When a child faces harassment online, the situation can escalate quickly and cause serious harm. What may begin as a single post or message often develops into repeated targeting, group hostility and sustained intimidation. This is particularly common in school and college settings where social media forms part of everyday life and it is essential to know how to put an end to online harassment.
Bullying at school can leave parents feeling helpless and deeply worried when their child comes home distressed or withdrawn. It is crucial to know what your legal rights are if the school is not keeping them safe.
Online Blackmail and Harassment From Someone Met on a Dating App
When police can't help: how a UK woman stopped her US-based online harasser
What started as a promising connection on a dating app turned into a traumatic experience of control, emotional abuse, and blackmail for our client. Despite seeking help from police in both the UK and the US, she was left unprotected and isolated. This case shows demonstrates internet law specialists can use cross-border legal action, OSINT intelligence, and international collaboration to stop even the most evasive online harassers and empower victims to reclaim their lives when traditional routes fail.
Catfished and Stalked Online by Someone in America
What can you do if someone is stalking you online from another country
This case study focuses on a common yet terrifying scenario: being catfished and then stalked by someone you’ve never actually met. For our client, a UK-based brand consultant, what began as an online connection turned into a prolonged campaign of digital harassment from a man living on another continent.
If you find yourself in a situation where you believe you are experiencing controlling or coercive behaviour, it is essential that you understand your rights and seek appropriate legal advice.
If you're using OnlyFans to make some extra money, or as a content creator career, the last thing you want is to be harassed by other users. Unfortunately, harassment is a common problem on the platform. In this blog post, we'll discuss some of the ways you can tell if you're being harassed on OnlyFans and what you can do about it.
An emergency harassment injunction is a court order obtained at speed, to stop something happening that you cannot undo afterwards. It is made in a civil claim under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Where there is good reason, a judge can make it without telling the other side first, and out of hours if it will not keep until the morning. Where the papers are ready, that can mean a day or two, and sometimes hours.
People come to us at a particular moment. A deadline has been set, or a message has arrived saying that something goes online tonight, or gets sent to an employer, a spouse or a congregation in the morning. What follows is what a court can do about that, how quickly, and what it asks of you in return.
It is the same remedy as a standard harassment injunction, applied for in a hurry. The judge is not deciding who is right. They are holding the position still until both sides can be heard properly, which is why the order comes with a date to come back.
Two things about it catch people out. The first is that it is temporary. An order made without the other side there lasts until a return date, usually a week or two later, and at that hearing they can turn up and argue. The second is that it is made on your evidence alone, which means your statement needs to set out everything relevant, including the parts that help them. Leave something material out and the order can be discharged at the return hearing, with the costs following.
You will also see the phrase "without notice" on the paperwork. It used to be called "ex parte", and some people still say that, but the Civil Procedure Rules use the plainer term now.
The judge is not deciding who is right. They are stopping the clock, so that what is about to happen to you does not happen before anyone has heard your side of it.
When a court will act this quickly
Urgency by itself is not enough, because the court is being asked to restrain someone it has not heard from. In practice a judge is looking for a real claim properly evidenced, for the fact that money afterwards would not put this right, and for a reason why telling the other side first would defeat the purpose.
The second of those is usually the strongest part of a harassment case. Damages do not un-send a photograph to somebody's family, and they do not take a video back off a website once thousands of people have seen it. That is the argument that carries weight at eleven at night, not the procedural detail.
Where the order would stop something being published, there is a higher hurdle under section 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998. The court needs to be satisfied that you are likely to establish at trial that publication should not be allowed. It is the reason the evidence needs to be put together properly even when the clock is against you, and the reason a rushed application by someone who has not done this before tends to fail.
How fast, and what happens at night and at weekends
Where the papers are ready, an application can be in front of a judge the same day. In our experience the limiting factor is almost never the court. It is how long it takes to gather the evidence and put it in a form a judge can act on.
Within court hours the papers go in ahead of the hearing, and the rules expect at least a couple of hours where that is possible. Outside them, a duty judge of the High Court is available at night and at weekends, and those hearings are commonly held by telephone or video. A judge can also make the order before the claim has even been issued, on your solicitor's undertaking to issue it immediately afterwards. Once it is made, a note of the hearing is taken and served on the other side along with the order and the evidence, so they know exactly what was said in their absence.
If you think you may need an emergency order at some point, tell us before you need it. Preparing the evidence in advance is what turns a two-week job into a two-hour one when the moment arrives.
The order spells out what the person may not do, in terms clear enough that there is no argument later about whether they have broken it. In an urgent case that tends to mean no contact with you at all, direct or through anyone else, and nothing further published about you, including from a new account opened the next day.
It can require what is already up to come down within a stated period, and it can require the person to preserve their devices, accounts and messages, so the evidence still exists by the time of the return hearing. Where publicity would make things worse, we ask at the same time for an order anonymising your name. And where the harasser is anonymous, the defendant can be described by their conduct and their accounts rather than by name, with the court allowing service by another route. That is how we came to serve an injunction through Instagram.
What you give up in return
Two things come with an urgent order, and it is better to hear them now than at the hearing.
The first is a promise to the court, called a cross-undertaking in damages, to pay any losses the other side suffers if it later turns out the order should not have been made. In most harassment cases the exposure is small, because a person told to stop harassing loses nothing of value by stopping. We go through it with you before you give it.
The second is the duty to tell the judge everything relevant, including what the other side would say if they were there. That feels counterintuitive when you are the one who has been wronged, and it is the single commonest reason urgent orders come apart later. We would rather put the difficult point in ourselves, in our own words, than have it produced against you at the return hearing.
When an emergency application is not the right move
An urgent application costs more than a measured one and spends the element of surprise. It is the wrong first step where nothing is about to happen that cannot be undone, and where a solicitor's letter to stop harassment would get you the same result inside a week for a fraction of the money.
It is also the wrong move where the real problem is that nobody knows who this person is. Identifying them comes first, through our own open-source intelligence work and, where that is not enough, Norwich Pharmacal orders for social media.
Blackmail and threats to publish private information
Emergency orders are also used where someone threatens to publish private images or information unless they are paid. That work sits with our sister practice, the Internet Law Centre, which handles blackmail and extortion and has obtained emergency orders in those cases, including anonymised orders against people who could not be named. You can read about an emergency blackmail injunction obtained by the Internet Law Centre. Where the same person is also harassing you, we act on the harassment side and the two matters proceed together.
What these calls are actually like
Urgent instructions rarely arrive in office hours. They come in the evening, from someone who has been staring at a message for an hour trying to decide whether it is a bluff, and who has usually not told anybody else yet. The first question is almost never about the law. It is whether anything can be done tonight.
The answer depends on what can be evidenced in the next few hours, which is why the first thing we ask for is the material itself, not the story. People are surprised that a judge is available at that hour at all, and more surprised at how much of the fear comes off once somebody else is carrying it.
Cases where we obtained urgent orders
These are matters we acted in. Identifying details have been changed in the anonymised accounts.
An injunction served through Instagram
Our client was targeted by an anonymous Instagram account that could not be traced by the usual routes. We obtained an injunction and persuaded the court to allow service through the platform itself, the first time that had been done in England and Wales. Read about serving an injunction via Instagram.
Four websites ordered deleted
A former temporary interpreter at the International Maritime Organisation built four websites about his former manager, using photographs taken without her consent. He ignored our letter, so we applied under the 1997 Act, and Mr Justice Cranston granted the injunction and ordered the sites deleted. Read about a harassment injunction following online harassment of a former employer.
A privacy injunction alongside the harassment claim
Where private information is being published as part of the harassment, we ask for a privacy injunction at the same time, commonly with an anonymity order. Read our privacy injunction case study, and more of our online harassment case studies.
An urgent application compresses into two or three days the work that would otherwise spread over weeks, and the court fee and counsel's fee fall due at once, so it costs more at the outset than a standard application. Our page on harassment injunction cost sets out the ranges and how to budget across the stages. You can read more about how we act for victims on our harassment solicitors page.
Where the evidence is ready, the common outcome is an order within a day or two, served the same day, with the material down inside the period the order allows. At the return hearing most respondents give undertakings to the court rather than fight, which turns the emergency order into something lasting without a contested hearing.
Where an application is refused, it is usually because the urgency was not made out, or because a publication case did not reach the section 12(3) threshold. That is recoverable. The claim carries on and the application can be renewed on notice with better evidence.
Breach is treated seriously. You can apply for a warrant for the person's arrest, and breaching an order made under section 3 of the 1997 Act, without reasonable excuse, is a criminal offence carrying up to five years' imprisonment on conviction on indictment.
Frequently asked questions
How quickly can I get an emergency injunction?
Where the evidence is ready, an application can be in front of a judge the same day, and out of hours a duty judge of the High Court is available at night and at weekends. In practice the time goes on gathering and presenting the evidence rather than on waiting for the court.
