Huntingdon Life Sciences v Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
Judge | MR JUSTICE GIBBS |
Judgment Date | 20 June 2003 |
Neutral Citation | [2003] EWHC 1967 (QB) |
Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Docket Number | HQ030210 |
Date | 20 June 2003 |
[2003] EWHC 1967 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2
Mr Justice Gibbs
HQ030210
MR LAWSON-CRUTTENDEN (instructed by LAWSON CRUTTENDEN) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
MR S CRAGG (instructed by BERNBERG PIERRE) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
This matter comes before the Court by way of an application to continue an interim injunction granted to the claimant on notice, although not particularly long notice, by Pitchers J on 16th April 2003: that injunction in turn being, in essence, the continuation of an interim injunction granted ex parte by Davis J on 10th April 2003.
The first claimant is a company with two premises one in Huntingdon and one at Eye in Suffolk. It employs in all some 1100 employees. Its business is to conduct research for the purposes of the pharmaceutical biotechnological agro—chemical veterinary food and chemical industries. The purpose of the research is to assist non-clinical safety and efficiency testing in relation to products connected with those industries. Importantly for the purposes of this application their business involves the use of live animals in laboratory conditions for their research.
The second claimant is managing director and therefore senior employee of the claimant. The first defendant is the name given to an unincorporated group of people who share the common purpose of preventing experimentation with live animals and/or securing closure of the first claimant's business, a business which, in the eyes of the first defendant, is synonymous with cruelty to animals. The first defendant has a website and also issues publications.
The eleventh and twelfth defendants are also or appear to be unincorporated groups of people who campaign generally against cruelty to animals but who the claimants say ally themselves in the context of this case with the first defendant in the common purpose of securing the closure of the first claimant.
The second to tenth defendants inclusive are all individuals who are said by the claimants to be connected with the first and/or eleventh and twelfth defendants, and/or otherwise share the common purpose referred to above.
At the hearing, Mr Cragg represented the second, third, fourth and ninth defendants. The other defendants are unrepresented and did not appear before the court.
In so far as they have been successfully served with the proceedings, they have not acknowledged service. The injunction at present in place was granted by Pitchers J after an inter partes hearing which I am told lasted a day. I have the benefit of his considered judgment which is a substantive one. However, at paragraphs 9 to 11 of that judgment, he said this:
"9. To start with the procedural issues, there is no doubt, as will emerge later in this judgment, that there are difficult and important issues to be decided in this case. They have importance not merely in the context of this case and the future dealings between HLS and the defendants, but also more widely in other cases where it is said that protest or a threatened protest is (or will become) unlawful. That makes it unfortunate that the proceedings have began in the way they have. Although this sort of conduct has continued for some time, and its remedy, if available, has existed for some time this particular application was brought initially ex parte as an emergency application as recently as last week. The urgency was said to be because of the imminence of the day of protest this coming Saturday. However that day has been known to the claimants for some time.
10. For those reasons on 9 April Davis J adjourned the hearing of the application for notice to be given. Because of the imminence of the events of 19 April, the notice period was abridged. As a consequence, the matter came before me yesterday, which was the penultimate day of term, a mere five days before the day of protest.
11. The issues in this case require measured and authoritative determination. It is unfortunate that they have to be considered at such short notice. It has meant that only three of the defendants are represented, and at short notice so far as they are concerned. The others are out of the country. The defendants complain, not without justification, that they have had insufficient time to marshal all their evidence and arguments. These proceedings are now on notice but only just and, in my judgment, in the event of my granting relief, a full hearing and a return day in the not too distant future is necessary."
Since the judgment was given, much evidence has been served by and on behalf of the represented defendants and I have heard arguments on both sides for approximately a day. Thus I have had an opportunity to give what I hope is a measured judgment on the matters before me. Whether it can be authoritative is another matter. I have to remind myself that any order I may decide to make would still be an interim order rather than a final one; thus, the balance of convenience remains a guiding factor in my determination. Further, I am not in a position to make findings of fact on the evidence before me. I have to make a provisional assessment as to its weight on either side in deciding where the balance lies.
