Companies - Harassment - Interpretation

Kosar v Bank of Scotland Plc (t/a Halifax): QBD (Admin) (Mr Justice Silber): 18 January 2011

The appellant (K) appealed by way of case stated against a district judge’s decision that the offence of harassment under section 2(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 could only be committed by a person who was an individual against a person who was an individual.

K had brought proceedings against the respondent bank (B), alleging an offence of harassment.

The judge ordered that the information be withdrawn on the grounds that it did not reveal an offence known in law.

The question posed for the court was whether section 7(5) of the act, which stated that ‘references to a person, in the context of the harassment of a person, were references to a person who was an individual’ precluded a company from committing a criminal offence of harassment, contrary to section 2(1).

K argued that section 7(5) only applied to victims and not to ­perpetrators.

Held: (1) The Interpretation Act 1978, in a combination of schedule 1 and part 1, provided that, unless a contrary intention was shown, ‘the word "person" included a body corporate or incorporate’.

Section 7(5) of the 1997 act clearly constituted a ‘contrary intention’, therefore the issue in the present appeal was whether section 7(5) applied to the perpetrator of the act so as to negate the provision in schedule 1 of the 1978 act (see paragraph 5 of judgment).

(2) For the following reasons, the section 7(5) limitations only applied in relation to victims.

First, section 7(5) only changed the rule of the 1978 act as it applied to ‘harassment of a person’.

That meant a victim, and the legislator specifically did not apply that provision to a perpetrator, with the result that the presumption in the 1978 act still applied and had not been ousted.

Second, if parliament had contended that only individuals could be liable as perpetrators, section 7(5) would have read something to the effect that ‘references to a person in the context of this provision are references to a person who is an individual’.

That was a wording which had not been used by the legislature.

Third, if parliament had intended that bodies corporate could not be victims but could be perpetrators, they would have adopted precisely the wording that had been used in section 7(5).

Accordingly, the question posed to the High Court had to be answered in the negative (paragraphs 6-10).

Appeal allowed.

Mr Vollenweider (instructed by Keith Park) for the appellant; no appearance or representation for the respondent.