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Tort – Harassment – Acts constituting harassment – Injunctive relief – Protection from Harassment Act 1997, s 3.
The first claimant carried on a business conducting research in the course of which experiments were carried out on live animals under laboratory conditions. The second claimant was the managing director, and senior employee of the first claimant. The first defendant was an unincorporated body with the common purpose of the prevention of experimentation on animals and the closure of the first claimant’s business. The second to tenth defendants were individuals who allegedly shared those aims. The eleventh and twelfth defendants were unincorporated bodies which also sought the closure of the first claimant’s business.
The claimants alleged that employees of the first claimant had been subject to abuse and harassment, sometimes at their own houses, and some employees had actually been the subject of assault. The claimants applied to the court pursuant to s 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 for an injunction restraining the defendants from pursuing any course of conduct which amounted to harassment. Sections 3 provided, in part: ‘(1) An actual or apprehended breach of section 1 may be the subject of a claim in civil proceedings by the person who is or may be the victim of the course of conduct in question.’ Section 2 provided for a criminal offence of harassment.
The court allowed the application and granted an injunction. On the return date, the claimants applied to continue the injunction. The defendants argued, inter alia, that injunctive relief was not justified, and that the injunction interfered with the defendants’ rights under arts 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The application would be allowed.
Civil relief under s 3 of the Act could not be given to a company but only to a natural person. That construction was consistent with the fact that a company could not be the victim of the criminal offence under s 2 of the Act. The interests of the second claimant and the other employees of the first company were the same, namely the prevention of harassment against them. In those circumstances, and given that no injustice was likely to arise as a result, it was permissible for the second claimant to bring the action on behalf of all of the first claimant’s employees. Moreover, in view of the harassment of the first claimant’s employees which had occurred in the past, the balance of convenience weighed heavily in favour of continuing the injunction. The continuance of the injunction did not interfere with the defendants’ rights under the Convention.
DPP v Dziurzynski [2002] EWHC 1380 (Admin), [2002] All ER (D) 258 (Jun) considered.
Timothy Lawson-Cruttendon of Lawson-Cruttendon & Co for the claimants.
Stephen Cragg (instructed by Birnberg Peirce & Partners) for the defendants.
Aaron Turpin Barrister.
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