Can I apply for an injunction without telling the harasser?
Yes, where there is good reason not to give notice, for example because warning them would lead to publication, to evidence being destroyed, or to an escalation against you. The court then fixes a return date at which the other side can attend and argue.
How long does an emergency injunction last?
An order made without notice lasts until the return date, usually a week or two later. At that hearing the court decides whether it continues until trial or further order. An order made with both sides present can be expressed to last until trial from the outset.
What is a cross-undertaking in damages?
It is your promise to the court to pay any losses the other side suffers if the injunction turns out to have been wrongly granted. Unless the court orders otherwise, an interim injunction contains one. In most harassment cases the exposure is limited, because a person told to stop harassing loses nothing of value.
What happens at the return hearing?
The other side can attend, put in their own evidence and ask the court to discharge the order. The court decides whether to continue it. In our experience most respondents offer undertakings at this point rather than contest the application.
Can the order be made against someone whose name I do not know?
In many cases, yes. The defendant can be described by their conduct and their accounts where that description is precise enough to identify who is bound, and the court can allow service by another route, such as through the platform itself.
Will my name appear in public court records?
Not necessarily. Where publicity would defeat the purpose of the application, a court can anonymise the parties and restrict reporting. We ask for that at the same time as the injunction where the case calls for it.
What happens if the harasser breaches the order?
You can apply for a warrant for their arrest, and breach without reasonable excuse is a criminal offence under section 3(6) of the 1997 Act, carrying up to five years' imprisonment on conviction on indictment. The same conduct cannot be both punished as a contempt of court and prosecuted.
You can harass someone by indirect harassment by applying the harassing activities to somebody else. Harassment can be direct or indirect. The harassment can aim at the victim directly or at the victim through a third party.
There will be occasions where you might want to find out who is behind an Instagram account. You can obtain a disclosure order which will compel Instagram to disclose users’ information. This article helps you with the process of identifying user accounts on Instagram
A harassment injunction is not a fixed-price product, but the figures are knowable and the case can be taken in stages, so you decide at each one. A disclosure order to identify an anonymous harasser starts at £5,000 plus VAT. Injunction proceedings cost from the low tens of thousands of pounds to considerably more, depending on the circumstances of each case. A good number of cases never reach either, because the person is identified and written to first, and that ends it.
The question behind the question is normally whether you can afford to do anything at all. This article sets out what each stage costs and why, what makes a case expensive, whether the harasser can be made to pay, and how the work can be paid for. It covers England and Wales.
How knowing who they are changes the price of everything else
The largest saving in a harassment case comes from knowing who you are dealing with before you go anywhere near a court. We have had an open-source intelligence department in-house for more than a decade, staffed by people trained in the work, with access to databases and techniques most law firms do not hold. Identification done in-house costs a fraction of a disclosure order, and it is quicker, because nobody is waiting on a court list or on a platform's legal department in California.
Where we identify the person, or find a link that points to them, we can write to them directly and in confidence before any proceedings are issued. The effect of that letter is out of all proportion to what it costs. Somebody who has spent a year believing they are untraceable opens a letter that names them, describes what they have been doing and sets out what happens next. In many of our cases a matter the client expected to fight for a year is over inside a fortnight, with no claim form, no court fee and no disclosure order.
People who were certain they could not be found are so taken aback at being named in a letter that the harassment stops before a claim is ever issued. That is the cheapest result in this area of law, and it is the one we look for first.
That route is not open to every firm. Most send the investigative work outside or go straight to court for the same name, which is the expensive way to get it. It is also why we ask about your budget at the beginning rather than at the end. Where the money is limited, spending it on identification first is the best value in the case, and we would rather shape the work around what you can afford than quote you for a full court case you may not need. If you are not sure the budget stretches at all, a consultation is still worth having, because the options are rarely the ones people arrive expecting. Our guide to exposing internet trolls explains how the work is done.
Where the money goes
Most harassment cases move through the same sequence, and not every case needs every part of it. That is the point of taking them one at a time.
It starts with a consultation at a fixed fee, shown below, which you leave knowing what the options are and what each would cost. Then comes the evidence, which means preserving the posts, messages and pages with their dates and their links in a form a court will accept. That is labour-intensive and it is the work everything else rests on, so it is the last place to economise. Where the harasser is anonymous, identification follows, in-house first and by court order only if that is not enough. Then the solicitor's letter to stop harassment, which sets out the conduct, the law and what you require. If the letter is ignored, the harassment injunction follows: claim form, application, witness statement, draft order, the hearing, service and the return date. Enforcement, if it comes to that, means a warrant for arrest or a prosecution for breach.
Work done at an early stage is not lost if the case goes further. The evidence gathered for the letter is the evidence that goes in front of the judge, and the letter itself helps at the injunction stage, because it shows the court the person was warned and carried on anyway.
What a disclosure order costs
Disclosure orders against social media companies, search engines and hosts start at £5,000 plus VAT. What moves the figure is the volume of evidence and how many accounts have to be covered. Where we apply for two or more orders in the same case, the cost per order is lower, because a good deal of the work is shared between them.
Not every case needs one, and there are cases where we advise against it even though we could apply. Where the account was opened on a burner email over public wifi, the order can come back with nothing worth having, and you have paid for the privilege. A court also needs to be satisfied that the order is necessary and that it is proportionate, weighing what you need against the account holder's own rights, which the Supreme Court set out in Rugby Football Union v Consolidated Information Services Ltd [2012] UKSC 55. In our experience an application that would have gone through a few years ago now gets asked harder questions, and there are cases where we take the view the court is unlikely to grant it and say so. We would rather tell you that before you spend the money than afterwards. Norwich Pharmacal orders for social media covers the court route in detail.
What injunction proceedings cost, and what moves the figure
Injunction proceedings cost from the low tens of thousands of pounds to considerably more, depending on the circumstances of each case. The range is wide because the things that drive it are wide.
Whether the defendant is known is the first of them. An anonymous harasser adds the identification stage and, in many cases, an application for permission to serve the order by another route. Whether the case is defended is the second, and it is the largest single swing in the figure: an order the other side does not contest, or converts into undertakings at the return hearing, costs a fraction of a case fought to a contested hearing. The volume of evidence is the third, because two years of posts across five platforms is a different exercise from a fortnight of messages. Urgency is the fourth: an emergency injunction concentrates into two or three days the work that would otherwise spread over weeks, and the court fee and counsel's fee fall due at once. And some of it sits outside anybody's control. A hearing adjourned to another date is another hearing to pay for, and a platform or a third party may decide to object.
Court fees are separate from our charges and are set by the government. The current amounts are in the EX50 schedule of civil court fees.
What people actually ask about money
The call about cost is rarely a call about cost. People apologise for asking the price, or open with the amount they have and an assumption that it is not enough, and a fair number have already decided the answer before dialling. What they are really asking is whether somebody like them, with a sum like that, gets to do anything at all.
The useful answer is almost never a single number. It is which step, out of the several available, would change their situation most for the money they have. Sometimes that is the identification work and a letter, and nothing further is needed. Sometimes it is evidence preservation now, because the posts are being deleted and edited, with the decision about court taken later. We have had clients spend a few thousand pounds and end the problem, and clients who were told at the consultation that the case was not worth the money and left with a plan they could carry out themselves.
Getting your costs back from the harasser
Sometimes, in part. Under Part 44 of the Civil Procedure Rules the general rule is that the unsuccessful party pays the successful party's costs, though the court has a discretion and takes the conduct of both sides into account.
Two qualifications are worth knowing before you count on it. Recovery is rarely complete, because an assessment allows a proportion of what was actually spent rather than all of it. And an order is only as good as the person's means: a judgment for costs against somebody with no assets is a piece of paper, and enforcing it costs money of its own. Where the harasser has a house, a business or an income worth enforcing against, the calculation changes, and it is something we look at early rather than at the end.
Damages can be awarded alongside the injunction, for the anxiety the harassment caused as well as for financial loss, and awards in harassment cases commonly range from the low thousands to the low tens of thousands of pounds. They are worth having, though they are rarely the reason people come.
Ways to pay
Stage by stage is the default. You get a written estimate for each step and you decide before each one begins, which means the commitment at any moment is the next step rather than the whole case. In some cases we can act on a no win no fee basis once we have assessed the prospects, which suits a case with a strong evidential position and a defendant worth suing.
Legal expenses insurance is worth checking before anything else, because it is attached to a great many home contents and motor policies and people do not know they have it until they look. Legal aid is not generally available for civil harassment claims of this kind, though you can check your own position on the government's legal aid checker. Our page on harassment legal costs covers funding across the whole of our harassment work.
Cases, and what they cost to achieve
These are matters we acted in. Identifying details have been changed in the anonymised accounts.
A hate website taken down after one letter
An anonymous website had targeted our client for more than a decade. Our open-source intelligence team traced it to its owner in spite of a false name on the registration. One letter, with the evidence set out, and the site came down. No court, no disclosure order, and a bill measured in thousands rather than tens of thousands. Read what to do if someone creates a harassing website about you.
A letter ignored, and then an injunction
A former temporary interpreter at the International Maritime Organisation built four websites attacking his former manager. He did not answer our letter, so we applied to court, and Mr Justice Cranston granted the injunction and ordered the sites deleted. The letter was not wasted: it was the evidence that he had been warned and had carried on. Read about a harassment injunction following online harassment of a former employer, and more of our online harassment case studies.
You leave the consultation with a view on the strength of the case, the realistic options and a written estimate for the next step. If your budget is limited, say so then. It changes the order we do things in rather than whether we can help, and the identification work described above is what makes a good number of cases affordable at all. You can read more about how we act for victims on our harassment solicitors page.
Injunction proceedings cost from the low tens of thousands of pounds to considerably more, depending on the circumstances of each case. The main drivers are whether the defendant is known, whether the case is defended, how much evidence there is and how urgent it is. A good number of harassment cases are resolved before that stage by identifying the person and writing to them.
How much does a disclosure order cost?
Disclosure orders against social media companies, search engines or hosts start at £5,000 plus VAT. Where two or more orders are needed in the same case, the cost per order is lower because a good deal of the work is shared.
Can I make the harasser pay my legal costs?
Sometimes, in part. The general rule under the Civil Procedure Rules is that the unsuccessful party pays the successful party's costs, but recovery is a proportion rather than everything, and an order is only worth what the person can actually pay.
Is a solicitor's letter cheaper than going to court?
Considerably. It is the least expensive step in a harassment case and it ends a large share of them, particularly where the person has a job, a business or a reputation to protect. Where it is ignored, the letter still earns its keep at the injunction stage, because it shows the court the person was warned.
Do I have to pay everything up front?
No. The work is done in stages, with a written estimate for each, and there are natural break points where you can decide whether to carry on.
Can I get legal aid for a harassment injunction?
Legal aid is not generally available for civil harassment claims of this kind. You can check your own position using the government's legal aid checker. Legal expenses insurance attached to a home or motor policy is worth checking as well, because many people have it without realising.
What are the court fees?
Court fees are separate from a solicitor's charges and are set by the government. The current amounts are published in the EX50 schedule of civil court fees.
What if I cannot afford a full court case?
Tell us at the consultation. The order we do things in changes with the budget, and the cheapest effective step is identifying the person through our in-house open-source intelligence work and writing to them in confidence, which resolves a good number of cases without proceedings at all. Where court action is still needed, the work is staged so you decide at each point, and in some cases we can act on a no win no fee basis.
Does an emergency application cost more?
Yes, at the outset. An urgent application compresses into two or three days work that would otherwise be spread over weeks, and the court fee and counsel's fee fall due immediately. It can still be the cheaper course overall where it stops something that would be expensive to undo.
Does the threat of breach of privacy constitute harassment?
Breach of privacy and even the threat of breach of privacy could constitute harassment even though a claim for breach of privacy is often brought in addition to a claim for harassment
A Norwich Pharmacal order is a court order requiring a third party, such as a social media company, a search engine or a host, to disclose what it knows about an anonymous account holder. Most of the major platforms will comply with one, but the application is made in the High Court in London, the company is usually outside the UK, and you normally pay that company's costs as well as your own. This article covers what each of the main platforms is like to deal with, when the order is worth making, and what we do first to try to avoid needing one at all.
An essential guide to social media online harassment
If you are are a victim of social media harassment and are considering filing a claim against someone who you feel is harassing you online, you must act now or as fast as possible. There are two particular paths to consider upon making a claim for online harassment, via the courts or through complaints to the police.
Doxing is not a named criminal offence in England and Wales, but it is illegal in almost every real situation we see. Someone who posts your home address, phone number, workplace or private photographs online to expose you, frighten you or set other people on you is likely to be committing harassment, and sometimes two or three other offences at the same time. You can also sue them, get the material taken down, obtain an injunction, and claim compensation.
This article explains which laws apply to doxing in the UK, what to do in the first day, how we identify the person responsible when they hide behind a fake account, and what a realistic outcome looks like. It is written for the person it is happening to, and for the family member or employer trying to help them.
What doxing is
Doxing (also spelt doxxing) is publishing someone's private or identifying information online without their consent, so that other people can find them, contact them or harm them. The word comes from "dropping documents". In practice the information is usually a home address, a personal phone number, an email address, the name of an employer, a car registration, photographs of a house or children, or details of daily routine such as a gym or school run. Sometimes it is intimate images, medical details or financial information taken from a hacked account or a former partner.
Doxing is rarely the whole of the problem. In our experience it is the trigger for what follows: the abusive messages, the strangers turning up, the fake escort listing, the calls to an employer, the pile-on. That is why the law treats it as part of a course of conduct rather than a single post, and why the remedies go further than one takedown.
Is doxing illegal in the UK?
Yes, in nearly every case, although no statute uses the word. As at September 2026 there is still no standalone doxing offence in England and Wales, and the Crime and Policing Act 2026 did not create one. What exists instead is a set of laws that between them cover almost everything a doxer does. Which ones apply depends on what was published, why, and what happened next.
Harassment and stalking
The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is the law we rely on most. Section 1 prohibits a course of conduct that amounts to harassment of another person and which the person doing it knows, or ought to know, amounts to harassment. Two incidents are enough for a course of conduct, and one post that is repeated, reshared or followed by messages will usually satisfy that. Section 2 makes harassment a criminal offence, section 2A covers stalking, and section 4 covers the more serious offence of putting someone in fear of violence, which carries up to ten years' imprisonment. Section 3 gives you a civil claim in your own right, with damages for anxiety and financial loss and the power to apply for an injunction.
Publishing someone's address so that others will act on it has been treated by the courts as harassment for some time. In Levi v Bates [2015] EWCA Civ 206 the chairman of a football club printed a businessman's home address and telephone number in the match programme and encouraged supporters to contact him. The Court of Appeal held that the businessman's wife, who lived at the address, could bring her own harassment claim even though she was not the person the articles were aimed at, because the harm to her was foreseeable. She was awarded £6,000.
Communications offences
Where the doxing comes with threats or abuse, the communications offences apply. Section 181 of the Online Safety Act 2023 makes it an offence to send a message that threatens death, serious injury, rape, sexual assault or serious financial loss, with a maximum sentence of five years. Section 179 of the same Act covers sending a message the sender knows to be false in order to cause non-trivial harm, which is the offence that catches fake escort listings and false accusations posted alongside someone's details. Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 still covers messages that are indecent or grossly offensive and intended to cause distress, and section 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003 covers menacing messages sent over a public network.
Data protection and computer misuse
Section 170 of the Data Protection Act 2018 makes it an offence to obtain, disclose or retain personal data without the consent of the data controller, which is how doxers who lift information from a work system, a customer database or a hacked account are caught. Separately, you can claim compensation under Article 82 of the UK GDPR from anyone who processes your personal data unlawfully, and publishing your home address to a hostile audience is unlawful processing. If the information was obtained by getting into an account or device without permission, section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 applies as well.
Misuse of private information
Alongside the criminal law there is the civil claim for misuse of private information, which the courts have developed since Campbell v MGN [2004] UKHL 22 and confirmed in Bloomberg v ZXC [2022] UKSC 5. The test asks whether you had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information and, if so, whether the other person's right to publish it outweighs yours. A home address, a private phone number, medical or financial details and intimate images will nearly always pass the first part of that test. The remedies are an injunction stopping further publication, an order that the material is deleted, and damages.
The two routes work together. The criminal law is for the police to enforce and gives you a prosecution and a restraining order if it goes well. The civil law is in your hands, moves at your pace, and gets the material down. Most of our clients use both.
Where doxing happens, and the sites that encourage it
Doxing is rarely a lone post on a mainstream platform. In most of the cases we see, the details are gathered and shared on a site or group whose whole purpose is to talk about a person behind their back, and the mainstream platforms are where the crowd then acts on them.
The gossip forums are the commonest source. Tattle Life, the largest of them in the UK and Ireland with about a million visits a month, hosts hundreds of threads on influencers, small business owners and people who are not public figures at all, and those threads have carried home addresses, workplaces and details of children. Its anonymous operator was identified in June 2025 through a disclosure order against the company that supplied the forum's software, and named in the High Court in Belfast as Sebastian Bond, after a Northern Irish couple sued over a thread about them. The £300,000 award made in their favour was set aside in May 2026 on procedural grounds and the couple have been given permission to appeal, so the damages are not the lesson. The lesson is that a forum operator who believes he cannot be found can be found, and that the route to him ran through the businesses that host and serve the site rather than through the site itself. Our sister site sets out what to do about harassment on Tattle Life.
