Online harassment and cyberstalking: a case study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/sz.iisl.1770Keywords:
harassment, stalking, hate crimes, hostility, cybercrimeAbstract
The evidence from some studies conducted until now reflects that the offenders´ conscious anger and hostility toward the victim is the prevalent motivation behind the unwanted pattern of conduct that alarms and causes distress to another individual. From a legal-criminal perspective, even if a context-sensitive approach is still necessary, this could well amount to harassment or stalking, on a case-by-case basis. Intriguingly, hostility has always been the core term operating in hate crime legislation in England & Wales. Apart from what looks like a coincidence, how does the unhealthy and long-term fixation pattern with an individual intersect with hate crimes? How is the workability of all the above in the virtual environment? We will use R v Joshua Bonehill-Paine (2016), a racially aggravated online harassment case, as a vehicle to illustrate some concerns and broader thematic points of interest.
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