Jan Krause v (1) Newsquest Media Group Ltd (2) Chief Constable of Cheshire Police
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | The Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat,Mr Justice Tugendhat |
| Judgment Date | 11 November 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 3400 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ13X00446 |
| Date | 11 November 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 3400 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
The Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat
Case No: HQ13X00446
Mr David Hirst for the Defendants (instructed by Simon Westrup solicitor for the First Defendant and Philip Kenyon solicitor for the SecondDefendant)
The Claimant appeared in person
Hearing dates: 30 October 2013
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
The Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat Mr Justice Tugendhat The Defendants apply to strike out two libel actions, or for alternative orders. The First Defendant is the publisher of a Cheshire local newspaper, the Northwich Guardian ("the Northwich Guardian"). The first action is one brought by the Claimant by a claim form bearing the issue date of 17 September 2012. In this action the Claimant complains of publications in the issue of the Northwich Guardian dated 14 September 2011, and a related online publication. As against the Second Defendant she complains of those parts of the same publications which contain statements attributed to Superintendent Guildford. The second action was brought be a claim form issued on 23 May 2013 (and amended on 17 July 2013). In this action she complains of publications dated 30 May 2012. The only defendant to this action is the Northwich Guardian
The facts giving rise to these claims arise out of criminal convictions which were described by Moses LJ in his judgment delivered on 22 May 2012 ( R v Krause [2012] EWCA Crim 2058). He was giving his reasons for dismissing the Claimant's renewed application for permission to appeal against the second conviction.
"1. This is a renewed application for permission to appeal against conviction following this applicant's conviction of acting in breach of a restraining order contrary to section 5(5) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The conviction was recorded on 9th September 2011.
2. The case against this applicant was that she had breached various requirements of a restraining order which had been made against the applicant by Chester Magistrates' Court on 29th July 2010. The prosecution case was that in relation to two of the counts she had been staring at her neighbours from her premises, the third count alleged that she had shone a torch at the vehicle and the occupants, and the fourth count that she had approached a visitor, a gas man, about apparently a long-running grievance she had in relation to noise emitted from the flue of her gas boiler.
3. The original restraining order was eight items long. As a result of an appeal, with which we have just dealt with by way of an appeal by way of case stated, the restraining order was reduced. Part of the grounds of this appeal, which the applicant pursues, is that she says that she was found guilty of breaches in respect of aspects of the original restraining order that no longer remain.
4. Even if that were correct, and we doubt that it is, it would not amount to any ground for an appeal. The order that was made by the Magistrates' Court requires required the applicant to obey it until such time as she was able to demonstrate either that it was wrong or could be overthrown. There might be circumstances in which an unlawful condition was imposed that was unenforceable and therefore it would amount to a defence to show that it should never have been in place, but that was not the defence of this applicant at trial, and in any event it would not have been open to her so to contend in relation to the conditions that were imposed against her. It is important to emphasise that although they sound trivial here within the courtroom, they are merely a demonstration and a manifestation of a long-running dispiriting saga of what has found to be harassment by this applicant against her neighbour.
5. The grounds she also pursued, that she has not pursued today, partly concern bad character, which the single judge disposed of since it was obvious that the history of the matter had to be laid before the jury pursuant to section 101(1)(c) of the 2003 Act.
6. Today the main thrust of the applicant's case is that she was not guilty, that what she had done was merely a distortion of the truth made by her neighbours, who have lied about what in fact occurred. She seeks to put forward today audio evidence, and we have a transcript of that, showing that they were merely, on the contrary, harassing her by seeking to trap her into committing a breach of the conditions of the restraint order, and in any event persisting in allowing their boiler to emit a noise as recorded on a decibel chart that she has shown us today that was apparently recorded on the neighbour's own CCTV.
7. It is important, and I suspect the applicant well understands it, that the grounds of appeal which it is open to her to advance before this court do not include an application merely to have a re-run of the trial in which she was convicted. There may well be things she wished she had said or been able to demonstrate, or indeed evidence she wished she had adduced, at trial. The fact is she did not give evidence and the evidence made against her was believed. In those circumstances there is no warrant or basis upon which we can reconsider it again. The application is dismissed…."
