MR JUSTICE NICKLIN Approved Judgment
MBR Acres Ltd -v- Curtin
384. The words “ direct and deliberate ” will be included in the injunction to ensure that indirect or inadvertent obstruction is not caught. A disproportionate amount of time was spent at the time considering the extent to which Mr Curtin’s simply standing at the side of the Access Road obstructed the view of the driver of a vehicle leaving the Wyton Site, and therefore amounted to an obstruction of the “ free passage ” of the vehicle. As I have held (see [80] above), the First Claimant’s common law right of access to the highway is not unqualified. If Mr Curtin simply walks across the Access Road, to get from one side of the entrance of the Wyton Site to the other, he does not interfere with the First Claimant’s right of access to the highway if a vehicle attempting to enter or leave the Wyton Site momentarily has to give way to Mr Curtin. Deliberately standing in front of a vehicle to prevent it entering or leaving the Wyton Site is different, and obviously so. The injunction will prohibit the latter, but not the former. An injunction framed in these terms will also enable Mr Curtin to invite drivers of vehicles to stop, to speak to them and to offer them leaflets about the protest. 385. As a result, the injunction granted against Mr Curtin will consist of Paragraph (1)(a) of the Claimants’ draft (in Annex 2) together with a new paragraph (2) which will prohibit Mr Curtin from directly and deliberately obstructing vehicles entering or leaving the public highway outside the Wyton Site. (2) Contra mundum claim 386. Based on my factual findings, I am satisfied that the First Claimant has proved that persons who cannot be identified threaten to (a) trespass upon the First Claimant’s land at the Wyton Site; and/or (b) interfere with the right of access from the Wyton Site to/from the public highway caused by obstructing of vehicles entering or leaving the Wyton Site. 387. The First Claimant has failed to prove that persons who cannot be identified threaten to fly drones over the Wyton Site at a height that amounts to trespass upon the First Claimant’s land. In any event, the First Claimant has not made out a compelling case for the grant of a contra mundum injunction or that such an order would be just and convenient. The Claimants have adduced no evidence as to the height at which flying a drone interferes with its user of the First Claimant’s land. 100 meters (and indeed the other heights that have variously been proposed by the Claimants) are simply arbitrary. The Claimants have been forced to choose a height (albeit without supporting evidence) because they are seeking to rely upon trespass. In reality the Claimants want to prohibit all drone flying over the Wyton Site (at whatever height) because it is not the trespass that it represents but the filming opportunity that it provides. As I have explained, there is a palpable disconnect between the tort relied upon and the wrong that that the Claimants are seeking to address. 388. I am satisfied that there is a compelling need, convincingly demonstrated by the First Claimant’s evidence of repeated infringements of its civil rights, for the Court to grant a contra mundum injunction to restrain future acts by protestors of (a) trespass at the Wyton Site; and (b) interference with the right of access from the Wyton Site to/from the public highway caused by the obstruction of vehicles entering or leaving the Wyton Site. 389. I considered carefully whether it was just and convenient to grant an injunction contra mundum to restrain future trespass. On the one hand, the First Claimant is particularly
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