The courts have powers to deal with protests or other actions that disrupt the day-to-day activities of people and organisations, even when those responsible cannot be identified. Recently, the High Court granted a continued injunction against persons unknown in respect of environmental protests.

An injunction had originally been granted in response to protest activity in the relevant borough during April 2022, when several hundred arrests had been made, mostly for obstructing the highway and interfering with fuel transport vehicles. The borough and county councils sought the continuation of the injunction.

The Court took into account witness statements describing the harm caused by the protests – including damage to the highway, risk to road users and a significant drain on police resources – and the risk of further protests. Accepting the claim that there was a likelihood of future protests in the borough being attended by people who had not been involved in the earlier protests, the Court considered that it was an appropriate case for an injunction against persons unknown.

The Court observed that where a person comes onto a highway with permission, they become a trespasser if they then do something on the land, such as tunnelling, that they do not have permission to do. While the persons unknown might claim that their activities were excused under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, exercising such rights does not normally justify trespass.

The Court then turned to the question of public nuisance. It accepted the local authorities’ view that, while there was a right to peaceful assembly on the highway, that right did not extend to committing a public nuisance such as an unreasonable obstruction of the highway. The Court considered that the local authorities’ aim in seeking the injunction was important enough to justify interference with Article 10 and 11 rights, especially as that interference would be limited to public land, where lawful protest would be permitted.

Granting the continuation of the injunction, the Court considered that it struck a fair balance between the rights of the protesters and the rights and interests of those affected by the protests. The local authorities had demonstrated the required compelling need and would be successful in obtaining an injunction after a trial.