Nicholas Dobson considers the delicate balance of rights involved in interim injunctions against hunt protesters
- In the circumstances claimant property rights trumped Convention rights and potential claimant illegality to enable interim injunctions restraining trespass against named hunt protestor defendants and persons unknown.
In 1893 one of Oscar Wilde’s characters described fox hunting as ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’. However, nowadays hunting is curtailed by the Hunting Act 2004. This (in the absence of any exemptions under s 2 and Sch 1) criminalises hunting wild mammals with dogs. But, even within apparently lawful limits, hunting remains controversial. For many established hunts encounter attempted disruption or prevention of their activities by protestors.
The Fitzwilliam (Milton) Hunt (the Hunt) was one. It consequently sought a quia timet injunction (to restrain threatened but uncommitted wrongs) on the basis of future unlawful conduct, said to be highly probable in the absence of injunctive relief. The injunctions sought were to restrain trespass to land and trespass to goods, in particular to the claimant’s animals and chattels. The defendants comprised
