Astrazeneca UK Limted (Applicant/Claimant) v Deborah Vincent and Others (Respondent/Defendant)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Jay |
| Judgment Date | 07 May 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 1637 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 07 May 2014 |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ14X01254 |
[2014] EWHC 1637 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
The Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London
WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Jay
Case No: HQ14X01254
Mr B Kennelly (instructed by Reed Smith LLP) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
NO APPEARANCE on behalf of the First and Third Defendants
THE SECOND DEFENDANT in person
Approved Judgment
This is an application by the two claimants for an interim injunction to restrain the defendants from first of all entering on or remaining on any land in England and Wales owned or occupied by the claimants or any residents in England and Wales of any protected person; and secondly, pursuing any course of conduct such as to amount to harassment of the protected persons within the meaning of the Protection from Harassment Act, 1997.
There is also an application brought under CPR Part 6 for alternative service on the first-named claimant, Ms Deborah Vincent. Mr Kennelly for the claimants did not pursue that application after our discussion but I will be explaining in due course why it is not necessary for the claimants to go down that metaphorical road.
The claimant, AstraZeneca UK Limited is a well-known pharmaceutical company based at various locations in the United Kingdom. It is the main operating company for the AstraZeneca group of companies, some of which of course are based outside this jurisdiction. The second claimant, Mr Lloyd Roberts, is the vice president of Global Security for the first claimant and the group companies. He is acting on his own behalf and pursuant to CPR Part 19.6 in a representative capacity for protected persons as specified in paragraph 3 of the Particulars of Claim.
The AstraZeneca Group engages Huntington Life Sciences Limited, HLS, to test pharmaceutical products on animals as it is required to do by statute. "Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty — SHAC" is an unincorporated association established for the purpose of obstructing and preventing experimentation on live animals for the purposes of scientific and medical research conducted by HLS.
The first defendant, Deborah Vincent is or perhaps was a prominent member of SHAC. She is sued on her own behalf and at least according to the Particulars of Claim as currently constituted in a representative capacity pursuant to CPR 19.6 to represent all persons who act as members, participants or supporters in the name of "SHAC". The second defendant, Mr Aran Mathai and the third defendant, Mr Luke Beevers, says the Claimant have recently moved into leadership positions within SHAC. Mr Mathai was appointed representative of SHAC in proceedings taken by US Bank National Association against SHAC in August 2013. He is therefore sued on his own behalf and as a representative capacity pursuant to CPR 19.6 to represent all protestors and all members, participants or supporters of SHAC.
The position today is that Mr Brian Kennelly of counsel appears for both claimants. Ms Deborah Vincent is currently serving a prison sentence, that is to say a term of six years' imprisonment imposed on 17 April 2014 for serious offences of blackmail. An issue therefore arises as to whether it is appropriate to make any form of order against her, in particular an order under CPR 19.6.
The position of the other two defendants is as follows, and I gather this from the Acknowledgements of Service which had been filed on their behalves. According to Mr Mathai who indicates that he intends to contest this claim, there is no need for an injunction because to his knowledge, SHAC is no longer active within the United Kingdom. He denies that he has ever been a leader of SHAC and in a short witness statement appended to the Acknowledgment of Service and dated 7 April 2014 he denies that he has ever been guilty of harassment against anybody, let alone these particular claimants. Mr Luke Beevers has also filed an Acknowledgment of Service, although he does not appear before me today. He contends that there is no evidence that SHAC has been active in the United Kingdom since August 2013 and therefore, as he puts it, a prima facie case for an injunction has not been made out. He denies that he has ever occupied a leadership or prominent role within SHAC and in a 1 1/2 page witness statement he states that he has never been involved in other than peaceful and lawful demonstrations.
The essence of the Claimant's case is as follows. It is said that in recent years the First Claimant has been a main target of a campaign run by SHAC in which SHAC protests against and seeks to prevent or obstruct organisations from engaging the services of HLS. Paragraph 10 of the Particulars of Claim is critical for present purposes. It claims that:
"In carrying out the said campaign the protestors have pursued and are likely to continue to pursue a course of conduct against AstraZeneca UK amounting to harassment contrary to section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act, 1997."
