MBR Acres Ltd v Michael Maher (aka John Thibeault)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Nicklin |
| Judgment Date | 16 May 2022 |
| Neutral Citation | [2022] EWHC 1123 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case No: QB-2021-003094 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
[2022] EWHC 1123 (QB)
THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Nicklin
Case No: QB-2021-003094
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS LIST
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Caroline Bolton and Natalie Pratt (instructed by Mills & Reeve LLP) for the Applicants
Ashley Underwood QC (instructed by Scott-Moncrieff & Associates Ltd) for the Respondents
Hearing dates: 6–7 April 2022
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down by the Judge remotely by circulation to the parties' representatives by e-mail and release to The National Archives. The date and time for hand-down is deemed to be 10.30am on 16 May 2022.
This is the judgment following a contempt application made against the two Respondents for alleged breaches of an injunction order that was granted on 10 November 2021 (“the Injunction”). The judgment handed down on that date ( [2021] EWHC 2996 (QB)) explains the terms in which the Injunction was granted. It also sets out the background and circumstances in which the Injunction was sought and imposed.
The hearing that led to the grant of the Injunction took place on 4 October 2021. That hearing was attended by the Thirteenth Defendant (“Ms Laidlaw”), she was also represented by solicitors, Cohen Cramer. The Fourteenth Defendant (“Mr Maher”), at that stage identified as “John Thibeault”, did not attend the hearing, and, at that stage, he was not represented. Judgment was reserved and handed down on 10 November 2021. Neither Ms Laidlaw nor Mr Maher attended the hearing on 10 November 2021. That is a point potentially of some significance as regards Ms Laidlaw. There was some discussion, at the hearing on 4 October 2021, of a possible exclusion zone being imposed, to a width 10 metres either side of the entrance to the Wyton Site and up to the mid-point of the carriageway. It was not until judgment was handed down on 10 November 2021 that the final dimensions of the exclusion zone were finalised. The width was extended to 20 metres either side of the gate.
The principal issue of contention between the parties is, after the introduction of the new CPR Part 81 in October 2020, whether (unless the Court permits alternative service or dispenses with service) an injunction order is required to be served personally on a defendant who is represented by solicitors before s/he can be found to be in contempt of court for alleged breach of the order or whether the effect of the CPR is to require that the injunction order be served on his/her solicitors.
A: Terms of the Injunction Order of 10 November 2021
The Injunction restrained both named Defendants to the proceedings — including these two Respondents — and certain categories of “Persons Unknown” as then defined.
So far as concerned the named Defendants, Paragraph 1 of the Injunction provided (so far as material):
“The [named] Defendants MUST NOT:
(1) enter into or remain upon the following land:
i. the First Claimant's premises known as MBR Acres Limited, Wyton, Huntingdon PE28 2DT as set out in Annex 1 (the ‘Wyton Site’); …
(2) enter into or remain upon the area marked with black hatching on the plans at Annex 1 … (the ‘Exclusion Zone’), save where … accessing the highway whilst in a vehicle, for the purpose of passing along the highway only and without stopping in the Exclusion Zone, save for when stopped by traffic congestion, or any traffic management arranged by or on behalf of the Highways Authority, or to prevent a collision, or at the direction of a Police Officer.
(3) park any vehicle, or place or leave any other item (including, but not limited to, banners) anywhere in the Exclusion Zone;
(4) approach and/or obstruct the path of any vehicle directly entering or exiting the Exclusion Zone (save that for the avoidance of doubt it will not be a breach of this Injunction Order where any obstruction occurs as a result of an emergency).
Definitions, set out in Schedule A to the Injunction, provided:
“The ‘Exclusion Zone’ is… for the purpose of the Wyton site, the area with black hatching at Annex 1 of this Order measuring 20 meters in length either side of the midpoint of the gate to the entrance of the Wyton site and extending out to the midpoint of the carriageway…”
Annex 1 to the Injunction was a plan of the Wyton Site marked with the Exclusion Zone around the entrance to the First Claimant's premises. Annex 1 included boxes containing annotations. One of those provided:
“Exclusion zone in black crosshatched area is 20 metres either side of the centre of the Gate to the Wyton Site marked by posts on the grass verge up to the centre of the carriageway.”
