LORD REED, LORD BRIGGS AND LORD KITCHIN (with whom Lord Hodge and Lord Lloyd-Jones agree):
1.
Introduction
(1) The problem
1. This appeal concerns a number of conjoined cases in which injunctions were sought by local authorities to prevent unauthorised encampments by Gypsies and Travellers. Since the members of a group of Gypsies or Travellers who might in future camp in a particular place cannot generally be identified in advance, few if any of the defendants to the proceedings were identifiable at the time when the injunctions were sought and granted. Instead, the defendants were described in the claim forms as “persons unknown”, and the injunctions similarly enjoined “persons unknown”. In some cases, there was no further description of the defendants in the claim form, and the court’s order contained no further information about the persons enjoined. In other cases, the defendants were described in the claim form by reference to the conduct which the claimants sought to have prohibited, and the injunctions were addressed to persons who behaved in the manner from which they were ordered to refrain. 2. In these circumstances, the appeal raises the question whether (and if so, on what basis, and subject to what safeguards) the court has the power to grant an injunction which binds persons who are not identifiable at the time when the order is granted, and who have not at that time infringed or threatened to infringe any right or duty which the claimant seeks to enforce, but may do so at a later date: “newcomers”, as they have been described in these proceedings. 3. Although the appeal arises in the context of unlawful encampments by Gypsies and Travellers, the issues raised have a wider significance. The availability of injunctions against newcomers has become an increasingly important issue in many contexts, including industrial picketing, environmental and other protests, breaches of confidence, breaches of intellectual property rights, and a wide variety of unlawful activities related to social media. The issue is liable to arise whenever there is a potential conflict between the maintenance of private or public rights and the future behaviour of individuals who cannot be identified in advance. Recent years have seen a marked increase in the incidence of applications for injunctions of this kind. The advent of the internet, enabling wrongdoers to violate private or public rights behind a veil of anonymity, has also made the availability of injunctions against unidentified persons an increasingly significant question. If injunctions are available only against identifiable individuals, then the anonymity of wrongdoers operating online risks conferring upon them an immunity from the operation of the law.
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