Given this qualification, I now come to consider the particular issues arising in this application. The first issue is whether the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Act of Parliament upon which this application is based, is appropriate to found proceedings such as these. Mr Cragg submits it is not. The relevant sections of the Act provide as follows, section 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."
Section 2 sets out the criminal offence. Section 3 provides for the civil remedy:
"(1) An actual or apprehended breach 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
(2)On such a claim, damages may be awarded for (among other things) any anxiety caused by the harassment and any financial loss resulting from the harassment.
(3) Where-
(a) in such proceedings the High Court or county court grants an injunction for the purposes 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."
Subsection (6):
"Where—
(a) the High Court or a county court grants an injunction for the purpose mentioned is in subsection (3)(a), and
(b) without reasonable excuse the defendant does anything which he is prohibited by doing by the injunction,
he is guilty of an offence."
The criminal offence thereby created carries a maximum penalty of 5 years' imprisonment. The situation therefore is that there is provided for claimants a civil remedy but, if an injunction is granted in pursuance of such a claim, breaches of it can in themselves amount to criminal offences.
In the Divisional Court case of the Director of Public Prosecutions v Dziurzynski [2002] EWCA 1380, the issue arose as to whether the expression "person" in the Act was apt to include a company ie a corporate person. In the leading judgment of Rose LJ in that case it was held that it was not.
It might be argued (i) that the case of Dziurzynski concerned criminal rather than civil proceedings and (ii) that the finding to which I have referred was obiter, since the principal ground in that case for refusing judicial review was that the charge could not, on the evidence, be substantiated. Incidentally, the respondent in that judicial review claim is —I am told, by a different name —one of the defendants to this claim.
As to the first of the two points to which I have referred, I am inclined to agree with the conclusion of Pitchers J in paragraph 20 of his judgment:
"These are civil proceedings, but in my judgment, on such a fundamental question of interpretation of the Act, there cannot be different interpretations placed on the words for civil purposes, bearing in mind in particular, that breach of the civil injunction leads to criminal proceedings. I therefore do find that the Act is not apt to found an injunction in the suit of the corporations, that is to say the first claimants."
But, as to both points to which I have referred, the first and second point relating to the applicability of the Dziurzynski case, Mr Lawson-Cruttenden did not seek to press the argument before me that the Divisional Court's views were wrong and/or they were no more than obiter dicta. He did, however, invite me to make no finding on that issue. He made it clear that he preferred the issue to be left open to argue at a later stage of those proceedings, in particular, if and when a permanent injunction was sought. He submitted that that course was preferable to giving a ruling at this stage, since giving a ruling might lead to an appeal to the Court of Appeal. Having considered that submission, I accept Mr Lawson-Cruttenden's invitation...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
EDO MBM Technology Ltd v Campaign to Smash EDO Ltd
...with a view to removing EDO from Brighton. Adopting with respect the phrase of Gibbs J in Huntingdon Life Sciences v SHAC & Others [2003] EWHC 1967 (Ob), at [27], it is a "sufficiently identifiable group" to be regarded as an unincorporated association. In my judgment, any other conclusion ......
-
Majrowski v Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Trust
...on which Mr Platt relied, Daiichi Ltd & Ors v Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty [2003] EWHC 2337 (QB), and Huntingdon Life Sciences Group PLC v. Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty & Ors, Owen J and Pitchers J respectively held, following the reasoning of Rose LJ in Dziurynski, held that that the w......
-
Iqbal v Dean Manson Solicitors
...under the Act have frequently been rendered against unincorporated bodies, such as animal rights activists: see Huntingdon Life Sciences v. Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty [2003] EWHC 1967 (Gibbs J), Daiichi UK Ltd v. Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty [2003] EWHC 2337 (Owen J), and The Chancell......
-
Daiichi UK Ltd and Others v Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and Others
...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, Natash......