Cuadrilla Bowland Ltd and Others v Persons Unknown Entering or Remaining without the Consent of the Claimant(s) on Land at Little Plumpton as More Particularly Described in the Claim form and Shown Edged Red on the Plan Annexed to the Claim Form
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Leggatt,Lord Justice David Richards,Lord Justice Underhill |
| Judgment Date | 23 January 2020 |
| Neutral Citation | [2020] EWCA Civ 9 |
| Docket Number | Case No: A3/2019/2391; A3/2019/2395 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 23 January 2020 |
and
[2020] EWCA Civ 9
Lord Justice Underhill
(Vice-President of the Court of Appeal, Civil Division)
Lord Justice David Richards
and
Lord Justice Leggatt
Case No: A3/2019/2391; A3/2019/2395
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
PROPERTY, TRUSTS AND PROBATE LIST (ChD)
MANCHESTER DISTRICT REGISTRY
HHJ Pelling QC (sitting as a Judge of the High Court)
E30MA313
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Kirsty Brimelow QC, Adam Wagner and Richard Brigden (instructed by Robert Lizar Solicitors) for the Appellants
Tom Roscoe (instructed by Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP) for the Respondents
Hearing dates: 10–11 December 2019
Approved Judgment
Introduction
On 3 September 2019 His Honour Judge Pelling QC, sitting as a judge of the High Court, made an order committing the three appellants to prison for contempt of court. Their contempt consisted in deliberately disobeying an earlier court order, which I will refer to as “the Injunction”, made on 11 July 2018 with the aim of preventing trespass on the claimants' land, unlawful interference with the claimants' rights of passage to and from their land and unlawful interference with the supply chain of the first claimant (“Cuadrilla”). As punishment for two deliberate breaches of the Injunction, the judge committed one of the appellants, Katrina Lawrie, to prison for two months plus four weeks. The other appellants, Lee Walsh and Christopher Wilson, were both committed to prison for four weeks. In each case execution of the committal order was suspended on condition that the appellant obeys the Injunction for a period of two years.
The appellants have exercised their rights of appeal against the committal order. They appeal on the grounds (1) that the relevant terms of the Injunction were insufficiently clear and certain to be enforceable by committal because those terms made the question whether conduct was prohibited depend on the intention of the person concerned; and (2) that imposing the sanction of imprisonment (albeit suspended) was inappropriate and unduly harsh in the circumstances of this case. Relevant circumstances include the facts that the Injunction was granted, not against the appellants as named individuals, but against “persons unknown” who committed specified acts, and that the acts done by the appellants in breach of the Injunction were part of a campaign of protest involving ‘direct action’ designed to disrupt Cuadrilla's activities. This context is one in which the appellants’ rights to freedom of expression and assembly are engaged.
Background
Cuadrilla and the other claimants own an area of land off the Preston New Road (A583), near Blackpool in Lancashire, on which Cuadrilla has engaged in the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, of rock deep underground for the purpose of extracting shale gas. It is not in dispute that all Cuadrilla's activities have been carried out in accordance with the law. Equally, there is no dispute that Cuadrilla's activities are controversial and that a significant number of people, including the appellants, have sincere and strongly held views that fracking ought not to take place because of its impact on the environment. It is also common ground that the appellants, like everyone else, have the right to express their views and to protest against an activity to which they object subject only to such restrictions as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society for (amongst other legitimate aims) the prevention of disorder or crime or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. The right of protest is protected both by the common law of England and Wales and by articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the “ Human Rights Convention”) which is incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998.
Protests on and near Cuadrilla's site started in 2014, well before any drilling or preparatory work had commenced, when part of the site was occupied by a group of protestors. On 21 August 2014 Cuadrilla issued proceedings to recover possession of the land and for an injunction to prohibit further trespassing. Such an injunction was granted until 6 October 2016.
Protests intensified after work in preparation for exploratory drilling at the site started in January 2017. The evidence adduced by the claimants when they applied for a further injunction in May 2018 showed that, since January 2017, Cuadrilla and its employees, contractors and suppliers had been subjected to numerous ‘direct action’ protests, designed to obstruct works on the site. The actions taken by some protestors included ‘locking on’ – that is, chaining oneself to an object or another person – at the entrance to the site in order to prevent vehicles from entering or leaving it; ‘slow walking’ – that is, walking on the highway as slowly as possible in front of vehicles attempting to enter or leave the site; and climbing onto vehicles to prevent them from moving.
The overall scale of such protest activity is indicated by the fact that, between January 2017 and May 2018, the police had made over 350 arrests in connection with protests against Cuadrilla's operations, including 160 arrests for obstructing the highway, and substantial police resources had to be deployed in order to deal with the actions of protestors, with around 100 officers directly involved each day and at a total policing cost of some £7 million.
