Mr Justice Julian Knowles
Case No: KB-2024-001765
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Yaaser Vanderman (instructed by Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP) for the Claimants
The Defendants did not appear and were not represented
Hearing dates: 20 June 2024
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10:30 on 11 October 2024 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.
Introduction
On 20 June 2024 in the Interim Applications Court I granted the Claimants' without notice application for a precautionary injunction to restrain anticipated protests at London City Airport (the Airport) by environmental campaigners and others falling within the description of the Defendants on the order. The planned action would amount to nuisance and trespass. Having read the evidence in advance of the hearing and after hearing Mr Vanderman on behalf of the Claimants, I was satisfied they were entitled to the order they were seeking. These are my reasons for granting the order.
The injunction is the sort of ‘newcomer injunction’ which have been granted by the courts in protest and other cases in recent years. The evolution of this sort of injunction, and the relevant legal principles, were set out by the Supreme Court in Wolverhampton City Counciland others v London Gypsies and Travellers and others [2024] 2 WLR 45. I will refer to this as Wolverhampton Travellers case.
Recent examples of such injunctions are: Jockey Club Racecourses Ltd v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 1786 (Ch); Exolum Pipeline System Ltd and others v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 1015 (KB); Valero Energy Ltd v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 134 (KB); Multiplex Construction Europe Ltd v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 239 (KB); High Speed 2 (HS2) Limited v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 1277 (KB); and Wolverhampton City Council v Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 2273 (KB). The legal basis for newcomer injunctions, and the principles which guide whether they should be granted in a particular case, are therefore now firmly established.
Without notice
The application before me was made without notice. I was satisfied this was appropriate for the following reasons.
Ordinarily, the Claimants would be required to demonstrate that there were ‘good’ (as required by CPR r 25.3(1)) or ‘compelling’ ( Human Rights Act 1998, s 12(2)(b) (if it applies here, which the Claimants say is does not, a point I will return to) reasons for bringing an application without notice. Those requirements do not technically apply here as they only affect applications brought against parties to proceedings. In the present case, which relates only to Persons Unknown who are newcomers, there is no defendant: Wolverhampton Travellers, [140]–[143]. Nonetheless, I proceeded on the basis that the relevant tests had to be satisfied.
I was and am satisfied that there are good and compelling reasons for the application to have been made without notice.
In particular, the Claimants were justifiably concerned about the severe harm that could result if Persons Unknown were to be notified about this application. As I shall describe, there have been repeated serious threats about the scale and sort of direct action planned, and this will pose a serious risk of physical harm, financially injurious disruption and huge public inconvenience. The damage caused would for the most part be irreparable. There was plainly a risk that would-be protesters would trespass upon the Airport before the application was heard and carry out the threatened direct action, thus partially defeating the purpose of the junction.
I carefully considered the Convention rights of the Defendants. However, the Airport is private land, and for the reasons I explained in High Speed Two (HS2) Limited v Persons Unknown [2022] EWHC 2360 (KB), [131], these Convention rights are not therefore engaged. Persons unknown have no right to enter the Airport (save for lawful and permitted purposes) or to protest there. The position is therefore different from injunctions or laws restricting assembly and protest on the highway or public land, where the Convention is engaged: cf. Re Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Northern Ireland) Bill [2023] AC 505; Birmingham City Council v Afsar [2019] EWHC 1560 (KB).
Background
The application was brought by the Claimants on the basis of their belief that the Defendants are or were organising and had widely publicised a nationwide campaign of direct action to disrupt airports during the summer of 2024 (the Airports Campaign). The Claimants' application for injunctive relief was to restrain such threatened acts of trespass and nuisance at London City Airport. The whole of the site covered by the injunction is private land. (I should also add that a few weeks after I heard the Claimants' application, I heard an application for, and granted, a similar injunction in respect of Heathrow Airport on much the same basis).
The evidence is principally contained in the witness statements of Alison FitzGerald, the CEO of London City Airport and a director of each of the First and Second Claimants, and Stuart Wortley, of the Claimants' solicitors, and their exhibits.
Just Stop Oil is one of a number of groups which is recent years have become prominent for staging public protests. Each of these organisations shares a common objective of reducing the rate of climate change and each of them has used acts of civil disobedience to draw attention to the climate crisis and the particular objectives of their organisation.
Just Stop Oil's website refers to itself as:
“a non-violent civil resistance group demanding the UK Government stop licensing all new oil, gas and coal projects.”
In his witness statement at [32]–[41], under the heading ‘Just Stop Oil – 2024 Threat to Disrupt Airports’ Mr Wortley describes how in spring 2024 Just Stop Oil announced a nationwide summer campaign targeting airports in order to ‘put the spotlight on the heaviest users of fossil fuels and call everyone into action with us’. At [32] he said this:
“32. The on-line edition of The Daily Mail for 9 March 2024 included a story about an undercover journalist who had successfully infiltrated a JSO meeting in Birmingham earlier that week. Apparently the meeting had been attended by over 100 activists. The following text is an extract from that story:-
“At the meeting, which was attended by an undercover reporter, JSO co-founder Indigo Rumbelow was greeted by cheers as she told the audience:
‘We are going to continue to resist. We're going to ratchet it up.
We're going to take our non-violent, peaceful demonstrations to the centre of the carbon economy. We're going to be gathering at airports across the UK.’
Ms Rumbelow, the 29-year-old daughter of a property developer, has previously been arrested for conspiracy to cause public nuisance during the King's Coronation and made headlines last year when Sky News host Mark Austin had to beg her to ‘please stop shouting’ during an interview.
Outlining a blueprint for causing travel chaos, she advocated:
• Cutting through fences and gluing themselves to runway tarmac;
• Cycling in circles on runways;
• Climbing on to planes to prevent them from taking off;
• Staging sit-ins at terminals ‘day after day’ to stop passengers getting inside airports.
Miss Rumbelow told the crowd:
‘We're going to be saying to the Government: ‘If you're not going to stop the oil, we're going to be doing it for you.’
She cited similar protests to use as inspiration for their action, including Hong Kong students ‘gathering in sit-ins in the entrances to airports, closing and disrupting them, day after day’ during their protests against Chinese rule in 2019.”
At [35] he referred to an article in the Evening Standard:
“35. The Evening Standard article referred to another meeting (also attended by an undercover journalist) and which included the following text:-
“… Just Stop Oil's Phoebe Plummer reportedly warned of ‘disruption on a scale that has never been seen before’ at a meeting attended by an undercover journalist. The group has been critical of the airline industry over its carbon footprint.
She said: ‘The most exciting part of this plan is that [it's] going to be part of an international effort. Flights operate on such a tight schedule to control air traffic that with action being caused in cities all around the world we're talking about radical, unignorable disruption.’
She added: ‘It's time to wake up and get real – no summer holiday is more important than food security, housing and the lives of your loved ones. Flying is also a symbol of the gross wealth inequality that's plaguing our society and if we want to create change we need to adopt a more radical demand.’
Just Stop Oil is planning an alliance with Europe-based A22 Network to cause disruption at major international airports.”
Other evidence cited by Mr Wortley is published material from Just Stop Oil stating that:
a. “We need bold, un-ignorable action that confronts the fossil fuel elites. We refuse to comply with a system which is killing millions around the world, and that's why we have declared airports a site of nonviolent civil resistance.”
b. “We'll work in teams of between 10–14 people willing to risk arrest from all over the UK. We need...