Below the gossip forums sit the sites built for doxing: paste sites where dossiers of names, addresses and family details are uploaded for others to act on, and forums such as Kiwi Farms, which coordinated campaigns against named individuals until its network provider withdrew service in 2022 after a campaign by one of its targets. Then there are the "exposed" and "warning" groups on Facebook and Telegram, the anonymous imageboards, and the review and complaint sites where a dispute with a tradesman or a landlord turns into their home address and car registration. Each of these takes a different approach to takedown: some respond to a properly drafted legal notice within days, some respond only to their hosting company or domain registrar, and some are structured to ignore everything, which is when the disclosure order and the injunction do the work.
Two points of law matter here. First, the person who posts the details and the people who repost or act on them are each liable for their own conduct; there is no safety in being one of a crowd. Second, since the Online Safety Act 2023 illegal content duties came into force in 2025, a UK-facing forum has its own duties to assess and remove content that amounts to harassment or a threat once it is on notice, and a well-drafted notice puts it on notice. The operator's liability is a separate question and usually a slower route than the one against the individual, but it is there.
What to do in the first 24 hours
Preserve the evidence before anything else. Take full-page screenshots that show the URL, the account name and the date, and save the links in a document. Do not ask friends to report the post or reply to it yet, because a post that is deleted before it has been captured is much harder to use, and a doxer who sees a reaction tends to escalate. If the platform has a "download your data" or archive tool, use it.
Then close the doors the doxer is likely to try next. Set every social media account to private for now, change passwords on email and cloud accounts and turn on two-factor authentication, and check whether your address is publicly visible on the electoral register, Companies House or people-search sites, all of which allow you to ask for it to be hidden. If you run a business from home, consider a registered office address elsewhere. None of this is admitting anything; it is removing the material the doxer wants to use.
If there is any threat to your physical safety, or someone has turned up at your home, call the police on 999. Otherwise report the matter on 101 or online and ask for a crime reference number. Our guide on reporting harassment to the police explains what to expect and what to say. Report the posts to the platform as well, using the harassment or privacy option rather than the general "spam" one. Keep the reference numbers; they matter later.
How we stop doxing
We start with the evidence you have gathered and work out two things quickly: who is behind it, and where the material is hosted. The answers decide the route.
How we find out who is behind the doxing
If the doxer is anonymous, we identify them, and in most cases we can. This is something we believe is unique to our firm: Cohen Davis has its own open-source intelligence department, built up over more than a decade, with lawyers trained in OSINT and access to specialist databases, so the investigation is done in-house rather than sent out to an agency. The first stage is open-source intelligence, known as OSINT: a structured investigation of everything the account and the posts have left in public view, carried out by our own investigators and reviewed by a solicitor. Because the people finding the evidence are the people who will use it in court, the work is done to a standard a judge will accept. It uses only lawfully accessible sources, it does not involve contacting the doxer, and it usually takes days rather than weeks.
What we look at depends on the case, but the same threads tend to lead somewhere. A username or a profile picture reused on another platform where the person was less careful. The date the account was created and the moment it went quiet, set against the timeline of your dispute. Turns of phrase, spelling habits and the hours at which the posts appear. Metadata in images, reverse image searches, and the background detail in a photograph. Followers and friends the account shares with someone you already suspect. Archived and cached copies of posts that have since been deleted, which we capture before they disappear. Company, property and electoral records where a name or an address surfaces. Each item on its own may prove little; together they often point to one person, and we set out that reasoning in a report you can put before the police or a court.
Where the open-source work narrows the field but does not close it, we apply to court for a disclosure order against the platform, known as a Norwich Pharmacal order, which requires the platform to hand over the account holder's registration details, such as the email address, phone number and IP addresses used. The OSINT report is what persuades the court that the order is proportionate. Our sister site explains how we identify anonymous internet users using open-source intelligence and how to unmask someone behind anonymous online posts. A disclosure order typically costs in the region of £5,000 plus VAT and takes a few weeks.
What helps us most is what you can gather now: the account names and links, the screenshots with dates, any earlier contact with the person you suspect, and a short list of who might have a motive. You do not need to be right; you need to give us somewhere to start.
In parallel we get the material down. We send takedown notices to the platforms and to the hosting companies and search engines, citing the specific laws above rather than the general community guidelines, because platforms treat a notice from solicitors that names the offence and the claim differently from a user report. Most mainstream platforms remove a home address or a phone number within days once it is put to them properly. Sites that exist to host doxing, or that sit outside the UK, take longer and sometimes need the host or the domain registrar to be approached instead.
Once we know who the doxer is, we write to them. A cease and desist letter, or a formal letter before claim, sets out what they have done, which laws they have broken and what we require: deletion, an undertaking not to repeat it, and usually a contribution to costs. We give a short deadline, typically seven to fourteen days. In our experience a large proportion of doxers stop at this point, because the letter is the first moment they understand they have been identified and that the consequences are personal to them.
If they do not stop, or the risk is too high to wait, we apply for an injunction. The court can grant an interim injunction under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 within days, and in urgent cases within twenty-four hours, ordering the doxer to remove the material and not to publish anything further about you. Where the doxer is still unidentified, the injunction can be made against "persons unknown" and served on the accounts themselves. One of the cases we acted in shows harassment injunctions against anonymous Instagram and social media users working in exactly that way. Breaching an injunction is contempt of court, and the people we deal with generally understand what that means.
Costs depend on how far the matter goes. Takedown notices and a cease and desist letter sit at the lower end; a contested injunction sits at the higher end. After a first consultation we give you a written estimate for each step, so that you decide stage by stage. Our separate guide on harassment injunction cost gives the ranges we have seen in practice.
The letter is the first moment most doxers understand they have been identified and that the consequences are personal to them.
A case we acted in
A fashion influencer we will call Joanna came to us after strangers began messaging her about an escort listing she had never created. The listing carried her photographs, her mobile number, her home town and her measurements. Within weeks, recordings of private conversations, intimate images and her full postal address had been posted to a doxing site, together with the names and workplaces of some of her friends. The person responsible was a former boyfriend, one of her own followers, who had used her Instagram posts to track her movements and had installed a hidden camera in her bathroom during the relationship.
Joanna had done the one thing that mattered most: she had preserved everything. From that evidence we identified him, secured removal of the material about her and her friends from the sites and the search results, and recovered compensation from him, with her legal fees paid. The fuller account is at what to do if you become a victim of doxing.
What outcome you can realistically expect
Removal of the material is the usual first result, and for most clients it arrives within days to a few weeks of instructing us, depending on where the material sits. Identification of an anonymous doxer, where it is needed, generally takes a few weeks by open-source work or a disclosure order. An interim injunction, where the case justifies it, can be in place within days and stays in place until trial or until the other side gives undertakings, which is how most of these cases end.
Damages for harassment in the civil courts are modest by the standards of some other claims. Awards commonly fall between the low thousands and the low tens of thousands of pounds: £6,000 for the wife in Levi v Bates; £30,000 for harassment in Hourani v Thomson [2017] EWHC 432 (QB), where a coordinated campaign included demonstrations outside the claimant's home, on top of £50,000 for the libel that accompanied it. Where the doxing involves intimate images or medical or financial details, the misuse of private information claim adds a further head of damages. If you win, the court will also normally order the other side to pay a substantial part of your legal costs.
On the criminal side, a conviction for harassment under section 2 carries up to six months' imprisonment, section 4 up to ten years, and a threatening communication under the Online Safety Act 2023 up to five years. The court can also impose a restraining order, which for many of our clients matters more than the sentence.
The risks to weigh are these. The doxer may argue that the information was already public, which is not a complete answer, because collecting scattered details into one hostile post is itself the harm, but it can affect the privacy claim. They may argue freedom of expression or public interest, which the courts take seriously where the target is a public figure and the information concerns their public role, and much less seriously where it is a home address. The doxer may be outside the UK, which slows enforcement without stopping it. And there is the cost of a fully contested case, which is why we advise stage by stage and tell you where we think the matter will settle.
Doxing and pile-on harassment usually travel together. A pile-on, sometimes called dogpiling, is a crowd of people targeting one person at the same time, and the crowd needs somewhere to aim. Publishing the target's details is what turns a bad-tempered thread into strangers ringing an employer or standing outside a house. The Law Commission looked at whether pile-on harassment should become a specific offence and the government has not legislated for one, so the same laws apply: the person who publishes the details and the people who act on them can each be liable for harassment, and the organiser can be liable for what the crowd foreseeably does. We describe one such matter in our pile-on harassment case study, and our general guide on how to stop online harassment covers the wider picture.
Frequently asked questions
Is doxxing illegal in the UK?
