MBR Acres Limited & Ors v Free the MBR Beagles & Ors

An interim injunction affecting protest and Convention rights requires evidence showing a real prospect of success at trial and a credible case of actual or threatened wrongdoing by each defendant against whom relief is sought. The court must not aggregate the conduct of unidentified or other protestors to justify restrictions against an identified individual who is not shown to have engaged in, or credibly threatened, the prohibited conduct.

Where relief may restrict lawful protest, its terms must be precise and directed only to unlawful conduct. An injunction against “Persons Unknown” requires jurisdiction to be established by service of the claim form, including compliance with any alternative service order. A claimant seeking protection for a supplier from alleged harassment should ordinarily be the supplier itself, providing its own evidence and cross-undertaking.

The claimants sought to vary an existing interim injunction concerning protests against their lawful animal-breeding and research-related activities. They sought further restrictions against named defendants and “Persons Unknown” in relation to alleged harassment and targeting of employees, contractors and Impex Services International Limited, a supplier.

The application followed an interim injunction granted on 10 November 2021, with later modifications. The court also considered whether Gillian McGivern had become a defendant under the principle in South Cambridgeshire DC v Gammell. The central issues were whether the proposed restrictions were justified by the evidence, whether the court had jurisdiction over the relevant “Persons Unknown” defendants, and whether the injunction could properly protect a third party.

1. Variation refused. The court refused both proposed additions to the interim injunction.
2. Under Human Rights Act 1998, section 12 was engaged because the proposed restrictions were likely to affect freedom of expression and peaceful protest. The claimants therefore had to show that they were likely to obtain equivalent relief after trial.
3. The evidence against the named defendants concerned only five individuals and was generally isolated, varied and insufficiently serious. Mere attendance at demonstrations did not justify the proposed order. Online postings did not establish a sufficiently credible harassment claim, although incitement of specific people to commit civil wrongs could, in an appropriate case, justify carefully framed relief.
4. The admitted sending of funeral packs was potentially harassing, but bail conditions already prevented the relevant defendant from contacting employees and there was no evidence of a present threat to repeat the conduct. The evidence concerning Impex did not establish the necessary course of conduct or the requisite intention under section 1(1A) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
5. The court rejected precautionary relief against named defendants unsupported by evidence of their own conduct or credible threats. Aggregating the worst conduct of a group would risk unjustifiably impairing an individual protestor’s right to peaceful assembly, contrary to the principle identified in Canada Goose v Persons Unknown [2020] 1 WLR 417.
6. The proposed order against “Persons Unknown” also failed because the alternative service order, focused on the Wyton Site, could not reasonably bring proceedings concerning protests at Impex or elsewhere to the attention of all relevant defendants. The evidence did not justify relief of the seriousness sought.
7. Although a person may become a defendant under the Gammell principle without a further joinder application, this requires compliance with the alternative service order. McGivern had not become a defendant because the claim form and injunction had not been properly served on her. The claimants’ variation application was refused.

• High Court (King’s Bench Division): an interim injunction was granted on 10 November 2021. The present court refused the claimants’ later application to vary it.
• High Court (King’s Bench Division): the court referred to earlier decisions in the same proceedings, including [2021] EWHC 2996 (QB), [2022] EWHC 1715 (QB) and [2022] EWHC 2072 (QB). These were procedural stages of the same litigation.