In July 2017 a group calling themselves “Reclaim the Power” organised a “month of action” targeting Cuadrilla. Of the many actions taken by protestors during that month to attempt to disrupt transport to and from the Preston New Road site, one particularly disruptive incident involved criminal offences and led to sentences which were the subject of an appeal to the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal: see R v Roberts [2018] EWCA Crim 2739; [2019] 1 WLR 2577. That incident began on the morning of 25 July 2017, when two protestors managed to climb on top of lorries approaching the site along the Preston New Road, forcing the lorries to stop to avoid putting the safety of the two men at risk. Two more men later climbed on top of the lorries. Each of the protestors stayed there for two or three days and the last one did not come down until 29 July 2017. For all this time the lorries were therefore unable to move, with the result that one carriageway of the road remained blocked. Substantial disruption was caused to local residents and other members of the public.
Further particularly serious disruption occurred on 31 July 2017. The events of that day were described in a letter from Assistant Chief Constable Terry Woods put in evidence by Cuadrilla, as follows:
“The last day of the RTP [Reclaim the Power] rolling resistance month of action saw a final lock-in involving a supposedly one tonne weight concrete barrel lock-on in the rear of a van with a prominent RTP activist attached to it via an arm tube. This action, coupled with an already tense atmosphere amongst the RTP activists, anti-fracking activists and local protestors, resulted in confrontation with police and they arrested two protestors. During the evening the protestors then became aware of a convoy en route to the drill site resulting in four protestors deploying in two pairs with arm tube lock-ons and blocking the A583. Further confrontation and aggression towards police ensued, with one of the locked-on protestors also assaulting a police officer. A security staff van was then mobbed by protestors and damaged, with a further protestor being arrested from that incident. Protestors also blockaded three vans of police protest liaison officers outside the Maple Farm Camp. The vehicle of a drill site staff member's partner dropping them off was then confronted by protestors, with a number of protestors climbing on the roof of the vehicle as it attempted to reverse away. The A583 was finally reopened to traffic at around 21:00 once police had removed all the protestors locked on, resulting in four arrests …”
At the hearing of the application for an injunction on 31 May and 1 June 2018, evidence was also adduced that the “Reclaim the Power” protest group was planning and promoting a further campaign of sustained direct action targeting Cuadrilla from 11 June to 1 July 2018. The group had openly stated their intention to organise a mass blockade of the Preston New Road dubbed “Block around the Clock” with the aim of completely preventing access to and egress from Cuadrilla's site for four days from 27 June to 1 July 2018.
The Injunction
It was against this background that HHJ Pelling QC granted an interim injunction on 1 June 2018 to restrain four named individuals and “persons unknown” from trespassing on the claimants' land, unlawfully interfering with the claimants' rights of passage to and from their land and unlawfully interfering with Cuadrilla's supply chain. This injunction was granted until 11 July...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Elliott Cuciurean v The Secretary of State for Transport
...J, DBE in FW Farnsworth Ltd v Lacy [2013] EWHC 3487 (Ch) [20], approved by this Court in Cuadrilla Bowland Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 9, [2020] 4 WLR 29 [25]: “A person is guilty of contempt by breach of an order only if all the following factors are proved to the relevant sta......
-
North Warwickshire Borough Council v Diane Hekt
...has quite fairly referred the court to the decision of the Court of Appeal case of Cuadrilla Bowland Ltd and Others v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 9. I have no doubt that had each of you been legally represented, your advocate would have relied upon the guidance in that case to support ......
-
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham v Persons Unknown
...April 2019); Bromley LBC v Persons Unknown [2020] PTSR 1043 (Court of Appeal, 21 January 2020); Cuadrilla Bowland Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] 4 WLR 29 (Court of Appeal, 23 January 2020); and Canada Goose UK Retail Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] 1 WLR 2802 (Court of Appeal, 5 March 2020). ......
-
Shell v Persons Unknown
...by unlawful means (“conspiracy to injure”). The ingredients of that tort are identified in Cuadrilla Bowland Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 9 [2020] 4 WLR 29 per Leggatt LJ at [18]: (a) an unlawful act by the defendant, (b) with the intention of injuring the claimant, (c) pursuant ......
-
Court Of Appeal Provides Guidance As To When Court May Refuse To Accept Party's Undertakings As Part Of Settlement
...extent of the undertakings the court might accept. She agreed with the formulation set out in Cuadrilla Bowland Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] 4 WLR 29 "although the court must be careful not to impose an injunction in wider terms than are necessary to do justice, the court is entitled to res......
-
Imposing a Condition on the Location of a Public Assembly: The Relevance of ‘Scene’ and the Need for Certainty
...precise ratherthan whether or not the basis for imposing it had been correctly articulated. In Cuadrilla BowlandLtd v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 9, to which Saini J referred, Leggatt LJ identifiedvarious ways in which the terms of an injunction may be unclear. These included where the......
-
Imposing a Condition on the Location of a Public Assembly: The Relevance of ‘Scene’ and the Need for Certainty
...precise ratherthan whether or not the basis for imposing it had been correctly articulated. In Cuadrilla BowlandLtd v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 9, to which Saini J referred, Leggatt LJ identifiedvarious ways in which the terms of an injunction may be unclear. These included where the......