There is no offence called doxxing, but publishing someone's private details to expose, frighten or target them is almost always illegal under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and, depending on the facts, the Online Safety Act 2023, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, the Data Protection Act 2018 or the Computer Misuse Act 1990. It also gives rise to civil claims for harassment and misuse of private information.
Is it still doxing if the information was already public?
It can be. The courts look at the purpose and effect of the publication, not only at whether each fact could be found somewhere. Gathering a person's address, employer and photographs into one post aimed at a hostile audience is the harm, and Levi v Bates involved an address that was, strictly, discoverable. The "already public" point may reduce a privacy claim, but it rarely defeats a harassment claim.
Can I go to the police about doxing?
Yes. Report it on 101 or online, or on 999 if there is a threat to your safety, and ask for a crime reference number. The police response varies, and in our experience it is stronger where you present the evidence in order and name the offence. Our guide on reporting harassment to the police explains how. A police report and a civil claim can proceed at the same time.
What if I do not know who doxed me?
Most doxers can be identified. We begin with open-source investigation of the account, and where that is not enough we apply for a disclosure order requiring the platform to reveal the account holder. An injunction can be obtained against "persons unknown" while the identification work continues, so you are not left unprotected in the meantime.
Can I sue someone for doxing me?
Yes. Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 gives you a civil claim for damages and an injunction, and misuse of private information and data protection law add further claims where private or personal data is involved. Awards for harassment typically run from the low thousands to the low tens of thousands of pounds, and the court usually orders the other side to contribute to your legal costs.
How much does it cost to stop doxing?
It depends on the route. The first consultation is at a fixed fee, stated above, and after it we give a written estimate for each step so that you decide stage by stage. Takedown notices and a cease and desist letter are the least expensive stage. A disclosure order is typically in the region of £5,000 plus VAT. Injunction proceedings vary widely with the amount of evidence and whether the other side fights; our guide on harassment injunction cost sets out the ranges.
Does the same law apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
Broadly, yes. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 contains separate provisions for Scotland, and Northern Ireland has the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, which works in a similar way. The Online Safety Act 2023 communications offences and the data protection legislation apply across the UK. This article is written from the law of England and Wales, and we can advise on the differences where they matter.
What should I do if my home address has been posted online?
Screenshot the post with its URL and date, report it to the platform under harassment or privacy, tell the police if there is any threat, and lock down the places your address appears publicly, such as the open electoral register and Companies House. Then take advice quickly. Address doxing is the category that most often leads to someone turning up, and it is the one where an early injunction earns its keep.
When you report harassment to the police in the UK, the police should record it as a crime, give you a crime reference number, assess the risk to you and decide whether to investigate. If they investigate, they usually speak to or arrest the person responsible, and then decide whether to take no further action, give a caution or charge them. In our experience, many reports of online harassment stop at the first or second step, and victims are told it is a civil matter. It is not only a civil matter. Harassment is a crime and a civil wrong under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, so if the police do not act, you can go to court yourself for an injunction and damages.
This article explains what happens after you report, what the police can and cannot do, how to report so that you are taken seriously, what to do if the police refuse to help, and when it makes sense to sue instead of waiting. It covers England and Wales. If you are in immediate danger, call 999.
What happens when you report harassment to the police
The police record your report, give you a crime reference number and assign an officer, who decides whether and how to investigate. What happens next depends on how serious the harassment is, whether the police know who is responsible, and how much evidence you can give them.
The usual sequence looks like this.
Recording. The police record the report as a crime and give you a crime reference number. Under the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (the Victims' Code), you are entitled to have the crime recorded without unjustified delay and to receive written confirmation of your report.
Risk assessment and statement. An officer assesses the risk to you, particularly where the harassment has moved offline or includes threats, and takes a statement. Stalking and harassment cases are sometimes passed to a specialist team.
Contact with the suspect. If the police know who is responsible, they usually invite them to a voluntary interview under caution or arrest them. Where the risk is high, the suspect can be released on bail with conditions that keep them away from you.
The decision. The police then decide whether to take no further action, give a caution, or charge. For the more serious offences, the Crown Prosecution Service decides whether to charge.
Court. Most harassment cases are heard in the magistrates' court. On conviction the court can sentence the offender and make a restraining order under the Sentencing Act 2020 forbidding further contact. The court can make a restraining order even after an acquittal, under section 5A of the 1997 Act, if it is needed to protect you.
Some forces still give the suspect a police information notice, sometimes called a harassment warning. It is not a caution or a conviction, and it does not stop anyone doing anything. It tells the person that an allegation has been made and that further conduct could lead to arrest. A 2017 joint inspection of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service criticised the way these notices were used and told chief constables to stop issuing them, and some forces did.
How long it takes
A simple case where the suspect is known and admits the conduct can be dealt with in weeks. A case that needs data from a social media platform, particularly one based abroad, can take many months before anyone is interviewed, and longer still before it reaches court. In the meantime, the posts usually stay online and the harassment may well carry on.
What the police can and cannot do about harassment
The police can arrest, interview and charge the person harassing you, and ask a court to restrict their behaviour. They cannot award you compensation, and they cannot order a platform or a website to take content down.
Within those limits, the police can:
arrest and interview the suspect, and search their devices where the offence justifies it;
impose bail conditions while they investigate;
charge an offence, or refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service;
apply to the magistrates' court for a Stalking Protection Order under the Stalking Protection Act 2019, which can be made even without a conviction;
ask platforms for account information, although this can be slow, particularly where the platform is based outside the UK;
ask the person or the platform to remove harassing posts.
What the police cannot do is just as important. They cannot make a platform remove content. They decide whether the case continues, not you, and the Crown Prosecution Service can drop a case at any stage if it decides the evidence is not strong enough or that a prosecution is not in the public interest. A criminal court can order the offender to pay compensation after a conviction, but the sums are usually modest, and the police route does nothing for your legal costs or for any privacy or defamation claim that sits alongside the harassment.
The offences the police can charge
Harassment is an offence under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and stalking is an offence under section 2A. The more serious offences are putting someone in fear of violence under section 4, and stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress under section 4A.
Section 181 of the Online Safety Act 2023 makes it an offence to send a threatening communication. Section 179 of the same Act covers sending a message the sender knows to be false, intending to cause non-trivial harm. Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 also still apply to offensive and menacing messages.
Timing matters. The basic harassment and stalking offences under sections 2 and 2A are summary offences, and a prosecution usually has to start within six months of the conduct, under section 127 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980. If you wait a long time before reporting, the police may be limited to the most recent incidents.
How to report harassment to the police
Report it in the way that gets your evidence in front of an officer: in person at a police station, or online through your force's website, with your evidence organised so that it can be read in ten minutes. Call 999 if you are in immediate danger, and 101 if it is not an emergency.
The victims we speak to sometimes find that an online report on its own goes nowhere for weeks. Reporting in person, with a folder of evidence, tends to get a better response, because an officer can see the pattern for themselves. Before you go, we suggest you prepare:
A short timeline. One page, in date order, of what has happened, starting with the first incident.
Screenshots. Each one showing the message or post, the account name, the link and the date. Keep the originals and do not delete anything, even if it is upsetting.
A list of accounts and names. Every profile, email address and phone number you think the person is using, and who you believe is behind them.
The effect on you. A few lines on how the harassment has affected you, your work and your family. Harassment is defined by its effect as much as by the words used.
Two copies. One to leave with the police, one to keep. Put your name, contact details and crime reference number on the front.
Tell the officer that you are reporting harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Ask for the crime reference number, the name of the officer dealing with it, and how to add new incidents. Every new message or post should be reported under the same reference, so that the course of conduct builds up in one place. Our guides on harassment by text message and cyberstalking explain how the offences apply to the most common kinds of conduct.
If the person is anonymous, give the police everything you have about the accounts, and do not engage with them. The police can ask platforms for account details, but they do not always have the time to do so. Our guide to exposing internet trolls explains how anonymous harassers are usually identified, and evidence we gather through a civil claim can be handed to the police to support a prosecution.
If the police say it is a civil matter, or refuse to act
Do not accept that answer. Harassment is a criminal offence as well as a civil wrong, and a dispute between you and the harasser does not make it any less a crime. Ask for the report to be recorded, ask for the refusal and the reason in writing, and ask to speak to a supervisor.
These are the reasons victims tell us they are given, and what lies behind them.
"It is a civil matter." It can be both. A business, family or relationship dispute behind the harassment does not remove the criminal offence.
"This is not harassment." Harassment does not need threats. Two or more incidents that cause alarm or distress can be enough, and repeated posts and publications can count.
"Just stay offline." You can be harassed by material you never see. Knowing that posts about you are being read by friends, clients or family can be enough.
"We do not have the resources." That is a reason for delay, not a reason not to record the crime. Online cases usually arrive with most of the evidence already gathered by the victim.
