Ridiculous waste of police and court time and resources.

@Anon 08:15

Are you joking? This behaviour is clearly unacceptable and deserves a criminal sanction.

How would you feel if your own safety, and that of your family, were threatened simply because you are doing your job?

"Don't drink too much raspberry gin and stagger back to Sarf, London."  Was this written by somebody from Paul, Weiss?

Do you have a problem with the law against harassment full stop, or only when applied to judges?

Its a problem when any law is misused 09.13, by judges or anybody else.

Anon @ 8.15 and 9.29 appear to have a close interest in the matter.

Not joking 09:09. I'd feel the same as you probably would if I or my family was threatened (whether for doing a job or not), but I see no genuine or credible threat here. We're talking about sending a birthday card. Annoying to the recipient maybe, but the police and courts simply don't have the resources to deal with this sort of thing.

So does everyone else commenting 10.09. Odd to target certain comments.

@10:14
Your opinion is ridiculous. Their comments and actions were clearly designed to intimidate the judge in relation to the adoption proceedings. I sincerely hope that this couple is never allowed to adopt and, if they naturally have a child, that social services take it away.

Can you imagine how messed up that child's upbringing would be!?

If they felt that strongly they should have just doxed the judge lol

Disgraceful, looks like they got their just desserts.

Never allow these people to look after anyone's children.

You're hysterical 10:47. I don't think some of the actions were designed to intimidate the judge at all. You're seriously trying to argue that someone sending a judge a Christmas card or wishing her happy birthday shouldvhave their children taken off of them. Doesn't sound as if you're fit to judge on the matter, you have no sense of perspective.

Why shouldn't they be allowed to look after anyone's children?

It appears that 12:42 is connected to these losers.

Hope they get their just deserts in jail.

@12:42. Please publish your name, address, and telephone number on this forum as you apparently have no issue with strange actions being carried out with someone's personal details.

It takes a high degree of emotional immaturity, 13:07, to assume that because someone disagrees with you they must be connected to the peiple you are attacking. Argue your point logically by all means, but try to do so in a less hysterical manner. Just as the person demanding that this couple's children should be taken from them for wishing a judge happy birthday, your hoping they get their 'just desserts' in prison shows you are also unfit to pass judgement, or perhaps you're one and the same person. Posts here are anonymous (yours included), and I wouldn't advise anyone to post personal details here, especially when they might be read by someone with such limited judgement that they think that thinking something is a waste of court and police time is the same as having 'no issue' with it.

These creeps obviously thought they were keeping on the right side of the law by keeping it subtle, and I have to say I think they succeeded.

Yes, they were clearly trying to harass. No, they didn't do anything which in my view is sufficiently concrete to justify any alarm, and their actions were clearly carefully calibrated. 

The implication is that these individuals knew where to draw the line well before physical violence or fear of violence. They were objectively being vexatious PITAs, not intimidating thugs.

I don't think installing a panic button and CCTV was a necessary or proportionate response from an objective point of view. The subjective response to the threat in no way establishes objective evidence for its severity.

I expect judges in particular to have the appropriate judicial temperament and not  to take the bait. In the same way as they shouldn't be easily provoked to anger, they should not be easily provoked to fear. And while technically this was an attempt to intimidate a judge, that is a mitigation, not an aggravating factor - I expect judges to soak up more.

She wasn't forced to buy a panic button and cctv, but chose to. She of course had the right to do so, but it may have been an over-reaction.

Human, your comment is by far the best of the day on this article. While not condoning in any way their actions, you succeed in putting in a very clear fashion why this shouldn't have resulted in a guilty verdict in a criminal court. Thoughtful and well-argued.

The incredibly lack of empathy from Human and it’s obvious sock puppets is disgusting. Who on earth are you to say that a family over reacted by installing security measures after two people dug through their bins, effectively, to find their home address and contact details and their KIDS’ ROUTINES and then weaponised them as threats. Your blindness to this indicates you are very weird. And creepy. 

I'm not Human, @19.35, but I completely agree with them. There seems to be a common theme among those defending the decision, be it suggesting that the couple have their children taken from them, that they get their 'just desserts' in prison, etc, there looks to be a deal of hysteria going on. Your name-calling and talking about 'sock puppets', 'digging through bins' and 'weaponising' home addresses are further examples of this hysteria. I think the judge over-reacted with the cctv and panic button and am perfectly entitled to that view, it doesn't show a lack of empathy. No comments so far have come close to persuading otherwise.

I found it creepy that people ended up in jail over this.

Having said what I said and despite a lack of objective evidence of "actual menace" creepy harassment just to be a PITA is a crime. Just not one which IMO and having reviewed the guidelines should attract a prison sentence, especially in the context of reasonable empathy with parents who have just lost their child. 

Unfortunately life is full of people deliberately being PITAs. Their actions generally shouldn't be classified as criminal unless there is a genuine objective threat. There just aren't the resources for the police to deal with every PITA. This case only resulted in a jail sentence because a judge was involved.

The comments arguing with the conclusion of the Divisional Court are a bit odd. Was the conduct objectively oppressive and unacceptable? The couple:

(i) said to the Court security staff that they knew where the judge lived;

(ii) described her family's routine in taking her daughter to her leisure centre; 

(iii) trawled the internet to find her personal email address and sent her emails;

(iv) sent her a card on her birthday to her home address saying "Keep up the good work stealing for profit. Don't drink too much raspberry gin and stagger back to Sarf, London. Love Tony and Cheri. P.S. Send my regards to Christopher."

How exactly is the judge supposed to have 'not taken the bait'? Should she have waited until this couple, who clearly bore a grudge, actually approached her daughter or knocked on her door before getting concerned? Consider that for a moment as a barometer of objectively acceptable behaviour. The couple themselves accepted before the Divisional Court that (i) and (iv) amounted to harassment.

The comments by Human and the anonymous comments complimenting them read to me as if they are written by the same person. I wonder who that could be?

I just wonder if the judge had received better advice and been calmed down a bit whether this would have been dealt with in a more measured way.

The conduct can't objectively be viewed as criminal. After all, the judge could have i) not have been given the details of the discussion in front of security, which the couple didn't make the judge privy to, ii) accepted that the knowledge of the judge's routine was gained from publicly available sources, which the couple were entitled to view and that there wasn't an obvious attempt to intimidate, iii) blocked the emails (the couple didn't trawl the internet, they found the email address easily on the judge's public Twitter feed) or accepted that any emails were sent to the judge's personal email address to ensure they were seen by the judge and iv) disposed of the Christmas card which contained no threats. Sending a Christmas card is by no means a criminal offence. There was no explicit or credible threat from the couple. In my view the judge over-reacted.

Where do you see the couple accepting before the Divisional Court that i) and iv) amounted to harassment - the High Court transcript says that the couple accept it could - that's not the same as it did, and I find it difficult to see how sending a Christmas card could amount to harassment in many cases.

Human was complemented for their comments because they showed some thought and, while criticising the couple, maintained perspective, unlike some of the other comments, which called for them to get their 'just desserts' in prison or to have their children taken from them. To assume that anyone complementing Human must in fact be Human and also, as seems to be suggested, also one or both of the couple in the case, shows a lack of ability to properly consider opposing views and calls into question whether someone making those assumptions can objectively decide on what is harassment and what isn't.