Mandy Richards v Investigatory Powers Tribunal and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Nicol |
| Judgment Date | 24 March 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 560 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ16X03655 |
| Date | 24 March 2017 |
[2017] EWHC 560 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Nicol
Case No: HQ16X03655
The Claimant in person
Sarah Hannett (instructed by Government Legal Department) for the 1 st Defendant
Emma Gargitter (instructed by Undercover Policing Inquiry) for the 2 nd Defendant
Liam Duffy (instructed by Metropolitan Police Legal Services) for the 3 rd Defendant
Desmond Kilcoyne (instructed by Hackney Legal Services) for the 6 th Defendant
Emma Dring (instructed by Government Legal Department) for the 7 th Defendant
Daniel Goodkin (instructed by Royal Mail Group Legal Department) for the 9 th Defendant
Sam Phillips (instructed by Peabody Legal Department) for the 10 th Defendant
Andrew Bershadski (instructed by Bevan Brittan) for the 13 th–18 th Defendants
David Heaton (instructed by Virgin Media Legal Department) for the 19 th Defendant
Ian Helme (instructed by UK Power Networks Ltd) for the 20 th Defendant
K. Radley-Davies (instructed by Npower Ltd Legal Department) for the 21 st Defendant
David Dabbs (instructed by Pitmans LLP) for the 22 nd Defendant
Hearing date: 14 th March 2017
Introduction
The Claimant, acting in person, has brought these wide-ranging proceedings against 22 defendants. I heard applications on behalf of several of them to strike out the claims against them and for those claims to be designated as totally without merit. Additionally, most, but not all, of the applicant defendants applied for an extended civil restraint order ('ECRO') against the Claimant. On 19 th January 2017 Jeremy Baker J. had considered on the papers applications by the 4 th Defendant (the Security Service or MI5) and the 5 th Defendant (the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6). As a result of their applications, he struck out the claims as against those defendants because they disclosed no reasonable grounds for bringing the claims against those defendants. He said that the claims against them were totally without merit and he made an ECRO restraining the Claimant from bringing any further proceedings or making any further application in respect of those Defendants arising out of the same subject matter as the claims in HQ16X03179 (earlier proceedings which, as I shall explain, the Claimant had brought) and HQ16X03655 (the present proceedings) for a period of 2 years without the permission of the Court. Since the order had been made on the papers without hearing the Claimant, it expressly allowed her to apply to set it aside or to vary it. Ms Richards has applied to set his order aside and that was a further application before me. No application was made by Progress (the 8 th Defendant) or Mildmay Practice (the 12 th Defendant). This judgment, therefore, has no immediate impact on the claims against them.
It is not easy to summarise the nature of the Claimant's claims. A flavour can be seen from paragraph 2.3 of her claim form in which she says,
'I have for over 18 months asked the Police and others where specifically appropriate to their agency, to look into the reported incidents as they have occurred pertaining to malicious and unlawful interception, monitoring and manipulation of my communications and activities, unethical sharing of information, disruption to my personal and professional and political life, home intrusions, car tampering, electrical tampering, bike tampering and domestic disturbances resulting in a potentially lethal risk of harm to my person and to my health.'
I mentioned above that the ECRO which Jeremy Baker J. made had referred to the subject matter of the present proceedings and to HQ16X03179. Those were proceedings which the Claimant had issued on 9 th September 2016 against 13 defendants. Those defendants included the Chief Executives of companies or other prominent figures in organisations which companies or organisations now feature as defendants in the present action. I will refer to this action as the 'September 2016 claim'.
In the September 2016 claim the Claimant sought interim injunctive relief by an application notice issued on 14 th September 2016. On 23 rd September 2016 Dove J. dismissed her application. It is right to note, as the Claimant emphasised in the present hearing before me, that Dove J. did not describe that application as totally without merit.
Ms Richards issued a second application notice for an interim injunction on 7 th October 2016. That application came before Globe J. on 19 th October 2016. He refused to grant an injunction. He struck out both the application and the claim and found them both to be totally without merit.
The present claim was issued 2 days later, on 21 st October 2016, although it was amended under CPR 17.1(1) (presumably because it had not at that stage been served) and was re-sealed on 23 rd December 2016.
Two themes run through all the applications by the defendants to the present claim. The first is that the claims being made by the Claimant are said to be incoherent and they fail to disclose any cause of action against the defendant in question and for those reasons they should be struck out. Furthermore, it is said, the claims advanced in the present proceedings either repeat claims which were made in the September 2016 claim or they should have been advanced in that claim. Accordingly, it is said, the present proceedings are an abuse of process and should be struck out for that reason as well. For either or both of those reasons the claims in the present proceedings are said to be totally without merit.
Those defendants who sought an ECRO took me to CPR r.3.11 which allows provision for civil restraint orders to be made by Practice Direction and to the Practice Direction in question, namely PD3C. A requirement of an extended civil restraint order is that the party must have 'persistently' issued claims or made applications which are totally without merit. For these purposes, it was submitted, and I accept, there must have been at least three claims or applications characterised as totally without merit in order for the litigant to have acted 'persistently' in this manner. Those Defendants who apply for an ECRO say that requirement is fulfilled here. Globe J. found (a) the interim injunction to have been totally without merit and (b) the September 2016 claim to have been totally without merit. Jeremy Baker J. found the claims against MI5 and MI6 to have been totally without merit. I am invited in addition to say that the present proceedings against each of the Defendants who has applied for a strike out also are totally without merit. I am conscious that a claim should not be certified as totally without merit simply because it is wrong or discloses no reasonable cause of action. It must be completely hopeless. The claims against the various defendants in the present claim are sufficiently diffuse that they can, in my view, be regarded as separate proceedings for the purpose of deciding 'persistence'.
In her response, Ms Richards relied on the European Convention on Human Rights ('ECHR') as incorporated into English law by the Human Rights Act 1998. She said her right to life had been imperilled by some of the environmental dangers to which she had been exposed. Both Article 2 and Article 3 (concerning torture, inhuman and degrading punishment or treatment) implicitly included an investigatory obligation which the various defendants had breached. Article 6 guaranteed a fair trial of civil rights and obligations. If the claims were struck out she would be denied those. That would also be the consequence if she was made subject to an ECRO. Her right to private life under Article 8 ECHR had been infringed, particularly by her landlord (Peabody) and her local authority (Hackney). Article 10 ensured a right to hold opinions and she believed that the actions against her or inaction on the part of the various bodies was attributable to her political opinions. Article 14 concerned the prohibition on discrimination. She had been discriminated against because of her opinions. She said that she was the victim of surveillance and interference in the same way that those who complained about the Cleveland police had been and, as the recent Wikileaks disclosure had shown, there had been a widespread practice by the security agencies.
She denied that her present proceedings were simply repetitious of the September 2016 claim. She said the following parts of her claim were new:
i) Paragraph 2.2 — which referred to an Election Petition which she had brought. It seems that she stood as a candidate in the London Assembly elections. Her petition to the Election Court was unsuccessful. She is seeking judicial review of that decision.
ii) Paragraph 2.4 which referred to complaints she had made to various bodies.
iii) Paragraph 2.5 which said she believed the interferences were due to her political, media and union activities.
iv) Paragraph 2.6 which again referred to her Election Petition.
v) Paragraph 2.7 which referred to the Cleveland case of unlawful surveillance by the police of journalists.
Ms Richards put in a lever arch file of evidence on which she wished to rely.
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