"The suspect lives in another area." You can report to your local force. If you are told it belongs to another force, ask for the report to be recorded and passed on, and note the officer's name.
"We need more evidence." Ask what evidence they need, and in what form, and provide it under the same crime reference number.
If nothing changes, make a written complaint to the force's professional standards department. If you are unhappy with how the complaint is handled, you can ask for a review; your outcome letter says whether the Independent Office for Police Conduct or your police and crime commissioner carries it out. If the police or the Crown Prosecution Service decide not to charge, the Victims' Right to Review scheme lets you ask for that decision to be looked at again.
Complaints take time, and the harassment rarely waits. This is the point at which most of our clients decide to take action themselves.
Report to the police or sue: choosing the route
You do not have to choose. You can report to the police and bring a civil claim at the same time, and in many of our cases the civil claim is what stops the harassment while the police are still investigating.
The two routes work differently.
Control. In a criminal case, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service decide what happens. In a civil claim, you decide, with your solicitor, when to act and when to settle.
Speed. A civil court can make an interim injunction within days, and in urgent cases within twenty-four hours, including against "persons unknown". See obtaining an emergency injunction.
What you get. A civil claim under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 can bring an injunction, damages for anxiety and financial loss, an order to delete material, and a contribution to your legal costs. It can also include claims for misuse of private information, data protection and defamation, which the criminal courts do not deal with.
Proof. A criminal court has to be sure of guilt. A civil court decides on the balance of probabilities, which is a lower standard.
Cost. The police route costs you nothing. A civil claim involves legal fees, although the person responsible can be ordered to pay a substantial part of them, and the prospect of paying can change their behaviour.
Breaching a civil injunction made under section 3 is itself a criminal offence under section 3(6) of the 1997 Act, so the police become involved again if the order is ignored. You usually have six years to bring a civil harassment claim, because section 11(1A) of the Limitation Act 1980 takes these claims outside the shorter personal injury time limit, although moving early almost always gives a better result.
Private prosecution
If the police will not act, you can bring the prosecution yourself. Section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 preserves the right of any individual to start a private prosecution, although the Crown Prosecution Service can take the case over under section 6(2), and can then continue or discontinue it. We explain how this works in private prosecution of online harassment cases. For most clients a civil injunction is quicker and gives more protection, but a private prosecution can be the right answer where a conviction matters.
A solicitor's harassment warning letter is the least expensive step, and many harassers stop there. A disclosure order to identify an anonymous account holder costs from £5,000 plus VAT. Injunction proceedings vary widely with the evidence and whether the other side defends, and our guide to harassment injunction cost sets out the ranges. In some cases we can act on a no win no fee basis once we have assessed the prospects.
We stop the harassment ourselves, using the civil law, and we give the police the evidence they need if they want to prosecute. Most clients come to us after being told by the police that nothing can be done, and our first week usually looks like this.
Evidence. We go through what has happened and what you want to achieve, and put the evidence into a form a court will accept.
Identification. If the harasser is anonymous, our in-house open-source intelligence team works out who is behind the accounts. Where that is not enough, we apply to court for Norwich Pharmacal orders for social media requiring the platform to disclose who holds the account.
Takedown. We send legal notices to the platforms, hosts and search engines, which tends to get a faster response than a user report.
The letter. Once we know who it is, we write to them setting out what they have done, the law they have broken and what we require, usually within a deadline of seven to fourteen days.
The injunction. If the letter is ignored or the risk is too high to wait, we apply for an online harassment injunction.
Cases where the police could not help, and we could
These cases show what the civil route achieves when the police cannot. Identifying details have been changed in the two anonymised accounts.
Thirteen years of harassment ended in the High Court
For thirteen years, a man Lindsey Goldrick-Dean had met through an internet dating site built websites about her, filled them with offensive and private material, and contacted her friends and family to draw their attention to them. She went back to the police several times and was eventually told they had no idea how to deal with it. We took the case on. In July 2018 the High Court case against Paul Curran concluded with damages for Lindsey, an order restraining him from harassing her again, and a statement read in open court. Read the full account of Lindsey Goldrick-Dean v Paul Curran.
An emergency injunction after the police showed no interest
A former investor in our client's company, which had gone into liquidation fifteen years earlier, started publishing accusations about him, then created social media accounts impersonating him and contacted his family and professional contacts. The platforms did not remove the posts and the police seemed uninterested. By the time we were instructed, matters had deteriorated so far that we applied for an emergency injunction. Read whether it is best to take civil or criminal action for cyberbullying.
A hate website taken down without going to court
Our client had been targeted for more than a decade by an anonymous website about events nearly twenty years earlier, with fake profiles sharing it with colleagues and family. Our open-source intelligence team traced the site to its owner through her writing style and other online traces, despite a false name on the domain registration. We wrote to her with the evidence, and she took the website down. Neither a police investigation nor a court case was needed. Read what to do if someone creates a harassing website about you, and more of our online harassment case studies.
What outcome you can realistically expect
From the police, the realistic range goes from no further action, which is common in online cases, through a warning or caution, to a charge, a conviction and a restraining order. Where a case is charged, it can take several months to a year or more to reach a result, and you have little say in how it is handled.
From a civil claim, removal of posted material is usually the first result, typically within days to a few weeks depending on where it is hosted. Many cases end at the letter stage, with the harassment stopping and a signed undertaking not to repeat it. Where an injunction is needed, an interim order can be in place within days, and most contested cases end with the other side giving undertakings rather than going to trial.
Damages for harassment commonly range from the low thousands to the low tens of thousands of pounds, and higher where the harassment has caused financial loss. In Levi v Bates [2015] EWCA Civ 206 the court awarded the claimant £6,000 after her home address was published and supporters were encouraged to contact the household. In Hourani v Thomson [2017] EWHC 432 (QB) the award for harassment was £30,000, alongside separate libel damages.
The risks are worth weighing from the start. The other side may argue that their conduct was reasonable, or that they were acting to prevent or detect crime, which is a defence under section 1(3) of the 1997 Act. The Supreme Court held in Hayes v Willoughby [2013] UKSC 17 that someone relying on that defence must have thought rationally about whether their conduct was justified, which rules out obsessive campaigns dressed up as crime reporting. An anonymous or overseas harasser can slow things down, although it rarely stops them.
Frequently asked questions
What happens when you file a police report for harassment in the UK?
The police record the crime and give you a crime reference number, then an officer assesses the risk and takes your statement. If they decide to investigate, they usually contact the suspect for an interview or arrest them, and then decide whether to take no further action, give a caution or charge. Many online cases end without a charge, which is why a civil claim is worth considering alongside the report.
What can the police do about harassment?
They can arrest and interview the suspect, impose bail conditions, charge them with an offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 or the communications offences, and apply for a Stalking Protection Order. On conviction the court can make a restraining order. The police cannot award you damages or order content to be taken down, although they can ask for it to be removed.
Do the police have to record my report of harassment?
In most cases, yes. The national crime recording rules expect the police to record a crime when a victim reports one and there is no credible evidence to the contrary, and the Victims' Code entitles you to have it recorded without unjustified delay and to receive a crime reference number. If an officer refuses, ask for the refusal and the reason in writing.
Can the police make someone take harassing posts down?
Not directly. The police can ask the person or the platform to remove posts, and a criminal court can make a restraining order that forbids further publication after a conviction. A civil injunction is usually the quicker way to get an order requiring deletion, and a legal notice to the platform can work faster than either.
What if the police say harassment is a civil matter?
Harassment is both a crime and a civil wrong, so a police officer who says it is only a civil matter is not describing the law correctly. Ask for the report to be recorded, ask for the officer's name and a supervisor, and keep a note of the conversation. You can also bring a civil claim yourself, whatever the police decide.
Is it worth reporting online harassment to the police?
Usually, yes, even if you expect little to happen. The report creates a record, gives you a crime reference number, and shows a court later on that you took the matter seriously. If you feel unsafe, the report is also how the police can act quickly. Call 999 if you are in immediate danger.
Can I sue for harassment instead of going to the police?
Yes. Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 gives you a civil claim for an injunction and damages, and it does not depend on a police report or a prosecution. You can report to the police and bring a civil claim at the same time, and you usually have six years to bring the claim.
Can I complain if the police do nothing about my harassment?
Yes. Complain first to the force's professional standards department, and if you are unhappy with the result you can ask for a review; your outcome letter says whether the Independent Office for Police Conduct or your police and crime commissioner carries it out. If the police or the Crown Prosecution Service decide not to charge, you can ask for that decision to be reviewed under the Victims' Right to Review scheme. Suing the police for failing to investigate is rarely possible.
A solicitor's letter is usually the quickest and least expensive way to stop harassment. We write to the person responsible, set out what they have done, explain why it is harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and tell them what they need to do and by when: stop all contact, delete the posts, and sign an undertaking not to do it again. In many of our cases the harassment stops at this point, within days, without anyone going to court. Where it does not, the letter becomes the first step towards an injunction.
