Animal rights activists have clawed back a minor victory against five Japanese science firms after the judge ruled unnamed protestors could not be slapped with final injunctions without prior court consent.

David Pittaway QC sitting in the Queen’s Bench Division held that while the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997 has been widened to encompass non-parties, it does not stretch to allowing automatic enforcement of an injunction against protestors who are not named defendants in the order.

The claimants, five Japanese firms working in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, had applied for final orders in proceedings they had brought for injunctions against Cambridge’s Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

The two protest groups are unincorporated associations and so must nominate either employees or volunteers to act as named representatives in all proceedings.

In the latest instalment of AGC Chemicals Europe v SHAC, the Japanese applicants had referred to protestors, who qualify as unnamed parties under the injunction, as defendants.

Acting for the claimant, harassment expert Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden cited two previous convictions at Huntingdon Magistrates' Court in which protestors who were not named defendants under an injunction were found guilty of offences under the Act.

The judge said: “The matter [of the definition of defendants] is of some importance because of the reluctance of some police forces to exercise the power of arrest against protestors for a suspected breach.

“Section 3(6) of the Act provides that the defendant is guilty of an offence where without reasonable excuse he does anything which he is prohibited from doing be the injunction.

“If it is correct that the effect of section 3A was to substitute ‘relevant person’ for ‘defendant’ then the provisions of CPR 19.6.3 that the order may only be enforced against a person who is not a party to the claim with the permission of the court would be circumvented. While I accept that section 3A widens the scope of the Act to encompass non-parties, I do not consider that the provisions should be circumvented, civilly or criminally.”