Harassment by third parties



Legislation that was aimed particularly at protecting front-line staff, such as care workers, teachers and nurses, from abuse has unfortunately been repealed but there may be other ways of enforcing a right to protection against third party harassment. One is 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. 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 (see page 207), following a new ruling supported by the prison officers’ union POA, 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 Act 1997.