“Psychological harm” is something else entirely.
Your position presupposes the guilt and innocence of both parties.
The individual claiming “psychological harm” can just as easily be the perpetrator, and psychological harm will be inflicted on the victim by the state when they’re arrested for upsetting someone with narcissistic personality disorder.
It seems unlikely that a UK court would reach such a judgment in favor of the perpetrator, as opposed to simply jailing them.
I thought tru-crime was just science fiction and yet we have multiple individuals actually supporting a dystopian future where that's a real thing.
They do not place judgement on intention alone. There's a clear difference.
This all demonstrates that judges and juries are familiar with evaluating intentions and criminality within the frameworks of law provided. A framework of law may declare certain speech as unlawful (such as obscenity or slander) may declare intentions a key factor in criminality, and the systems of law that judge the legality and criminality of that speech are already in place in the UK (and US) to support laws that criminalize speech with malicious intent.
Things like slander and libel require clear demonstration that you've been damaged monetarily etc.
I don't see how you can clearly show damages from a person deciding to commit suicide or feeling bad because of trolls. Prove it.
Regardless, at the end of the day I don't really care whether there's a legal framework in place. I don't agree that it's helpful to society at all and I'm going to err on the side that almost no speech harmful to anyone and should NEVER result in imprisonment. There's almost no road where criminalizing trolls on the internet leads to a better society or helps mentally ill people.
The original article does a credible job of explaining why a new law may be passed. You may agree or disagree, or you may require more information than is yet available, but that's for you to determine on your own.