John Caine v Facebook Ireland Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Kerr |
| Judgment Date | 06 August 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] EWHC 2264 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Claim No. G45YJ890 Claim No. QB-2018-006164 (formerly HQ18M02612) Claim No. QB-2019-001263 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
[2021] EWHC 2264 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LIST
Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Kerr
Claim No. G45YJ890
Claim No. QB-2017-2712 (formerly HQ17M01967)
Claim No. QB-2018-006164 (formerly HQ18M02612)
Claim No. QB-2019-001263
and
and
and
Ms Clara Hamer (instructed by White & Case LLP) for the Applicant Facebook Ireland Limited
Mr Edward Curry ( Defendant/Applicant) in Person and on behalf of MS CAROLINE WOODFORD and ADVERTISER AND TIMES LIMITED (Defendants/Applicants)
Mr John Caine did not appear and made written representations in Person
APPROVED JUDGMENT
Introduction
I have before me today no less than seven applications for civil restraint orders. Four are brought by Facebook Ireland Limited ( Facebook), three of them as intervener in proceedings against others; and the other three are made by defendants in actions brought against them by the respondent to the seven applications, Mr Caine.
Mr Caine has not appeared at the hearing before me today. He sent an email to the court yesterday late afternoon, after hours, explaining that he wished to rely on written documents recently submitted, which I have seen. He expressed some dissatisfaction and said he would have liked more time to prepare, but did not, as I read his email, apply for an adjournment. The email concluded with the observation that he would “await the Court's decision and ruling.”
Mr Edward Curry, the first defendant in some of the claims, appeared today on behalf of himself, for his sister Ms Caroline Woodford, the second defendant in some of the claims, and for the company of which they are co-directors, Advertiser and Times Limited ( ATL).
One of the seven applications, the one on which I shall concentrate, is for, (among other things) a general civil restraint order ( GCRO) and associated relief. That application is brought by Facebook against Mr Caine in an action which has been proceeding in the Bournemouth County Court against Facebook. The application is supported by Mr Curry, Ms Woodford and ATL.
The latter also bring their own applications to extend the duration of three extended civil restraint orders ( ECROs) already made. I do not find it necessary to set out seriatim the detail of each of the seven applications. The three ECROs were made against the respondent, Mr Caine, by Mr Richard Spearman QC (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge of this court), each for a period of two years. He gave his judgment on 23 August 2019; see John Caine v Advertiser and Times Limited and others [2019] EWHC 2278 (QB).
The three ECROs are due to expire on 23 August 2021, unless I extend them. I can also make a GCRO for up to two years. I am asked to do so, or alternatively to extend the three ECROs for a further two years and to grant certain ancillary relief.
The Parties
Facebook is a company incorporated under the laws of the Republic of Ireland which operates and controls the well-known social media website, facebook.com. Mr Caine is a businessman based in Hampshire, England. He is a litigant in person who has brought many claims and applications over the past decade and more, against a wide range of parties. Mr Curry and Ms Woodford are the co-directors of ATL, a newspaper publishing company.
Among Mr Caine's illustrious litigation opponents are many public bodies; for example, the Chief Constable of Dorset, the Registrar of Companies, a district council, a town council, two government ministers, a magistrates' court, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, the Crown Court at Southampton, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire.
The Claims
The ECROs were made arising from three of Mr Caine's actions. The first ( claim 1) was brought against Mr Curry and ATL in 2017. It arose from an article published by ATL in May 2016, headlined “ Man waged vendetta against tyre firm after accusing staff of theft”. That article followed Mr Caine's conviction on 9 May 2016 at West Hampshire Magistrates' Court of an offence of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour. The conviction arose from an argument between Mr Caine and staff at a local garage, whom he accused of stealing items from his car.
The second claim ( claim 2) was brought against Mr Curry and Ms Woodford in 2018. It alleged defamation and malicious falsehood for publishing an article on a Facebook page called “ New Milton Watch — The Truth”. Material on that page criticised other material on another Facebook page set up by Mr Caine called “ New Milton Watch”. A debate subsequently ensued, the detail of which I will not set out, over whether Mr Curry and Ms Woodford had rendered themselves liable in defamation or malicious falsehood by “liking” the Facebook page New Milton Watch — The Truth.
The third claim ( claim 3) was again brought against Mr Curry and Ms Woodford in April 2019. I need not dwell on it, for it was later found to assert substantially the same facts as claim 2, which by then had been struck out.
A further claim was also brought by Mr Caine in June 2019 ( claim 4). That claim was brought against Mr Curry and ATL. It asserted, again, libel and malicious falsehood in respect of the article which had featured in claim 1 following Mr Caine's conviction of a public order offence. It also asserted libel and breach of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 arising from a further article, published by ATL in August 2018 headlined “ Libel claimant facing huge costs bill after court ruling”.
Previous “Totally Without Merit” Findings
There have been many such findings. The details of those known to Mr Spearman and drawn to his attention when he gave his judgment are to be found in that judgment and I need not repeat them here. Ms Hamer, for Facebook, drew my attention this morning to a handful of further totally without merit findings pre-dating Mr Spearman's judgment, of which Facebook had not been aware at the time of the hearing before Mr Spearman.
I accept, on the voluminous evidence before me, that there have been at least 20 occasions on which, over the past 11 years, Mr Caine has issued a claim or made an application found to be totally without merit.
Mr Spearman's judgment records that claims 1, 2 and 3 were each struck out or permanently stayed. On 29 October 2019, Master Davison declared claim 4 to be “totally without merit” and he struck it out and entered summary judgment in favour of the defendants. He commented in his judgment (at [4]) that when bringing claim 4, Mr Caine had been aware that about five weeks later a judge would consider whether to make an ECRO against him, Mr Caine.
Master Davison commented in the same paragraph:
“The Claimant knew that that was to be considered and it appears to me that he issued this claim at the time that he did in order to avoid the consequences of the ECRO. (The ECRO would have prevented the Claimant from making this claim without first seeking permission and such permission would quite plainly not have been granted.)”
Attempts to Appeal and Costs Orders
On 5 December 2019, Mr Caine's three applications to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal against the three ECROs were refused on the papers by Males LJ. Each was certified as totally without merit. Males LJ commented in his written reasons that Mr Caine showed every intention of continuing to make unmeritorious applications and that an ECRO was “entirely appropriate in such circumstances”.
As for costs, I am informed in the witness statement of Mr Rory Hishon, for Facebook, that during the course of claims 1–4, Mr Caine was ordered to pay over £60,000 on account of costs and that none of those costs have been paid, despite some attempts by the defendants in those claims to enforce them.
The Proceedings Against Facebook
Facebook is the defendant in a fifth claim ( the Facebook proceedings), brought in the County Court Money Claims Centre on 25 June 2020 and proceeding up to now in the Bournemouth and Poole County Court. The Facebook proceedings were brought during the currency of the three ECROs, which were in effect on 25 June 2020 and still are. The Facebook proceedings were launched following Facebook's decision to block access to a Facebook page sponsored by Mr Caine.
The background to that matter concerned an acrimonious dispute, the details of which I need not go into here. In briefest outline, Mr Caine knew the late father of Mr Curry and Ms Woodford, who had responsibility for his care in his old age. Mr Caine alleged that the posts Facebook had blocked included allegations that Mr Curry and Ms Woodford had abused a lasting power of attorney they held over their father's affairs in a corrupt way for their own financial gain; and that were guilty of fraud, abuse and breach of fiduciary duty.
The language used was extreme, borrowing from the era of Nazi rule in Germany in the last century. Facebook's decision to block the page followed assurances from...
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