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CRIMINAL LAW, EVIDENCE AND PROCEDURE - HARASSMENT – PROTEST OUTSIDE MINK FARM – HIGH COURT INJUNCTION IN FORCE – ONE DEFENDANT SUBJECT TO INJUNCTION – REMAINING TWO DEFENDANTS NOT NAMED IN INJUNCTION – WHETHER DEFENDANTS' ACTIONS COULD BE DEEMED TO BE REASONABLE – PROTECTION FROM HARASSMENT ACT 1997, SS 1, 3
This was an animal rights harassment case, in which the protestors, who had been charged with Section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, argued that their conduct was reasonable. If you can show that your conduct was reasonable when charged with a Section 2 offence, this amounts to a complete defence.
The judge ruled however that one of the defendants could not argue that her conduct was reasonable because she had acted in breach of a civil injunction, also taken out by the victim under Section 3 of the Act, which restrained her from going on the victim's land and adjacent land. It was ruled that action in breach of a High Court ruling could never be described as reasonable. The judges also doubted whether conduct involving trespass on the victim's land could ever be regarded as reasonable, with or without an injunction.
This is a controversial ruling, in that a statutory defence available to the defendant in criminal proceedings - namely that her conduct was reasonable - was made unavailable as a result of the breach of a civil injunction. The case further demonstrates the conservative nature of High Court judges, who took the view, as they nearly always do, that trespass on private land always amounts to "unreasonable conduct".
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