Animal Cruelty in UK Law

I now turn to the possible applicability of CPR 19.6 to the defendants. The defendants include nine individuals and three groups who the claimants allege are unincorporated associations. The evidence about the existence and composition of the eleventh and twelfth defendants is unspecific. There is sufficient to persuade me that those defendants exist as groups and are part of the alleged campaign against employees of the first claimant.

In the result, first, this Final Order will be binding upon “protestors”, that is upon those within the wider ambit of Dr. Gastone's representation. That said, second, it is not enforceable, certainly civilly, against any individual without the express permission of the Court. This reflects a safeguard introduced into CPR 19.6 to counter risks implicit in having a wide and ill defined catchment area in terms of affected persons.

The significance of the principle stated by Hoffmann J in this appeal is this. The terms of the injunction sought in this action are typical of an ASBO and, as already indicated, on the facts of this case they are identical or almost identical to the terms of an ASBO. We have already referred to what is in our view a striking feature of the council's approach in this case, namely that it seeks ASBOs against those under 18 and injunctions in identical terms against those over 18.

Even then any such assertion would, in the light of Butterfield J's observations in Winchester, require careful scrutiny before it could properly be accepted.

This power is, in my judgment, precise and exhaustive. It gives the court a choice as to (a) the duration of any disqualification it imposes and (b) what kinds of animal the disqualification is to relate to. But that is all. There is no way of reading into it a discretion of the sort for which the defendants have contended. A court considering disqualification therefore needs to have in mind that an order is flexible only in these two respects.

Then those protesters who have appeared before me have been courteous and, so far as their principles allow, helpful and commanding of my respect Again, there is good evidence that co-operation with the Police is growing on the basis of mutual trust and all can pay tribute to the Force's determination to act even-handedly.

However, for the reasons I have given, I do not consider that that concern can be met by declaring that the injunction may be enforced pursuant to CPR 19.6 against unnamed persons without their individual circumstances being addressed by the Court. That is an offence independently of the injunction; see section 2 of the Act. The problem only arises in the context of activities lawful in themselves but which are restrained by injunction.)