Information about injunctions
This section of the website contains information about injunctions that protesters may find useful.
What are injunctions?
In simple terms, an injunction is a court order instructing someone to do something or refrain from doing something. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 allows companies to seek injunctive relief from the intimidation and harassment of its employees. Injunctions may be granted by the High Court or county court as a civil remedy for individuals or organisations in order to stop ongoing harassment or prevent it in the future.
In the context of protests, they can provide clarity to all parties involved by establishing acceptable boundaries to allow lawful protest to continue whilst detailing the prohibited behaviour that would amount to harassment of an organisation's employees.
What do I need to know about them?
Injunctions aren't designed to stop lawful protest but may include conditions about the nature of protests at specific sites. This may include conditions such as a limit on how many protests may take place within a given time, the conduct of protesters at demonstrations and the locations of protests.
If you breach the conditions of an injunction granted under Protection from Harassment Act injunction without reasonable excuse, you could be arrested and, if convicted, imprisoned for up to five years, fined up to £5,000, or both.
Why were injunctions listed on the NETCU website?
The injunctions listed on the NETCU website had been obtained by organisations to protect their employees from potential or actual criminal activity linked to single-issue protest campaigns.
They were published here as a resource for officers who have to police them, for employees at organisations which are protected by an injunction, and for protesters who are named as defendants or who may be required to abide by the terms of an injunction.
NETCU does not imply the individuals named in these injunctions are either criminals or domestic extremists - on the contrary, injunctions are often designed to prevent criminal offences being committed in the future.
It is important to remember injunctions are civil not criminal orders; any defendants listed will not necessarily have been involved in any criminal proceedings or have been convicted of an offence. They do, however, have a criminal sanction if breached.
Key features of an injunction
- Claimants - These are the people who have obtained the injunction. They may be listed under the organisation's name, along with individuals representing themselves and employees or shareholders of the organisation.
- Defendants - The defendants on an injunction may include named individuals or unknown persons, for instance, members of particular campaign groups. The court will have heard evidence about the defendant or defendants and must be satisfied that harassment is either anticipated or has taken place.
- The order - The main part of the injunction is the order; instructions that must be followed.
- Schedules - These provide additional information such as details of the evidence given to the court or the locations of protected sites.
Service of injunctions
Copies of injunctions are sent to the people listed on them. In some cases, the defendants in an injunction are not known by name - they may be members of a campaign group or any other person protesting against a particular organisation.
To ensure that everyone sees an injunction that needs to, the court may order injunctions to be displayed in certain places, such as the boundaries of a protected property or on a campaign group's website. Injunctions may also be in served in person. This is usually done by the organisation involved, although the police may assist in some circumstances.
