in comparison to harassment and the behaviours will repeat despite being asked to stop. Typically, stalking will begin with monitoring someone’s internet usage, communication software or email accounts.
Stalking can even move on to persistently following a victim, waiting (uninvited) outside areas where the victim is known to frequent, watching or spying on them, tracking them through use of technology while out and about, for example, phone or car trackers or interfering with a victim’s property.
Stalking can even become so severe that a stalker may threaten harm to the person they are stalking or hurt their family or pets.
What Is Harassment? Harassment uses a lot of similar behaviours to stalking, but the difference between stalking and harassment is that harassment tends to stop before things become physical.
Harassment can begin through cyber bullying on social media or abusive text messages in an attempt to scare the victim. These issues can originally come across as innocent, but gradually become more frequent and more invasive.
If the victim tries to put a stop to the behaviour, the harasser may begin to contact people related to their victim in an attempt to appear concerned and friendly.
These sorts of behaviours may spiral into stealing the victim’s possessions or reading their letters or even minor property damages.
If the harasser doesn’t get the intended reaction – which is typically the attention of the victim, they then start to become more forceful, crossing the boundary into stalking.
Fosse Law is a criminal solicitors in Leicester. Their friendly and understanding solicitors are on hand to support potential harassment or stalking cases and help you find positive solutions. If you are worried about a personal situation and need some advice, contact Fosse Law today for support and peace of mind.
