Ontario Criminal Harassment Defence Lawyers (s. 264)

Home › Criminal Defence › Ontario Criminal Harassment Defence Lawyers

Criminal harassment is the Criminal Code offence, under section 264, of engaging without lawful authority in conduct the section lists: repeatedly following someone, repeatedly communicating with them directly or indirectly, besetting or watching where they live or work, or threatening conduct aimed at them or their family. The Crown must also prove you knew the conduct harassed the person, or were reckless about it, and that it caused them to reasonably fear for their safety. It is a hybrid offence carrying up to 10 years in prison on indictment. One angry message is usually an uttering threats question. A pattern of conduct is a harassment question, and that difference shapes the entire defence.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

What Criminal Harassment Means in Canadian Law

Section 264(1) of the Criminal Code breaks down into four things the Crown has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. First, that you engaged in one of the four types of conduct listed in s. 264(2). Second, that you acted without lawful authority. Third, that you knew the other person was harassed by the conduct, or were reckless as to whether they were. And fourth, that the conduct caused that person to fear for their safety, or the safety of anyone known to them, with that fear being reasonable in all the circumstances.

The last element does more work than people expect. The section is not aimed at conduct that is merely annoying, persistent or unpleasant. It is aimed at safety. The complainant must actually have feared for their own safety or for someone they know, and a court must be able to say that fear was objectively reasonable on the whole picture: the history between the parties, what was said and when, how contact continued after blocks or requests to stop, and the context around all of it.

The phrase without lawful authority matters too. Some contact has a legal foundation even when it is unwelcome. A process server delivering court documents. A parent completing a court ordered exchange. A landlord giving proper notice. Where the conduct rests on a legitimate legal basis, the charge comes under real pressure.

And no formal warning is required before a charge. Police do not have to prove anyone told you to stop. The knowledge element can be satisfied through recklessness, which is why what happened after unanswered messages or a block so often becomes the centre of the case.

The Four Kinds of Conduct Section 264 Covers

Subsection 264(2) is a closed list. If the alleged behaviour does not fit one of these four doors, there is no criminal harassment charge, whatever else the behaviour might be.

Conduct door	What the statute says	What the evidence usually looks like
(a) Following	Repeatedly following the other person, or anyone known to them, from place to place	Sightings at work, the gym or the school run; licence plate notes; dashcam and surveillance footage
(b) Communicating	Repeatedly communicating, directly or indirectly, with the other person or anyone known to them	Texts, calls, DMs and emails; messages sent through friends or from new accounts
(c) Besetting or watching	Besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or any place where the person resides, works, carries on business or happens to be	A parked car outside the house, repeated walk-bys, waiting outside a workplace
(d) Threatening conduct	Engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family	Confrontations, gestures and menacing behaviour, witnessed or recorded

These categories deliberately reach modern behaviour. Watching does not require standing in the bushes, and communicating indirectly does not require your own phone number. Because the section also protects people known to the complainant, messages aimed at a new partner or a family member can land inside the very same charge.

Neighbour Disputes and the Criminal Line

A surprising share of Ontario harassment files start over a fence line. That is not an accident of policing. It is built into the statute: door (c) expressly covers besetting or watching the dwelling-house, so the classic neighbour patterns, the camera angled over the fence, the car that always seems to be idling outside, the daily stare-down in the driveway, sit inside the section's words the moment fear enters the picture.

But most neighbour conflict is not criminal, and courts know it. Noise, unfriendliness, petty complaints to the city, a rude exchange at the property line: none of that is criminal harassment on its own, because the charge requires conduct from the s. 264(2) list plus a reasonable fear for safety. Disputes about noise, parking or property standards usually belong in other lanes entirely, such as municipal bylaw enforcement, mediation or a civil claim.

If you fear a neighbour

Document everything with dates and times: messages, photographs, incident notes. Report genuinely threatening behaviour to police. And know that you can apply for a peace bond at your local courthouse under s. 810 of the Criminal Code, which requires showing the court a reasonable, evidence-based fear that the person will injure you, your family or your property. You do not need to hire a lawyer to apply, though advice helps when the situation is tangled. Our Ontario peace bond page explains how that process actually runs, from the courthouse counter to the hearing.

Is a restraining order the same thing?

No. In Ontario, a restraining order is a family court order available against a spouse, former partner or someone you lived with. Neighbours do not qualify. For a neighbour, the criminal court tool is the peace bond, and in urgent situations, the police.

If a neighbour has accused you

Take it seriously the same day. A criminal harassment charge born of a neighbour dispute arrives with release conditions that can bar you from parts of your own street, and the optics of a long feud can make innocent conduct look sinister. The defence usually lives in the fear element: was there actual fear for safety, and was that fear reasonable in all the circumstances, or is the charge simply the latest move in a two-way war? Those are very different questions from whether you were a good neighbour, and they are answered with evidence, not indignation.

