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Tort – Harassment – Acts constituting harassment – Injunctive relief – Protection from Harassment Act 1997, s 3.
Notes
This is the injunction taken out by Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) against Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) to restrict animal rights protest against company employees at the laboratory and at the workers' homes.
The judge ruled that section 3 of the act could not be used to enable companies to bring claims as "individuals" , in the same way that companies could not be victims of criminal harassment ( DPP v Dziurzynski ). However the judge ruled that the second claimant - in this case the managing director - had the same interest as all the other company employees and therefore could apply for an injunction protecting all other employees as well as himself.
This principle has been upheld in the later case of Daiichi v SHAC. Both cases are not over yet however and there will be a full hearing to decide the issues in the High Court some time next year. For now, as explained in the notes on Daiichi, the act affords some civil protection to company employees, but cannot be used to prohibit protest against companies themselves. In this case SHAC are still allowed to have demos at the lab once a week - on specified terms - and are not prohibited from contacting the company by phone or email.
The injunctions against SHAC by the HLS and its Japanese customers are the result of frustration on behalf of HLS, the government and the police that despite all their best efforts to close down the SHAC campaign, it is still going with a vengeance and having a huge impact not only on HLS but also on pharmaceutical investment generally in the UK.
The injunctions now give the police far greater powers to deal with protestors and arrest them. Breach of a civil injunction under the Act is an either-way offence, punishable by up to 6 months imprisonment summarily or up to 5 years on indictment. This means it is not only much more serious than the ordinary offence of harassment, but is an "arrestable offence ( see s24 PACE) ". This gives the police far greater powers than they normally have when controlling public order. It means, amongst other things, that they can arrest you after the offence and can search your premises after arrest as well. And in the case of home demos, they can arrest you if the victim is protected by the injunction and they can show that you have knowledge of the injunction. Previously all the police could do on home demos is to tell you to leave.
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