MR JUSTICE NICKLIN Approved Judgment
MBR Acres Ltd -v- Curtin
Since the protests began, I have always been really worried about being identified by the protestors and then being targeted outside of work at my own home. Sadly, targeting at home has happened to a few of my colleagues who have been identified by the protestors, including Employee L (who had their house vandalised), Employee Q (who had their car vandalised outside of their parents’ house), Employee K (who also had their car vandalised) and Dave Manning (who has been approached and abused in public, and had his house vandalised as well). I fear that the same will happen to me if I am identified by the protestors. As I set out below, I was also followed by protestors on 1 August 2021, a protestor took a photo of me through my car window whilst I was stationary at traffic lights. This image was then uploaded to the Camp Beagle Facebook group but thankfully the image quality was not very good, and the image could not reasonably be used to identify me. Nonetheless, this was a scary experience and has caused me a significant amount of anxiety about being recognised ever since.” Ms Read said: “When driving to and from the Wyton Site, I would wear particular clothes and accessories to disguise my identity. I would wear dark glasses, a face mask, and have my hood up. I wore these clothes and accessories so that the protestors could not identify me. The Production Manager and I also advised staff to cover up as much as possible, to disguise their identity. I was anxious to disguise my identity because I did not want my face posted on social media. On 22 April 2021, the Production Manager and I identified that the protestors had published on social media footage of staff the Wyton Site whilst they working, which appeared to be taken from a camera hidden in the fence line at the Wyton Site. This behaviour continued, with the protestors then trying to film or photograph us as we entered and exited the Wyton Site every day, and posting images and videos on social media for anyone to identify us. The most prudent thing is to cover yourself from head to toe. Even though I have experienced many protests at the Wyton Site, I have never worn a disguise before, as I did not feel as at risk with previous protestors that protested at the Wyton Site. The historic protestors would usually notify police in advance of a big protest, so we could plan accordingly. Now the protests are 24/7 and can never be avoided. In the historic protests, the protestors were not interested in the staff as individuals, and they would not harass or target individual people like the current protestors do. Social media was not existent or not as prevalent as it currently is, so the protestors were not able to as easily share the identities of employees. Now the protestors seem to be protesting not only against MBR as a company, but also against the specific individuals that work for the company.” Employee A said: “Initially, when arriving in convoy, we would drive in our own cars. However, on a date I cannot remember, we started to car share to reduce the
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