Harassment or Uttering Threats? Two Different Charges

The two charges travel together, and people mix them up constantly. Uttering threats under s. 264.1 punishes a discrete statement: a threat to cause death or bodily harm carries up to 5 years. Criminal harassment punishes a course of conduct that produces reasonable fear, and carries up to 10 years.

The same breakup or dispute often produces both counts on one charging document, and the strategy for each is different. A threats count usually turns on the exact words used and their context, one utterance examined closely. A harassment count turns on pattern evidence: how many contacts, over what period, and what they added up to. Getting the count right, and pushing back when the Crown stretches a single incident into a pattern, is early and valuable defence work. We defend both charges, in York Region and in Toronto.

Texts, DMs and Contact Through Other People

Section 264(2)(b) says communicating directly or indirectly, and that single word, indirectly, captures most of the modern fact patterns. Messages from new accounts created after a block. Comments and tags plainly meant to reach the person. Things said to mutual friends with the expectation they would be passed along. You do not need to have contacted the complainant yourself for the Crown to allege indirect communication.

Digital files rise or fall on authorship and provenance. A screenshot is an image, not a message. The defence asks who actually controlled the account, whether the records support the timeline, and whether the exhibit is complete or curated. Selective screenshots can turn a two-way argument into what looks like one-sided pursuit; full disclosure, which the Crown is obliged to provide, is often where that picture corrects itself.

Device seizures raise their own issues. Searches of phones and accounts must respect Charter limits, and evidence obtained in breach can be challenged and excluded. If police have your device, or have asked for your passwords, that conversation belongs with counsel before anything else happens.

The Peace Bond, in Both Directions

Peace bonds show up twice in harassment files. Once as an exit, and once as a trap.

As an exit

Where the Crown agrees, a criminal harassment charge can resolve with the accused entering a s. 810 recognizance: a promise to the court to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, on conditions, for up to 12 months. It is not a conviction. There is no plea and no finding of guilt, and the charge is withdrawn in exchange. That resolution is Crown discretion, never a right, and it is not automatically the good deal it sounds like. The conditions bind you for the full term, the bond can surface on some police record checks while it is active, and refusing to enter a recognizance after a court has ordered one carries committal exposure of up to 12 months under s. 810(3.01). We cover the mechanics on our Markham and Toronto peace bond pages, and contested applications on the 810 recognizance page.

As a trap

Section 264(4) makes it a mandatory aggravating consideration at sentencing that the harassment was committed while you were already bound by a s. 810, 810.1 or 810.2 recognizance, or a s. 161 order, in relation to the same person. The court must give reasons if it declines to give the factor effect (s. 264(5)). In plain terms, harassing someone who already holds a peace bond against you is treated as a distinctly more serious offence. And since April 8, 2025, the Code also contains a dedicated intimate partner peace bond, s. 810.03, which can run up to two years where there is a qualifying prior conviction.

When the Complainant Is a Partner or Ex-Partner

Most criminal harassment charges in Ontario come out of relationships and their endings. That context changes the file in four concrete ways.

First, the complainant cannot drop the charge. Ontario Crown policy places the decision to proceed or withdraw with the prosecutor, and directs that intimate partner charges not be withdrawn just because the complainant asks. Second, sentencing law treats abuse of an intimate partner as an aggravating factor under s. 718.2(a)(ii). Third, bail can reverse: where the charge involves an intimate partner and you have a prior conviction for intimate partner violence, the onus at the bail hearing shifts onto you under s. 515(6)(b.1). Fourth, Crown policy makes community justice referrals presumptively unavailable for criminal harassment; diversion happens only in exceptional cases with prior Crown Attorney approval.

None of that means the case cannot be defended. It means the familiar first-offender exits are narrower, so the defence has to be built on the evidence, early. Where a harassment count sits alongside domestic assault allegations, our domestic assault page explains how the intimate partner stream actually operates.

Penalties and What a Conviction Actually Costs

Criminal harassment is a hybrid offence. Prosecuted by indictment, the maximum is 10 years in prison. Prosecuted summarily, the default ceiling is a fine of up to $5,000 and/or up to two years less a day in jail. There is no mandatory minimum, which keeps the full sentencing toolbox legally available, including discharges in the right case.

