NORTH WARWICKSHIRE BOROUGH COUNCIL v STEPHANIE AYLETT

In contempt proceedings, the claimant must prove service of the injunction and the alleged breach beyond reasonable doubt. General knowledge that an injunction exists does not replace service or an order dispensing with service. Where an order is reasonably capable of more than one meaning, the construction more favourable to the defendant must be adopted.

Alternative-service provisions must be read as a whole. A general power to use another like manner does not permit the claimant to disregard detailed requirements for prominent publication. An injunction prohibiting specified acts in connection with a protest against fossil fuels in the locality of a site may apply outside the area shown on a plan where the plan defines a separate prohibition. Whether conduct is in the locality is ultimately a question of fact.

The claimant applied to commit three defendants for contempt of an interim injunction made to restrain protests against fossil-fuel production or use at and around Kingsbury Oil Terminal. The alleged breaches concerned digging and occupying a tunnel alongside and partly beneath a public road.

The court had to determine whether each defendant had been served, the proper construction of the injunction, whether the tunnel was in the terminal’s locality, and whether the conduct was connected with a fossil-fuel protest. The application was heard at first instance following arrests and production of the defendants before the court.

1. Service. The claimant proved personal service on John Jordan when the injunction and power of arrest were handed to him and their nature explained. It failed to prove service on Stephanie Aylett or Callum Goode. Service on an agent would not suffice, and the documents were neither handed to nor properly left with or near those defendants. General awareness that an injunction might exist could not replace service or an order dispensing with it. The applications against Aylett and Goode were therefore dismissed.
2. Alternative service. The phrase “and/or” in schedule 2, paragraph 1 was reasonably susceptible to more than one meaning. Applying Sheffield City Council v Teal [2017] EWHC 2692, the court adopted the interpretation favourable to the defendants. The claimant could not rely solely on paragraph 1(iv) after failing to comply with paragraphs 1(i) to (iii). In any event, the steps taken were not a like manner because they did not prominently bring the injunction to the defendants’ attention.
3. Construction and liability. Paragraph 1(b) applied to acts performed in connection with a protest against the production or use of fossil fuels anywhere in the locality of the terminal. It did not require a protest to be taking place within the red-lined area on the plan, which served a separate purpose under paragraph 1(a). “Locality” was sufficiently precise; whether a particular place fell within it was a question of fact. The tunnel, approximately 400 metres from the terminal and on a principal access road, was within the locality.
4. Jordan’s occupation of the tunnel after service breached paragraph 1(b)(ix), and his role in assisting or encouraging the others breached paragraph 1(b)(xi). The claimant proved those breaches beyond reasonable doubt. It did not prove that Jordan dug the tunnel after service, so the application succeeded only in respect of occupation and assistance or encouragement.
5. Sentence. The contempt warranted fourteen days’ imprisonment, suspended for two years on condition of compliance with any interim or final injunction in the claim. Jordan was ordered to pay the claimant’s costs, subject to public-funding and detailed-assessment provisions.

First-instance contempt proceedings arising from arrests for alleged breach of an interim injunction. No earlier appellate decision is stated in the judgment.