This article explains what the letter says, what it can achieve, when it is the wrong step, what happens if it is ignored, and what it costs. It covers England and Wales.
The letter puts the person on formal notice that their conduct is harassment and that you are prepared to go to court. That notice matters. Under section 1 of the 1997 Act, harassment is conduct the person knows or ought to know amounts to harassment, and after a clear letter they can no longer say they did not realise.
A well-judged letter usually achieves one or more of these results:
the contact, posts or messages stop;
the person deletes what they have published, or amends it;
they sign an undertaking not to contact you or publish about you again;
in some cases, they agree to pay a contribution to your legal costs, or damages.
The letter also changes the position if the matter does go further. It shows a court that the person was warned clearly and chose to carry on, which strengthens an application for an injunction and the case for costs.
What the letter says
The letter sets out the facts, the law and what you require, in a tone the recipient cannot mistake for an opening bid. In our office it usually covers these points, in this order.
Who we act for, and why we are writing. A short statement that you have instructed us about their conduct towards you.
What they have done. The messages, posts, calls or visits, with dates and examples, so there is no room to claim a misunderstanding.
Why it is harassment. Section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the course of conduct, and the effect on you. Where posts are also false or private, the letter can add defamation, misuse of private information or data protection.
What you require. Usually, no further contact, direct or indirect; deletion of named posts and accounts; and a signed undertaking.
The deadline. Usually seven to fourteen days, shorter where the risk is higher.
What happens next. A claim under section 3 of the Act for an injunction, damages and costs, without further warning.
Where the harassment is carried out by publication, such as posts, websites or reviews, the Pre-Action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims sets out what a letter of claim should contain before proceedings are issued. For other harassment claims, the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct applies. Following them matters, because a court can penalise a party in costs if the pre-action steps were skipped.
The position you take in the letter binds you for the rest of the matter. What you demand, what you say about the facts and what you threaten will be read by the other side, and possibly by a judge. That is the main reason to have a specialist write it.
When a letter is the right step, and when it is not
A letter works best when we know who the harasser is and they have something to lose. It is the wrong first step when the person is anonymous, when your safety is at risk, or when warning them could lead to evidence being destroyed.
In our experience a letter tends to work well against people with a job, a business, a professional registration or a reputation in their community, and against people who do not realise how the law treats what they are doing. It tends to work less well against people who are anonymous, who live abroad with nothing to lose in the UK, or whose behaviour is driven by obsession rather than calculation.
We would usually take a different first step in these situations:
You are at risk of harm. Call 999 if you are in immediate danger. Where the risk is serious, obtaining an emergency injunction can be quicker than waiting for a reply, and a court can make an order within twenty-four hours in urgent cases.
Evidence could disappear. We preserve the posts, pages and messages, with their links and dates, before the person learns that you have instructed solicitors.
The harassment has already continued after a warning. If the person has ignored the police or earlier letters, going straight to court is usually the better use of your money.
Most recipients reply within the deadline, usually through a solicitor. Some agree to everything, some agree to part and argue about the rest, and some ignore the letter altogether. Each leads somewhere different.
They agree. We check that the posts have gone and take a signed undertaking. An undertaking given in a letter is a promise between you and them, not a court order. If it is broken, we would usually apply for an injunction, and breaching an injunction is a criminal offence.
They agree in part. We negotiate. Sometimes a practical compromise, such as editing a post rather than removing it, gets you the result faster and lowers the temperature.
They deny it or ignore the letter. We advise on applying for an online harassment injunction and a claim for damages. Breaching an injunction made under section 3 of the 1997 Act is a criminal offence under section 3(6).
They escalate. This is uncommon, but it happens. We would usually move straight to court and, where appropriate, give the evidence to the police.
If you are the person who has received a harassment warning from the police rather than a solicitor, our article on police harassment warnings explains what it means for you.
Cases where our letter made the difference
These cases show the letter working on its own, and what happens when it is ignored. Identifying details have been changed in the anonymised accounts.
A hate website taken down after one letter
Our client had been targeted for more than a decade by an anonymous website, with fake profiles sharing it with colleagues and family. Our open-source intelligence team traced the site to its owner, who worked for a major financial institution, despite a false name on the domain registration. We wrote to her with the evidence and set out the consequences. She took the website down, and neither a police investigation nor a court case was needed. Read what to do if someone creates a harassing website about you.
Two years of posts about a will-writing business stopped without court
The founder of a will-writing company had spent months reporting false posts accusing her of fraud, made under several false names across Facebook groups and review sites. We preserved the evidence, sent a letter of claim to the person behind the posts, and pressed the platforms at the same time. Most of the content was removed or amended, a damaging review was deleted, and the posting stopped. Read the solicitor harassment on Facebook case study.
A letter ignored, and an injunction from the High Court
A former temporary interpreter at the International Maritime Organisation created four websites attacking his former manager, with photographs taken without her consent. He did not respond to our letter, so we applied for an injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Mr Justice Cranston granted it and ordered the websites deleted. Read about a harassment injunction following online harassment of a former employer, and more of our online harassment case studies.
The letter is usually the least expensive step in a harassment case. After the consultation we give you a written estimate for the letter, based on how much evidence there is to go through and how many people it needs to go to, and for each step that might follow. If the letter is ignored, our guide to harassment injunction cost sets out the ranges for the next stage, and in some cases we can act on a no win no fee basis once we have assessed the prospects.
Where we know who the harasser is, the most common outcome is that the conduct stops within the letter's deadline, usually with the posts removed or amended and a signed undertaking. Where material is on a platform, legal notices sent alongside the letter usually lead to removal within days to a few weeks.
Where the letter is ignored, an interim injunction can usually be in place within days, and most contested cases end with the other side giving undertakings to the court rather than going to trial. Damages for harassment commonly range from the low thousands to the low tens of thousands of pounds.
The risks are worth weighing. The recipient may argue that their conduct was reasonable, or that they were acting to prevent or detect crime, which is a defence under section 1(3) of the 1997 Act. The Supreme Court held in Hayes v Willoughby [2013] UKSC 17 that someone relying on that defence must have thought rationally about whether their conduct was justified. A letter can also provoke someone who is not thinking rationally, which is why we assess the person before we write.
Frequently asked questions
Can a solicitor send a letter to stop harassment?
Yes. A solicitor can write to the person harassing you, set out what they have done and the law that applies, and require them to stop within a deadline. The letter usually asks for a signed undertaking and warns that a claim for an injunction and damages will follow if the conduct continues.
Does a solicitor's letter work?
In many of our cases, yes. A letter from a firm that is known to go to court tends to stop the conduct, particularly where the person has a job, a business or a reputation to protect. It works less well against someone who is anonymous, unstable or determined to carry on whatever the cost, which is why we assess that before we write.
What should a letter to stop harassment say?
It should identify the conduct with dates and examples, explain why it amounts to harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, say what you require (stopping contact, deleting posts, a signed undertaking), give a deadline, and explain what will happen if the person does not comply.
What happens if the harasser ignores the letter?
We usually apply to court for an injunction. The letter helps at that stage, because it shows the court that the person was told clearly that their conduct was harassment and chose to carry on. Breaching an injunction made under section 3 of the 1997 Act is a criminal offence.
Is a solicitor's letter the same as a police harassment warning?
No. A police information notice, sometimes called a harassment warning, comes from the police and is recorded by them. A solicitor's letter is a step in a civil claim that you control. It can ask for things the police cannot, such as deleting posts, a signed undertaking and a contribution to your costs.
Can I send a harassment letter myself?
You can, but a letter from you is sometimes read as a continuation of the dispute, and a badly worded one can make things worse or be used against you later. A letter from a solicitor carries the realistic prospect of court proceedings, which is what usually changes behaviour.
Can a solicitor's letter itself be harassment?
A single letter setting out a genuine legal claim is very unlikely to be harassment, because harassment needs a course of conduct and pursuing a legitimate claim is usually reasonable. Repeated, aggressive letters with no genuine claim behind them could be different, which is one reason to have the letter written by a solicitor.
How much does a solicitor's letter to stop harassment cost?
The letter is usually the least expensive step in a harassment case. After the first consultation, which is charged at the fixed fee shown in this article, we give you a written estimate for the letter and for each step that might follow, so that you decide stage by stage.
If someone will not leave you alone, a harassment injunction is the order that makes them stop. It is a civil order, made by the High Court or the county court under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. It can tell the person not to contact you, require them to delete what they have posted, and keep your name out of the court record while it does so. Breaking it is a criminal offence carrying up to five years in prison. Where a case is urgent, we can be in front of a judge within a day or two.