The sentence itself is only part of the price:

• Weapons. On conviction, the court can impose a discretionary weapons prohibition under s. 110 for up to 10 years, and up to life where the conduct targeted an intimate partner or a member of their household. The court is required to consider the order and to give reasons if it declines. Hunters, farmers and anyone who works with firearms need this raised before sentencing, not after.
• Immigration. Because the offence carries a 10 year maximum, and hybrid offences are treated as indictable for immigration purposes, a conviction can meet the serious criminality definition regardless of the sentence actually imposed. Non-citizens should resolve nothing without combined criminal and immigration advice.
• Records and screening. A conviction shows on record checks, and even non-conviction outcomes can appear on some enhanced checks. If your work involves vulnerable people, licensing or security clearance, say so at the first meeting so the defence protects it.

Parliament's own signal about gravity is worth knowing. Under s. 231(6), a murder committed while criminally harassing the victim, intending them to fear for their safety, is first degree murder. Courts treat this offence as serious, and anyone charged with it should too.

Defences That Actually Work

Every element in s. 264(1) is a place where the Crown's case can fail, and harassment prosecutions fail on their elements more often than people assume.

• No pattern. For the following and communicating doors, the conduct must have happened repeatedly. Isolated incidents, or a burst of messages inside one compressed emotional moment, are fertile ground for argument.
• Lawful authority or a legitimate purpose. Court ordered parenting exchanges, service of legal documents, genuine business communication. Where the contact rests on a legal footing, the charge weakens.
• No fear, or fear that was not reasonable. The complainant must actually have feared for their safety, and the fear must be objectively reasonable in all the circumstances. Continued friendly contact, invitations and two-way exchanges all matter here.
• Knowledge. The Crown must prove you knew the conduct harassed the person, or were reckless about it. What you were actually told, and when, becomes evidence.
• Identity and authorship. In digital files, proving who sent what from which account is a genuine burden, not a formality.
• Credibility. Where the case is one account of a relationship against another, the W.(D.) framework governs: you are acquitted if your evidence is believed, and acquitted even if it is not fully believed but still leaves a reasonable doubt.
• The Charter. Disclosure failures, device search problems and statement issues can ground exclusion of evidence or, in serious cases, a stay.

Bail, No-Contact Conditions and the First Weeks

Criminal harassment is not a s. 469 offence, so bail runs through the Ontario Court of Justice. Expect strict conditions from day one: no contact with the complainant directly or indirectly, no attending near their home or work, and sometimes weapons and device conditions on top.

Two rules keep people out of deeper trouble. The conditions bind you no matter who starts the conversation; if the complainant reaches out, replying is still a breach, a fresh criminal charge, and a route back into custody. And conditions never lapse on their own; the lawful way to change them is a variation through the court. In Toronto, adult bail runs through the Toronto Regional Bail Centre at 2201 Finch Ave W. In York Region, everything runs through the Newmarket courthouse at 50 Eagle St W.

How a Harassment Charge Moves Through Ontario Courts

Because the indictable maximum is 10 years, there is no preliminary inquiry; that procedure is reserved for offences carrying 14 years or more. Most files stay in the Ontario Court of Justice from first appearance through trial, with a Crown pre-trial and often a judicial pre-trial along the way. R. v. Jordan sets presumptive ceilings of 18 months for OCJ cases and 30 months where a file proceeds in the Superior Court.

Toronto's criminal courts are consolidated at 10 Armoury St, with adult bail at 2201 Finch Ave W. York Region cases, including Markham, Vaughan and Richmond Hill, are heard at 50 Eagle St W in Newmarket; our Markham criminal harassment page covers that courthouse in detail. Wherever in Ontario the charge is laid, the statute, the elements and the defence framework are the same.

Your First 72 Hours After a Harassment Charge

What you do in the first three days shapes the file for months. Follow every release condition to the letter, including no contact, even if the complainant contacts you first. Do not explain yourself to police without counsel; statements are evidence. Stay off social media about anything connected to the case. Preserve everything: your messages and theirs, call logs, photos, receipts and location history, because two-way records are often what breaks a one-sided narrative. Write a dated timeline while memory is fresh, and list anyone who saw or heard the events in question. Then let your lawyer deal with the police, the Crown and the court dates.

Why Kazandji Law

Criminal harassment files are won with preparation and discretion. Pattern allegations have to be dismantled message by message, and your reputation protected while that happens. Founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji defends these cases across Ontario from four offices: our Toronto headquarters at 180 John St, Unit 320; Thornhill at 7191 Yonge St, Suite 310, serving Markham and all of York Region; North York; and Oakville. You deal with senior counsel directly, the consultation is free, and the phone is answered at every hour. See our results and the full criminal defence practice.

This page is legal information for Ontario, current to July 2026. It is not legal advice about your situation, and criminal harassment cases turn on their facts. For advice you can act on, call 647-588-3234 for a free, confidential consultation. Kazandji Law, 180 John St, Unit 320, Toronto.