Harassment by third parties


Until its repeal on 1 October 2013 by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, section 40 of the EA 10 contained specific provisions to protect workers from harassment by third parties such as suppliers and customers. The legislation was aimed, in particular, at protecting front-line staff such as care workers, teachers and nurses from abuse, and its repeal was strongly resisted by unions and other equality campaigners. Despite the repeal, there may be other ways of enforcing a right to protection against third party harassment, such as by arguing that the employer’s failure to protect the worker is a breach of the general anti-harassment duty under section 26 of the EA 2010. For more information, see LRD’s annual employment law guide Law at Work. Organisations can also be made liable for the bullying carried out by non-employees under their direction – such as volunteers, agency workers or employees of facilities management companies, under changes to the law of vicarious liability described below, following a new ruling supported by the Prison Officers Association, Cox v Ministry of Justice [2016] UKSC 10.


In an extreme case, a worker may be able to bring a case under the Protection from Harassment Act1997 (see page 195).