Most people who ask us about injunctions have already tried everything that was supposed to work. They blocked the account and a new one appeared the same week. They reported it and were told it was a civil matter. They asked the person to stop, and it got worse. This article is about the point where you stop asking and a court tells them instead.
What an injunction does to the person harassing you
It takes the decision out of their hands. Until the order exists, stopping is something you have been asking them to choose. After it, carrying on is a criminal offence, and the choice they are making is whether to risk their liberty over it.
That is the part people underestimate. A solicitor's letter is a warning from your side of the argument, and someone who has convinced themselves they are in the right can tell themselves it is bluster. An order has a judge's name on it. If they breach it, we can apply to a judge of the same court for a warrant for their arrest. Breaching an order made under section 3 of the 1997 Act, without reasonable excuse, is also a criminal offence. It carries up to five years' imprisonment on conviction on indictment. In our experience that lands with people who had stopped listening to anything else.
An injunction does not ask someone to stop. It takes the choice away from them, and puts what happens next in the hands of a judge rather than yours.
What the order can cover
The order says what the person may not do, in terms specific enough that there is no argument later about whether they have broken it. In the harassment cases we handle it tends to prohibit any contact with you, direct or indirect, which includes messages sent through other people and accounts opened under new names. It can require named posts, pages, videos or whole websites to be taken down within a stated period, and it can prohibit publishing anything further about you at all, which is the part that stops a campaign simply resuming somewhere else.
Where the harassment has an offline side, the order can create an exclusion zone around your home, your work or your children's school. Where publicity would make things worse, we ask at the same time for an order anonymising your name, so that going to court does not spread the very thing you are trying to contain. And we sometimes ask for an order requiring the person to identify every account they have used, which is how the remaining material gets found.
What you need to show
Two incidents and a reasonable person. That is the short answer, and the rest is detail.
Harassment under the Act needs a course of conduct, and section 7 says that means conduct on at least two occasions. Conduct includes speech, and harassment includes alarming you or causing you distress, so a pattern of messages counts even where no single one of them would. A single post, however vile, is usually not enough on its own.
What the person says they meant by it does not decide the question. The test is whether a reasonable person with the same information would think the conduct amounted to harassment. That matters because the commonest response we see is that it was a joke, or a warning to others, or that they were only telling the truth.
You do not always have to wait for the worst of it. Section 3 covers an apprehended breach as well as one that has already happened, so a credible threat to publish can be enough to get you in front of a judge.
The person may say their conduct was reasonable, or that they were acting to prevent or detect crime, which are defences under section 1(3). The Supreme Court held in Hayes v Willoughby [2013] UKSC 17 that anyone relying on the crime prevention defence has to have thought rationally about whether what they were doing was justified, which is why it rarely helps the person on a personal campaign. Where the order would stop something being published, a higher threshold applies under section 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998: the court needs to be satisfied that you are likely to establish at trial that publication should not be allowed.
Evidence comes first, and it comes before the other side knows you have instructed anyone. We preserve the posts, the messages, the pages and the account details, with their dates and links, because material that disappears the week before a hearing cannot be recovered afterwards and the judge only sees what we can put in front of them.
If you do not know who the person is, that is the next job rather than a reason to give up. Our open-source intelligence team works on identifying them, and where that is not enough we apply for Norwich Pharmacal orders for social media. Our guide to exposing internet trolls explains how that work is done.
In most cases we then send a solicitor's letter to stop harassment before going anywhere near a court. A good number of matters end there, for a fraction of the cost, and where the letter is ignored it has still done you a favour, because it shows the judge that the person was told plainly and carried on.
The application itself is a claim form, an application notice, a witness statement and a draft of the order we want the judge to make. The wording of that draft is the part that decides whether the order is worth having. We normally give the other side notice, and the rules expect at least three clear days of it. Where telling them first would mean the material goes up immediately, or the evidence disappears, we can apply without notice instead. Our page on obtaining an emergency injunction covers that route.
The hearing is usually short. You will normally be asked to promise the court to pay the other side's losses if the order turns out to have been wrongly granted. In a harassment case that is a small exposure, because a person told to stop harassing loses nothing of value. Once the order is served, most cases settle rather than going to trial, typically on undertakings given to the court.
What we see on the other side of this
Two kinds of call reach our Soho office about injunctions. The first is from someone who has been living with it for a year or more, has a folder of screenshots they cannot bear to look at again, and has been told by several people that there is nothing to be done. The second comes at nine in the evening from someone who has just been sent a photograph of themselves with a demand attached, and who has not slept.
The first group are usually surprised by how quickly it can move once somebody takes hold of it. The second are surprised that a court will sit at all at that hour. Both tend to say the same thing afterwards, which is that the relief was less about the order itself than about no longer being the only person dealing with it.
Cases where we obtained injunctions
These are matters we acted in. Identifying details have been changed in the anonymised accounts.
An injunction served through Instagram
Our client was targeted by an anonymous Instagram account that would not stop and could not be traced by the usual routes. We obtained an injunction and persuaded the court to allow service through the platform itself, the first time that had been done in England and Wales. Read about serving an injunction via Instagram.
Four websites attacking a former manager
A former temporary interpreter at the International Maritime Organisation built four websites about his former manager, using photographs taken without her consent. He ignored our letter, so we applied under the 1997 Act. Mr Justice Cranston granted the injunction and ordered the sites deleted. Read about a harassment injunction following online harassment of a former employer.
A privacy injunction obtained alongside the harassment claim
Where private information is being published as part of the harassment, we ask for a privacy injunction at the same time, commonly with an order anonymising our client so the proceedings do not spread the material further. Read our privacy injunction case study, and more of our online harassment case studies.
After the consultation you get a written estimate for each stage, so you decide step by step rather than committing to a whole case at the start. Our page on harassment injunction cost sets out the ranges and how to budget across them, and in some cases we can act on a no win no fee basis once we have assessed the prospects. You can read more about how we act for victims on our harassment solicitors page.
Where the evidence is in order and we know who the person is, an interim order can be in place within days, and in an urgent case within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Most contested matters then end with undertakings to the court rather than a trial, which is quicker and a good deal cheaper for you.
Damages can be awarded alongside the order, for the anxiety the harassment caused as well as any money you have lost. Awards in harassment cases tend to sit between the low thousands and the low tens of thousands of pounds. In Hourani v Thomson [2017] EWHC 432 (QB) the High Court awarded £30,000 for harassment in a case involving a sustained campaign, including demonstrations and online material.
Two limits are worth knowing before you start. A claim under section 3 is not caught by the three-year limit that applies to personal injury claims, because section 11(1A) of the Limitation Act 1980 disapplies it, so the ordinary six-year period for a claim in tort applies instead. And an order does not make the internet forget. It stops the person and compels them to delete what they control; anything copied elsewhere needs separate work with the platforms and the search engines.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get an injunction for harassment?
You bring a civil claim under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and apply for an interim injunction inside it. The application needs a claim form, an application notice, a witness statement setting out the facts and a draft of the order you want. A court can hear it within days, and the same day where the matter is urgent.
How long does it take to get a harassment injunction?
In an urgent case an order can be obtained within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of instructions, and sometimes faster. Where it is not urgent, the rules expect the other side to have at least three clear days' notice of the hearing, so a fortnight from instructions to order is a fair expectation once the evidence is gathered.
What is the difference between a harassment injunction and a restraining order?
A harassment injunction is a civil order you apply for and control. A restraining order is made by a criminal court, either on sentence or, in some circumstances, after an acquittal, and it is the prosecution rather than you who drives it. A civil injunction does not depend on the police charging anyone.
Can I get an injunction if I do not know who is harassing me?
In many cases, yes. We would try to identify the person first, through our open-source intelligence work and, where that is not enough, disclosure orders against the platform. Where identification is not possible, a claim can be brought against a defendant described by their conduct, provided the description is precise enough, and the court can allow service by another method.
What happens if someone breaches a harassment injunction?
You can apply for a warrant for their arrest, and breaching the order without reasonable excuse is a criminal offence under section 3(6) of the 1997 Act, carrying up to five years' imprisonment on conviction on indictment. The same conduct cannot be both punished as a contempt of court and prosecuted.
Do I have to tell the harasser before I apply?
Normally the rules expect at least three clear days' notice. Where there is good reason not to give it, the application can be made without notice. That might be because warning the person would lead to evidence being destroyed, or to the material being published immediately. The court then fixes a return date at which the other side can attend.
Will my name be made public if I apply for a harassment injunction?
Not necessarily. Where publicity would defeat the purpose of the application, a court can anonymise the parties and restrict what may be reported. We ask for that at the same time as the injunction where the case calls for it.
How long does a harassment injunction last?
An interim order made with both sides present can be expressed to last until trial or further order. One made without notice lasts until the return date, a week or two later. A final injunction made at the end of the case can be indefinite.
