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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
The defendants, M W and S, were prosecuted under s 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The period of the charges covered a course of conduct between 20 July 1997 and 17 March 1998. The prosecutions arose out of demonstrations held at a mink farm which was owned by H. On 10 September 1997 H had obtained an injunction ex parte that prohibited various defendants, including S, from entering on to the farm or land adjacent to it and restraining them from pursuing a course of conduct which amounted to harassment of H or his family. It further ordered that any person who was pursuing such a course of conduct and was either acting in concert with any of the defendants, or who had been given notice of the terms of the order would be bound by it.
The summonses came before a stipendiary magistrate. He found that the behaviour of the three defendants amounted to harassment of H and that they knew or ought to have known that their behaviour amounted to harassment; however, he acquitted them because their behaviour was in the circumstances reasonable. The prosecution appealed by way of case stated.
Held – It was impossible to envisage circumstances in which the pursuit of a course of conduct amounting to harassment in breach of an injunction imposed by the High Court could be held to be reasonable within the terms of s 1(3)(c) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. An injunction if granted had to be obeyed and, until set aside, it bound the parties in question. It could not be right for an individual to ignore the terms of an injunction because he believed the conduct in question was reasonable.
The course that had to be adopted was to apply to set aside the injunction. It followed that the course of conduct pursued by S could not have been deemed reasonable. However, as there had been no evidence before the court for an inference to be drawn that either M or W had acted in concert with S, so that they too were bound by the injunction, it had been open to the magistrate to find that they had a defence of reasonableness. The appeal in the case of S would be allowed and the appeals in the cases of M and W would be dismissed.
Per curiam. It is doubtful whether trespassing on a person’s land, as opposed to demonstrating on neighbouring land, can ever be a course of conduct which is reasonable.
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