Associative and perceptive harassment 


There can be harassment in a broad range of situations. All that is required is for the harassment to be “related” to a protected characteristic. There is no need for the victim of harassment to have the characteristic themselves when they are targeted because they associate with someone who does. For example, there can be unlawful harassment where someone is targeted because they have a disabled child (Coleman v Attridge Law [2009] UKEAT0071/09/301). This is often referred to as “associative harassment”.


There can also be harassment if the victim is targeted because they are suspected of being associated with campaigns in support of those with protected characteristics.


Similarly, there can be harassment where someone is picked on because they are mistakenly believed to have the protected characteristic, for example, where a man is harassed because he is mistakenly thought to be gay. This is often referred to as “perceptive harassment”.


There can be harassment even though the offensive conduct is not because of a protected characteristic, but is simply “related” to it. For example: