much adjourned interim application most but not all of the thieves had been arrested, but the claimant publisher wished to have continued injunctions, until the date a month later when the book was due to be published, against unnamed further persons, described as the person or persons who had offered a copy of the book to the three named newspapers and the person or persons in physical possession of the book without the consent of the claimants. The Vice-Chancellor acknowledged that it would under the old RSC and relevant authority in relation to them have been improper to seek to identify intended defendants in that way (see para 27 above). He noted (para 11) the anomalous consequence: 59.
“A claimant could obtain an injunction against all infringers by description so long as he could identify one of them by name [as a representative defendant: see paras 27-30 above], but, by contrast, if he could not name one of them then he could not get an injunction against any of them.”
He regarded the problem as essentially procedural, and as having been cured by the introduction of the CPR. He concluded, at para 21:
“The crucial point, as it seems to me, is that the description used must be sufficiently certain as to identify both those who are included and those who are not. If that test is satisfied then it does not seem to me to matter that the description may apply to no one or to more than one person nor that there is no further element of subsequent identification whether by service or otherwise.
(2) Hampshire Waste Services
60. Later that same year, Sir Andrew Morritt V-C made another order against persons unknown, this time in a protester case, Hampshire Waste Services Ltd v Intending Trespassers upon Chineham Incinerator Site [2003] EWHC 1738 (Ch); [2004] Env LR 9 (“ Hampshire Waste Services ”). The claimants, operators of a number of waste incinerator sites which fed power to the national grid, sought an injunction to restrain protesters from entering any of various named sites in connection with a “Global Day of Action against Incinerators” some six days later. Previous actions of this kind presented a danger to the protesters and to others and had resulted in the plants having to be shut down. The police were, it seemed, largely powerless to prevent these threatened activities. The Vice-Chancellor, having referred to Bloomsbury , had no doubt the order was justified save for one important matter: the claimants were unable to
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