MR JUSTICE NICKLIN Approved Judgment
MBR Acres Ltd -v- Curtin
(3) The Defendants 24.
When originally issued, the Claimants brought claims against the first two Defendants as “ unincorporated associations ”: “ Free the MBR Beagles ” and “ Camp Beagle ”. The Third and Fifth Defendants were sued as representatives of these two “ unincorporated associations ”. In the Interim Injunction Judgment ([52]-[67]), I refused to allow claims to be brought against the First and Second Defendants on a representative basis, and I stayed the claim against these two Defendants. The Claimants have made no application to lift that stay. 25. As the proceedings have progressed, the Claimants have sought, and generally been granted, permission to add further Defendants. A full list of the Defendants to the claim is set out in Annex 1 to this judgment. Apart from Mr Curtin, the claims against named individuals have all been settled. The one against the Twentieth Defendant, Lisa Jaffray, was settled early in the trial. In most instances, the relevant individual has given undertakings as to his/her future activities regarding the Claimants and the Wyton Site. 26. By the end of the trial, the claim was proceeding only against Mr Curtin, as a named Defendant, and various categories of Person(s) Unknown Defendants identified in Annex 1. (4) The protest activities 27. It will be necessary to go into the detail of specific incidents later in the judgment, but the following summary will suffice by way of introduction. 28. This litigation concerns protest and its lawful limits. Since around June 2021, a fluctuating number of individuals have been protesting outside the Wyton Site. There is a small semi-permanent camp of protestors on the edge of the carriageway about 20-30 metres from the entrance to the Wyton Site. Mr Curtin, who has been protesting since the outset, is a semi-permanent resident of this camp. There have been isolated other incidents away from the Wyton Site, for example, in August 2021, there were some limited protests outside the B&K Site, but the main focus of the protest activity – and most of the Claimants’ evidence – concerns protest activities at the Wyton Site. 29. The Claimants do not challenge that Mr Curtin, and the other protestors, have a sincerely and firmly held belief that animal testing is wrong. In terms of overall objective, the protestors probably share a common aim that animal testing should be prohibited. By extension, most protestors at the Wyton Site would like to see the First (and Third) Claimants put out of business. These objectives are not unlawful, and, subject to acting lawfully, Mr Curtin and others, may campaign and protest in their efforts to attempt to achieve a change in the law that would see their objective achieved. 30. The main complaints raised by the Claimants in this litigation are (1) incidents of trespass onto the Wyton Site, including the flying of a video-equipped drone around and above the Wyton Site, which is said to amount to trespass on the First Claimant’s land; (2) repeated incidents of obstruction of the highway outside the Wyton Site, said to constitute a public nuisance, and specifically obstruction of people and vehicles entering and leaving the Wyton Site; and (3) specific incidents involving confrontation with individual employees when they arrive at or leave the Wyton Site, which are said to amount to harassment.
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