Law

[recordman]

How effective is the 1997 'Harassment Act' and would it be better contact a lawyer or report to the police?

[Peaspeculiars]

recordman, I can't comment on it's effectiveness, but my gut feeling would be to report the offence to the police in the first instance - this way, if needs be and you need to contact a solicitor, you have done your due diligence first.
If you go to a sol beforehand, their advice may simply be 'report to the police and go from there' and you will be out of pocket as such.

[ummmm]

Report to the police.

Solicitor would just advise you to go to the police anyway.

[Peter Pedant]

Police first - they dont charge ! hahaha pun intended

If you go to a lawyer he will charge ( p.i.) ... YOU ! ( a.p.i )

Depends on what you are alleging
as a landlord I am always involved in this as defaulting tenants think to themselves -" if I allege harassment, and he gets a PIN then he cant come around and ask for rent, Ha ! [ and so I can stay on for FREE ! hahahaa "
[ and that sort of works, sort of ]

Girls should allege sexual harassment or harassment involving children even if there arent any - the Police dont seem to mind if there is no evidence for their allegations. In my world, successfully alleging sexual harassment from a landlord gets you to the top of the re-housing list.

Yes I wrote successfully alleging - - - not successfully proving.....

so as you can see it is effective in certain sectors

( harassment is both a tort and a crime which is why you have a choice - but alleging crime is cheaper )
abbreviations p.i. - - - pun intended
a.p.i. another pun intended ....

and what happened then ? the tenant having successfully alleged harassment went on holiday with the rent money ( my rents are not cheap) and is now an ex tenant. She bolted to another property and was forced to flit from that for non payment of rent