Thurrock Council and Essex County Council have been granted a court order stopping more than 200 named protestors and ‘persons unknown’ from trespassing on fuel depots in the area.
Persons unknown injunctions have often been used to stop members of the travelling community from setting up unauthorised sites. However, in recent months and years councils and companies have increasingly been using them against protestors.
Anybody who breaks the injunction is in contempt of court, and faces a fine or prison sentence.
Earlier this month, 22-year-old anti-HS2 protestor Elliott Cuciurean was ordered to pay £25,000 in legal costs for protesting in an ancient woodland that was subject to a persons unknown injunction. He has also been given a six-month suspend prison sentence.
The Essex injunction covers four fuel terminals in the Thurrock area that were targeted by protest group Just Stop Oil (JSO) in April.
JSO, like Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, advocate direct action to raise awareness about climate change and the need for urgent action.
In April protestors trespassed on and attempted to blockade some of the terminals, hoping to cut off the petrol supply to the South East of England. Police made more than 300 arrests.
Thurrock Council and Essex County were asking for 19 specific restrictions that, according to the judge, “in broad terms… seek to prohibit what the claimants argue are acts of public nuisance and/or trespass in the administrative areas for which Thurrock and Essex are responsible”.
They asked for the injunction to apply to 250 named individuals who had been arrested in the past by the police, and seven categories of persons unknown.
In the ruling Judge Simon weighed the right to protest under the Human Rights Act against the council and county’s complaints, and granted the injunction with some alterations.
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