MRS JUSTICE HILL Approved Judgment
Valero v Persons Unknown (2025 review)
He also referred to information received from the National Police Coordination Centre to the effect that the threat level remains the same. 31. As Ms Pinkerton explained in paragraphs 5.1-5.7 of EP6, none of the Defendants have contacted the Claimants to say that they no longer intend to carry out direct action at the Sites. There have also been many instances of direct action by environmental activists, notably Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, across the country in relation to the energy industry. This included a nationwide campaign planned and orchestrated by Just Stop Oil to carry out direct action at airports in the summer of 2024. Statements have continued to be made about the need for direct action and related conduct in respect of fossil fuel extraction and production. 32. Ms Pinkerton highlighted that courts have continued to grant or renew injunctions on the basis of the same continuing threat: see, for example, Shell v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 3130 (KB) at [101]-[113], where on 5 December 2024 Dexter Dias J held that that there remained a real and imminent risk of direct action by the named Defendants and Persons Unknown in relation to Shell’s Haven oil refinery and other sites. 33. In light of this evidence, I accept the Claimants’ submission that nothing material has changed in the evidence since Ritchie J made his order. In particular, as explained above, there remains a continued threat of direct action at the 8 Sites. This is supported by the fact that, as far as the Claimants are aware, no injunction originally granted to an energy company as a result of the direct action in April 2022 has been discharged on the basis of a finding that the level of threat has diminished 34. The evidence suggests that direct action at the 8 Sites has diminished. However the courts have repeatedly held in this context that evidence of this kind is not evidence that the threat has dissipated; rather, it is evidence that the injunctions have had their intended effect: see, for example, Ritchie J’s judgment in this case at [64] and Shell at [111]-[112]. 35. There has been no material change in the case law since Ritchie J’s judgment. 36. As to new legislation, Ritchie J considered the new offences in the Public Order Act 2023 before making the order: see his judgment at [66]. In any event, courts have repeatedly accepted that these offences do not materially alter the position or serve to diminish the threat of continued action: see, for example, Drax Power Ltd v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 2224 (KB), at [24] and [28] (Ritchie J); North Warwickshire Borough Council v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 2254 (KB) at [88] (HHJ Emma Kelly, sitting as a Judge of the High Court); and TfL at [37]-[38] and [58]–[67] (Morris J). 37. In accordance with her duty of disclosure Ms Holland KC drew my attention to the fact that in Shell , Dexter Dias J observed that the new legislation is a “material change”. However, he went on to hold that it remains “evidentially unclear what material impact it has on deterring future protest and to what extent it operates on the minds of those who would protest against Shell”; and that the mere existence of the new offences in and of themselves could not affect the analysis on risk of continued threat: [132] and [140].
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