THE FIRST ACTION
The statements of case
The words complained of in the first action were published a few days after the Claimant's conviction in the Crown Court for breach of the restraining order. They were under the heading "Woman 'wreaked misery on family — Court sentences 47 year old over campaign of harassment'". The article in the print edition read as follows:
"A Hartford woman wreaked misery on the day–to-day lives of her victims' after breaking the terms of a restraining order, a court was told.
Jan Krause, who is now legally a woman but used to be a man, was found guilty by a jury of four counts of breaching the order, when she appeared at Chester Crown Court, on Friday.
The 47-year-old, who lives on Walnut Lane, was charged with conducting observations on her neighbours, the Story family, their home at 11 Walnut Lane, shining a torch into the faces of visitors to their property and approaching a gas man who was testing their central heating system.
Krause denied breaching the order but the jury took less than 20 minutes to find her guilty.
Krause was sentenced to a community order of 250 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £600 prosecution costs.
Following the trial, which lasted four days, Ch Supt Craig Guildford said: "Krause has displayed an over-whelming sense of arrogance throughout the police investigation and the subsequent trials.
"In my opinion, it is her obsessive and arrogant nature that has fuelled her criminal conduct throughout. I am also keen to acknowledge the professionalism and dedication of my officers during this lengthy case despite the efforts of Krause to undermine their professionalism.
"We are committed to supporting the victims of harassment at every level—whether it is domestic-related, community-based or as in this case extreme neighbour issues."
During the trial, Oliver King, prosecuting said Krause had shown 'quite deliberate behaviour' to breach the conditions of the order and she 'knew full well what she was doing".
"It was precisely the conduct she was engaged in before relating to the order being made," he said.
Mr King told the court that Krause's behaviour was a breach of terms three, four and five of her restraining order.
In Krause's defence, which was taken from two police interviews dated October 22 and December 22 2010, she admitted positioning a reclining armchair in her garage, in August 2010.
But she denied that she was sitting there to watch the Story family, instead saying that she was looking after her dog and taking a break from the tension inside her house.
"I needed to get away from her [her mother] because my mum was undermining my attempts to function as a female in society," she said.
"I wasn't staring at anybody's house.
"I was probably just staring into open space or looking for my dog."
Krause claimed that a large walnut tree shields the view from her house to 11 Walnut Lane.
Krause denies breaching term three of the order by shining a torch into her neighbours' faces on September 21 2010.
She said that she carried the torch for 'road safety reasons' because she was taking her dog, who had recently suffered illness outside.
Krause claimed that instead, her neighbour Ms Story and her friends were intent on causing trouble for her.
"They came out deliberately to intercept me — they have stage managed the whole thing as usual.
"Ms Story won't be satisfied until she sees me put away."
Krause said she approached a British Gas engineer on November 11, 2010, outside Ms Story's home and asked him if he knew that Ms Story's boiler made a whistling noise.
When passing sentence His Hon Judge Roger Dutton, said: "The magistrates felt it necessary for the protection of the Story family that a restraining order should be put in place.
"Almost immediately, you continued to behave the same way as before, making their life a thorough and complete misery.
"Why you have allowed these issues to dominate your life is a mystery to me and a great sadness to all of us.
"The consequence of you being unable to get along with your neighbours has cost the country thousands of pounds in court costs which it could ill afford."
Kraus said she intends to appeal against her conviction."
The online edition included, as the first paragraph of the article,
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Jan Krause v Associated Newspapers Ltd
...to them. 15. To that extent the appeal will be allowed. Do not ask me to give reasons because I cannot think of any." 3 In Krause v Newsquest Media Group Ltd [2013] EWHC 3400 (QB) (11 November 2013) I had to consider proceedings brought by the same Claimant against another news publisher an......