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Criminal offence
[ch 2: page 40]Causing someone serious harassment, alarm or distress can be a criminal offence and in some circumstances, people who intentionally harass may commit an offence under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
The punishment is likely to be more severe if the offence is motivated by a “protected characteristic”, such as race, sex and so on:
In a shocking example from 2004, racially aggravated harassment led to three-year jail sentences for three motorway maintenance workers at Amey Mouchel’s Walsall depot. They bullied their Muslim co-worker over a 10-month period, including tying him to railings, hosing him with cold water, trying to force-feed him bacon, placing an item made to look like a bomb in his locker and setting his trousers on fire. They filmed their actions on a mobile phone.