The Claimants did not have an address for service for Mr Maher. The Injunction also granted the Claimants permission, under CPR 6.15 and 6.27, to serve the Order on Mr Maher via his Facebook account. Apart from further orders granting permission for alternative service on the Fourth, Eleventh and Fourteenth Defendants, the Claimants sought and obtained no other orders regarding service of the Injunction and did not mention, at the hearing, how they were proposing to serve the other named Defendants. I will return to this point below.
B: Service of the Injunction on the Respondents
(1) Mr Maher
Mr Maher was served by the alternative method permitted under the Injunction Order. The following Facebook message was sent to Mr Maher (albeit addressed to John Thibeault) at 17.27 on 15 November 2021 (“the Facebook Message”):
“1. By way of service, we have arranged for the Order of Mr Justice Nicklin dated 10 November 2021 (‘the Injunction Order’) to be uploaded to the shared file website we have notified you of previously (set out below at paragraph 6 for convenience). The Injunction Order has been uploaded under the title of ‘2021.11.10 Injunction Order of Mr Justice Nicklin’.
2. We are permitted to serve the Injunction order on you by Facebook message pursuant to paragraph 17(c) of the Injunction Order. Please consider the contents of the Injunction Order carefully including the Penal Notice set out at the top of the Injunction Order.
3. As we have set out in our communications to date, we recommend that you seek independent legal advice. If you wish for this firm to communicate with you by email or at a physical address, we would be grateful if you could provide contact details.
4. Please note that the Injunction Order contains a Penal Notice which means that:
(a) you are bound by the terms of the Injunction Order; and
(b) if you disobey or instruct or encourage others to breach the Injunction Order, you may be held to be in contempt of Court and may be imprisoned, fined or have your assets seized.
5. Pursuant to paragraph 1 of the Injunction Order, no Defendant including you or those that fall within the definitions or the Tenth and Fifteenth to Seventeenth Defendants is permitted to either by themselves or by instructing or encouraging others to:
(a) enter;
(b) park any vehicle, or place or leave any other item (including, but not limited to banners) anywhere;
(c) approach and/or obstruct the path of any vehicle directly entering or exiting
the Exclusion Zone marked in [Annex 1] of the Injunction Order save for the exceptions set out in paragraph 1 of the Injunction Order. The Exclusion Zone comprising the verge to the highway at the Wyton Site will be clearly marked with posts and/or a line and will extend to the middle of the carriageway.
6. Documents which have been served by the Claimants in the proceedings are available on the shared file website we have notified you of previously, namely [Dropbox address given].”
The message was read by Mr Maher at 22:20 that same day. Mr Maher simply responded with an emoji with a tear.
(2) Ms Laidlaw
Ms Laidlaw instructed solicitors, Cohen Cramer, to act on her behalf in the proceedings. Cohen Cramer filed an Acknowledgement of Service indicating that they were acting on Ms Laidlaw's behalf on 30 September 2021.
The Claimants' solicitors did not serve the Injunction on Ms Laidlaw personally. Instead, they served it only on her solicitors, Cohen Cramer, by sending it by recorded delivery on 15 November 2021. It was received by Cohen Cramer on 17 November 2021. The letter serving the Injunction simply stated: “ We enclose by way of service on your respective clients the Order of Mr Justice Nicklin dated 10 November 2021”. Service of the Injunction only on Cohen Cramer, and not personally on Ms Laidlaw, was not an oversight by the Claimants' solicitors, but a conscious decision. In a witness statement provided during the hearing of the contempt application, the Claimants' solicitor, Simon Pedley explained:
“… I can confirm that I was aware of the long-standing practice that if one wanted to enforce an order by contempt proceedings, that order would ordinarily be personally served. However, we considered the issue carefully and the application of the new CPR 81 and interaction between CPR Part 6 and we concluded that in order to effect proper service of the injunction order on Ms Laidlaw we had to serve it on her solicitors, Cohen Cramer, as they had gone on the record for her and thereby provided their address as the correct address for service.”
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