Injunction — Identification of parties — Claimants seeking injunction to prevent trespassers from entering waste-incinerator plants — Claimants unable to identify potential trespassers — Power of court to grant injunction against unnamed parties — Claim allowed
The four claimants were members of the Onyx Environmental group of companies. They owned and operated waste-incinerator plants around the UK, which also produced energy for the national grid. In recent years, the claimants had suffered damaging and costly invasions by trespassers who styled themselves as environmental protestors. The invasions sometimes occurred on predetermined days described as global days of action against incinerators, following an intense period of internet and other publicity. Such incursions led to the shutdown of the affected site for health and safety reasons, with considerable consequential loss and disruption to community facilities. The activities of protestors endangered both themselves and others.
A global day of action was planned for 14 July 2003, when it was likely that one of the plants owned and operated by one or more of the claimants would be targeted. In that event, there was little doubt that one or more of the claimants would suffer substantial and irrecoverable damage. The claimants applied for an injunction to restrain the threatened trespasses, even though they were unable to name any of the potential protestors.
Held: The claim was allowed.
This was a proper case for the grant of an injunction, notwithstanding the claimants’ inability to name any of the protestors who might be involved. The court agreed that the position in relation to a threatened trespass could be treated as the same as the situation in Bloomsbury Publishing Group plc v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2003] EWHC 1205 (Ch); [2003] 3 All ER 736, and, following the introduction of the CPR, the failure to give the name of the defendant would not invalidate the proceedings. If the description used for the defendants was sufficiently certain as to identify both those who were involved and those who were not, it did not matter that the description might apply to no one or to more than one person, or that there was no further element of identification, whether by service or otherwise. The claimants could face considerable injustice if the order were not made. The perceived difficulty over enforcement did not prevent the grant of the injunction. Further, CPR 6.8 permitted service to be effected by an alternative method where there was a good reason for doing so, which, in this case, was proposed to be by the fixing of the documents to posts in conspicuous places around the perimeters of the named sites.
* Editor’s note: Please note that the full name of this case is: Hampshire Waste Services Ltd and others v Persons entering or remaining without the consent of the claimants, or any of them, on any of the incinerator sites at Chineham, Basingstoke, and elsewhere in connection with the “Global Day of Action Against Incinerators” (or similarly described event) on or around 14 July 2003
Katharine Holland (instructed by Pinsents, of Birmingham) appeared for the claimants.
