MR JUSTICE NICKLIN Approved Judgment
MBR Acres Ltd -v- Curtin
315. Although this pleading is difficult to follow, the Claimants’ position, at the end of the trial, was that they sought a contra mundum injunction to prohibit “ fly[ing] a drone or other unmanned aerial vehicle at a height of less than 100 meters over the Wyton Site ”. 316. The claim in respect of alleged drone trespass can only be maintained in respect of direct overflying. The First Claimant has no arguable right, under the law of trespass, to prevent drones flying other than directly over the Wyton Site. For drones flown directly over the Wyton Site, the question is at what height does flying a drone represent a trespass on the land below (see [62]-[73] above). 317. The Claimants allege in the Particulars of Claim that “Persons Unknown” have flown a drone over the Wyton Site on 25 and 27 July 2021, 25 and 27 August 2021, 17 March 2022, 6 and 16 June 2022. Save for the incident on 27 July 2021, the allegation made in the Particulars of Claim is that the drone was flown “ at a height that was below 150m and/or 50m ”. On 27 July 2021, the Claimants allege that the drone was flown “ at a height that was below 50m ”. Again, for a sense of scale, the ‘Walkie Talkie’ building at 20 Fenchurch Street in London is 160m tall, with 38 floors. I have already summarised the Claimants’ evidence about general drone usage (see [260] above). 318. In her witness statement of 19 March 2024, Ms Pressick provided some further evidence of drone use by “Persons Unknown”:
“Drones flown by the protestors are known to have crash landed on MBR’s land on 5 occasions (10 May 2022, 12 May 2022, 3 July 2022, 3 February 2023, and 19 September 2023). This is indicative of drones being flown outside their operational parameters and/or by unsafe piloting. Where the drone has been recovered by the security team, it has been handed over to the police. I asked the security team to consider drone usage over a 5-month period, and this was closely monitored between 1 July and 30 November 2023. This is something that we had not done consistently previously. Staff tried to monitor use of the drone, noting days it was flown and the duration of the flight time over the Wyton Site. In that 5-month period, the security noted that at least 184 drone flights took place over the Wyton site, with an overall flight duration of at least 2,097 minutes (nearly 35 hours). I assume, but do not know, that the protestors filmed and recorded throughout each flight. During this period, there has been a notable increase in drone usage. There have been more drone flights, and the flight time appears to have increased over this period. In the period looked at in detail (1 July to 30 November 2023), the security team have tried to identify the protestors that fly the drone. Of the 89 flights noted by the security team, it has not been possible to identify a drone pilot in respect of 59 flights (this is equivalent to around 66% of the observed flights). Mr Curtin has been identified as the drone pilot on 18 occasions (or around 20% of the observed flights). The security team have identified a protestor known as [name redacted] as being the drone pilot on 12 occasions (or roughly 13.5% of the observed flights). It is generally understood from previous observations, and the footage uploaded to the Camp Beagle Facebook page, that Mr Curtin is the primary drone pilot…”
319. The evidence that Ms Pressick has included about Mr Curtin’s drone flying I will not take into account in the claim against him. The opportunity to file further evidence was limited to the Claimants’ claim for a contra mundum ‘newcomer’ injunction. It was not
148
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator