Daiichi UK Ltd and Others v Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Owen |
| Judgment Date | 13 October 2003 |
| Neutral Citation | [2003] EWHC 2337 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case Nos: HQ03X02624 HQ03X02625 HQ03X02622 HQ03X02626 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 13 October 2003 |
[2003] EWHC 2337 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
The Honourable Mr Justice Owen
Case Nos: HQ03X02624
HQ03X02623
HQ03X02625
HQ03X02622
HQ03X02626
Mr T LAWSON-CRUTTENDEN (Solicitor Advocate) for the Claimants
Mr M WESTGATE (instructed by BIRNBERG PEIRCE & PTNRS.) for the 2nd to 4th Defendants
Hearing date: 2 October 2003
APPROVED JUDGMENT
The Claimants in the five actions with which I am concerned seek injunctive relief under section 3 of the Protection Against Harassment Act 1997 (the Act). Each action is brought by a company or group of companies, and by a named individual or individuals acting on their own behalf, and on behalf of the other employees of the company or companies. Each of the companies is registered in the United Kingdom, but is associated with a company or companies based in Japan.
The actions can conveniently be referred to as the Asahi Glass Action, the Daiichi Action, the Sankyo Action, the Yamanouchi and the Eisai Action. The companies involved in the Asahi Glass Action are engaged in general industrial manufacture; the companies involved in the remaining actions are all involved in the marketing, distribution and sales of pharmaceutical products. The Defendants are individuals or groups of individuals who campaign for animal rights. Five Defendants are common to all the actions, Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC), Greg Avery, Natasha Avery, Heather James, and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Two of the Defendants, Joseph Dawson and the Animal Rights Militia (ARM) are common to four of the actions, the exception being the Asahi Glass Action.
SHAC is an unincorporated association whose stated objective is the closure of laboratories run by Huntington Life Sciences (HLS). HLS conducts research for the pharmaceutical, biotechnological, agro-chemical, veterinary, food and chemical industries. Such research involves the experimental use of live animals. It is the Claimants' case that Greg Avery, Natasha Avery and Heather James are the principal co-ordinators of, and spoke-persons for SHAC, and that ALF and ARM are unincorporated associations closely affiliated to SHAC. SHAC has identified the Claimant companies as ".Japanese customers" of HLS.
Greg Avery, Natasha Avery and Heather James were represented at the hearing of the applications. Eddie Grattwick, Pamela Kinnunem and Christine Tosh, Defendants in the Eisai action, appeared in person. The remaining Defendants were not represented and did not appear. Eisai discontinued the proceedings against Eddie Grattwick at the conclusion of the hearing.
The applications for injunctive relief first came before the court without notice to the Defendants on 21 August 2003 when it was ordered that they be adjourned to be heard on notice to the Defendants on 27 August. On the 27 August Davis J gave interim injunctive relief and adjourned the applications to a full hearing.
The Background
SHAC was established in about November 1999 with the declared objective of bringing about the closure of the HLS laboratories in which experimentation on live animals is conducted. It is the Claimants case in essence that SHAC and those involved with it have sought to achieve that objective by a concerted campaign of unlawful harassment and intimidation directed both at HLS and its employees, and at its customers and suppliers of goods and services and their employees.
On 20 June 2003 Gibbs J granted injunctive relief to HLS restraining SHAC, Greg Avery, Natasha Avery, and Heather James, the ALF and seven other Defendants from pursuing a course of conduct amounting to harassment of HLS, its employees and the families, servants or agents of its employees, in breach of the Act, see Huntingdon Life Services v. Stop Huntingdom Animal Cruelty and others Neutral Citation No [2003] EWHC 1967 (QB). The order made by Gibbs J is the subject of an appeal by Greg Avery, Natasha Avery and Heather James to be heard in March 2004.
As to the suppliers of goods and services to HLS the evidence shows that in December 2002 Marsh McLellan, International Insurance Brokets ceased to act for HLS as a result of a campaign of harassment and intimidation, and in February 2003 Deloitte Touche, HLS' auditors, withdrew their services for the same reason.
