MR JUSTICE NICKLIN Approved Judgment
MBR Acres Ltd -v- Curtin
The Seventeenth Defendant MUST NOT within 1 mile in either direction of the First Claimant’s Land, approach, slow down, or obstruct any vehicle: (a) for the purpose of protesting and/or campaigning against the activities of the First and/or Third Claimant; and (b) where the vehicle is, or is believed to be, travelling to or from the First Claimant’s Land at the Wyton Site. The Third, Twelfth, Fifteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-Second Defendants MUST NOT cut, push, shake, kick, lift, climb up or upon or over, damage or remove, or attempt to remove any part of the perimeter fence to the Wyton Site, as marked in red on the attached plan at Annex 1.”
(3)
(4)
40. In the Second Injunction Variation Judgment, I explained why I had amended the Interim Injunction in these terms: [10] In respect of obstruction of vehicles (the subject of the new sub-paragraphs (2) and (3)), evidence of events following the grant of the injunction, particularly that which had been filed by the Claimants in relation to the contempt applications against the Twelfth and Thirteenth Defendants (see [2023] QB 186), showed that some protestors had adopted tactics of surrounding and/or obstructing vehicles that were travelling to or from the Wyton Site further along the carriageway of the B1090. It had also become apparent that the earlier formulation – prohibiting approaching/obstruction of any vehicle “directly” entering or exiting the exclusion zone – had the potential to catch behaviour that the injunction was not designed to prevent. A particular example was an occasion in which a police vehicle was about to exit the exclusion zone when it was obstructed by protestors who wanted to ascertain what was happening to a person who had been arrested. The exclusion zone has always been recognised to be an expedient, justified because it is the best way of avoiding the flashpoints that have occurred between the protestors and those coming and going to/from the Wyton Site. However, the Court will keep the terms of the any interim injunction under review – and in appropriate cases will make changes to the terms of the order – to ensure that they are not having an unintended effect. The revised restrictions now more directly focus on the obstruction of vehicles travelling to/from the Wyton Site where that obstruction is for the purpose of protesting. [11] Sub-paragraph (4) contained a new prohibition upon interfering with and/or damaging the perimeter fence of the Wyton Site. I was satisfied on the Claimants’ evidence that the relevant Defendants had been damaging or interfering with the fence. Such actions are tortious, are not an exercise of a right to protest and the balance of convenience clearly favoured an interim prohibition. The Claimants had asked for a 1 metre exclusion zone to be imposed around the entire perimeter of the Wyton Site. I refused to make such an order. The correct way of targeting this particular wrongdoing is by making a direct order that prohibits that behaviour, not an indirect order that would also restrict lawful activities. The Claimants do not own the land over which they were seeking the imposition of this further exclusion zone, so I was not persuaded that there was an adequate legal basis upon which to impose the wider restriction that they had sought.
79
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator