Timothy John Hull Pattinson v Robert Ian Winsor

An interim injunction restraining alleged harassment by publication may be granted without notice where there are compelling reasons not to notify the respondent and the applicant has made full and frank disclosure. Where the injunction would restrain publication, the applicant must show a likelihood of establishing at trial that publication should not be allowed. A claim under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is not treated as a disguised defamation claim merely because reputational harm is alleged. Harassment requires conduct crossing the boundary from unattractive or unreasonable behaviour into oppressive and unacceptable conduct. A purpose-based defence requires rational consideration of the material said to indicate criminality. The balance of convenience may favour relief where damages cannot adequately remedy continuing distress, humiliation, embarrassment or reputational harm.

The claimant, a judge, sought an interim injunction under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 against his brother-in-law. The defendant had sent repeated emails to the claimant, his wife, judicial colleagues, court officials and others, making serious allegations of fraud, theft, forgery, money laundering and abuse of office.

The application was issued urgently and heard without notice. The allegations arose against the background of earlier probate litigation, in which the defendant’s challenges to the validity of his mother’s will had been rejected. The central issues were whether the application could properly be heard without notice, whether the claimant met the heightened threshold for an injunction restraining publication, and whether the conduct amounted to harassment.

1. The court granted the interim injunction, with a return date two weeks later. The defendant would then have a full opportunity to challenge continuation of the order.
2. Under CPR r. 25.3, a without-notice interim remedy required good reasons for withholding notice. The court also required full and frank disclosure of material matters. Section 12(2) of the Human Rights Act 1998 was engaged because the order might affect freedom of expression under article 10 of the ECHR. Compelling reasons existed: on the evidence, notice created a strong likelihood that the defendant would frustrate the purpose of the order by widening publication.
3. The court applied the three-stage test in American Cyanamid Co v Ethicon Ltd [1975] AC 396 (HL). Because the order would restrain publication, section 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 required a likelihood that the claimant would establish at trial that publication should not be allowed. That threshold was satisfied.
4. The claim’s true substance was protection from a campaign of harassment, rather than protection of reputation. The stricter defamation rule in Bonnard v Perryman was therefore not applied. Harassment has its ordinary meaning and requires conduct sufficiently serious to cross the boundary between unattractive or unreasonable conduct and oppressive and unacceptable conduct, as explained in Hayes v Willoughby [2013] 1 WLR 935, citing Majrowski v Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust [2007] 1 AC 224.
5. The repeated circulation of baseless allegations was likely to amount to harassment, and the defendant ought to have known that it did so. Although he might claim that his conduct was intended to prevent or detect crime, that defence required rational consideration of the material suggesting criminality. The evidence indicated that the emails were irrational, so the defence under section 1(3)(a) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was unlikely to succeed.
6. Damages were inadequate because the continuing conduct was likely to cause further distress, humiliation and embarrassment, with difficult-to-quantify reputational consequences. The defendant was also impecunious. The balance of convenience substantially favoured the claimant.