Since the late spring/early summer of 2003 the SHAC campaign for the closure of the HLS laboratories has been directed at the Claimant companies. The evidence in support of the applications shows that directors and employees of each of the Claimant companies have been the target of the sustained campaign of intimidation and harassment. The helpful analysis of the evidence by Mr Lawson-Cruttenden, who appeared for the Claimants, shows that the campaign has broadly taken the following forms -
a) Threatening letters and telephone calls.
b) The publication and distribution of letters maliciously alleging that various directors of the Claimants are paedophile/sex offenders.
c) Letters containing offensive material (i.e. excrement or material allegedly affected with the aids virus).
d) Criminal damage (i.e. damage to vehicles and private property by the use of paint stripper or the painting of slogans and smashing of windows).
e) Firebombings/hoax bombs.
f) Intimidatory home visits —protesters knocking on windows wearing balaclavas letting off fireworks/rape alarms.
g) Protest camps outside directors houses aiming to have the director and his family "hounded out" of his local community by making malicious and defamatory statements such as "animal killer" "animal murderer" etc.
h) Demonstrations outside Claimants premises, attempting or actually gaining any access to the premises, obstructing access to gates by the use of Capital D locks.
i) Assaults on employees leaving Claimants premises.
It is not necessary to set out the evidence in detail. Suffice it to say the Claimants, their directors and employees have unquestionably been subjected to harassment of a very serious nature intended to intimidate and terrify. That is accepted by Mr Westgate, Counsel for Mr and Mrs Avery and Heather James, who in his skeleton argument acknowledged "…that the Claimants' evidence raises very grave allegations" and also accepted "…that the evidence shows that senior employees have been subject to conduct amounting to harassment for which they are entitled to protection.
The claims are based upon the Protection Against Harassment Act 1997. The relevant sections of the Act provide as follows -
"1. Prohibition of Harassment
(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct -
(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and
(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.
(2) For the purposes of this section, the person whose course of conduct is in question ought to know that it amounts to harassment of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other.
2. Offence of Harassment
(1) A person who pursues a course of conduct in breach of section 1 is guilty of an offence.
(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or both.
(3) In section 25(2) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Arrestable Offences) after paragraph (m) there is inserted -
(n) An offence under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (Harassment).
3. Civil Remedy
(1) An actual or apprehended breath of section 1 may be the subject of a claim in civil proceedings by the person who is or may be the victim of the course of conduct in question.
(3) Where -
(a) in such proceedings the High Court or a county court grants an injunction for the purpose of restraining the defendant from pursuing any conduct which amounts to harassment, and
(b) the plaintiff considers that the defendant has done anything which he is prohibited from doing by the injunction
the plaintiff may apply for the issue of a warrant for the arrest of the defendant.
(6) Where -
(a) The High Court or a County Court grants an injunction for the purpose mentioned in sub section (3)(a), and
(b) Without reasonable excuse the Defendant does anything which he is prohibited from doing by the injunction,
he is guilty of an offence.
7. Interpretation of this group of sections
(1) This section applies for the interpretation of sections 1 to 5.
(2) References to harassing a person including alarming the person or causing the person distress.
(3) A "course of conduct " must involve conduct on at least two occasions.
(4) "Conduct "includes speech.
In Esther Thomas v Newsgroup Newspapers Limited Neutral Citation number [2001] EWCA CIV 1233, the Court of Appeal considered the meaning of 'harassment' under the 1997 Act. In giving the judgment of the court Lord Phillips MR said -
"29. Section 7 of the 1997 Act does not purport to provide a comprehensive definition of harassment. There are many actions that foreseeably alarm or cause a person distress that could not possibly be described as harassment. It seems to me that section 7 is dealing with that element of the offence which is constituted by the effect of conduct rather than with the types of conduct that produce that effect.
30. The Act does not attempt to define the type of conduct that is capable of constituting harassment. "Harassment" is, however, a word which has a meaning that is generally understood. It describes conduct targeted at an individual a...
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