The first issue which arises is whether I should make an order for what is described as retrospective alternative service on Ms Deborah Vincent of the claim form, the application notice for an order for an interim injunction and/or the supporting documentation. The application is or was made under CPR 6.15 and 6.27. Evidence in support indicated, and I am able to summarise this, that attempts were made to serve Ms Vincent at an address in Croydon but those proved to be unsuccessful. It was then discovered that she might be living at an address in an infamous squat — I think it is fair to describe it as such — in Bristol but she was not served at that location. In mid-April 2014 various papers, but certainly not all the documentation, was sent to an email address which is indicated on SHAC's website. Initially, the wrong email address was chosen but it is clear from the evidence that I have seen that service was effected at the right address. However, when I say service was effected, that of course does not mean that service was effected on the First Fefendant, Ms Vincent. I have to be satisfied, at least for the purposes of other provisions in the CPR, that whoever opened the email was likely to have brought Ms Vincent's attention to the documents attached to that email.
Given that the email was sent on 15 April and Ms Vincent was sentenced to six years' imprisonment on 17 April, I do not believe that I can be so satisfied. It is on that basis that an application for alternative service was made under CPR 6.15 and the proposal is that documentation be served on the First Defendant at the prison in which she is currently incarcerated. There are two difficulties here; first, the provisions of CPR 6.15 would not enable me to order that such service be retrospective in the sense in which the Claimants require it for today's purposes. What the rule is concerned about is giving retrospective validation to an event which has already happened. As at today's date, the relevant documents have not been sent to Ms Vincent at the relevant prison. Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, there is this difficulty, that during the currency of her term of imprisonment, there is no real risk that Ms Vincent will harass anyone. In order that the provisions of CPR 19.6 be engaged, it has to be established at the very least that Ms Vincent will or might take relevant action in her own right, but in my judgment it is not realistic to reach that conclusion.
It follows that to make an order under CPR 6.15 or indeed 6.27 would serve no useful purpose, even if those provisions were properly engaged. It is for those reasons that after the discussion that I indicated at the start of my judgment, Mr Kennelly quite rightly did not press that particular point. Instead, what he seeks to do is to pursue his applications against the second and third-named Defendants, both as it were in their own right and as regards the second Defendant, Mr Aran Mathai, in a representative capacity, thereby engaging the provisions of CPR 19.6.
I turn to consider now the relevant background to this case and I feel I can do this with reference to what Mr Kennelly told me, supplementing it by my reading of the underlying documentation.
The Claimants contend that they are the target of a concerted campaign brought by SHAC over the years and that SHAC is a notorious quasi terrorist organisation. SHAC's efforts and ambitions are not confined to the United Kingdom. Their campaign against HLS is world-wide and in recent years has certainly embraced Sweden. What concerns the Claimants is that they about to begin construction of a new headquarters in the Cambridge area at which location animal live testing will take place. This will not supplant the activities of HLS; this will supplement HLS's current activities. The fear is that SHAC will gear or ramp up its campaign once planning permission is applied for and construction begins.
I was told by Mr Kennelly, although it was not in the evidence before me, that planning permission, if granted, will be forthcoming this summer and construction will begin early next year. The real concern on the Claimant's side is the threat of extremist protests which might impact on the planning process, which is precisely what happened in 2004 in relation to Oxford. That is in a nutshell the background to this application although as will become clear, the evidence in support of this application is substantial.
I turn now to the governing law which is...
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London Borough of Enfield v Persons Unknown
...is concerned with giving retrospective validation of an event that has already happened: AstraZeneca UK Limited v Vincent & Others [2014] EWHC 1637 (QB). There can be no question now of the Court permitting some future act of alternative service on the Defendants. The Claim Form in the ori......