A high court judge has criticised a puppy farming company for attempting to get a lawyer jailed after she unintentionally entered an exclusion zone outside its facility while talking to protesters, in a case he said was bordering on “vexatious”.
MBR Acres, which breeds beagles in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, for use in laboratory testing, accused solicitor advocate Gillian McGivern of contempt of court, as a result of which she was unable to represent protesters against the site.
McGivern, was alleged to have breached an injunction, which applied to named individuals as well as “persons unknown”, on 4 May when she entered an exclusion zone from which protesters were barred to speak to people facing criminal charges for their participation in Camp Beagle.
After visiting the site, she began assembling a pro bono team to represent some of the protesters only for MBR Acres to file an application on 4 July accusing her of having breached the injunction relating to the exclusion zone. She subsequently ceased working for her firm, Credence Law Group, pending determination of her case.
In a damning written judgment, handed down on Tuesday, Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed the case against McGivern as “totally without merit”. He noted that there had been a suggestion that she was pursued “because she was a lawyer helping some of the protesters” which, if true, would amount to abuse of process.
He said: “I am unable to reach a conclusion as to the claimants’ motives for pursuing Ms McGivern. All I can say is I find them very difficult to understand. In my judgment this contempt application has been wholly frivolous, and it borders on vexatious. The breaches alleged were trivial or wholly technical.”
The judge also criticised the line of questioning directed toward McGivern during the two day hearing last month. He described the solicitor, who had said from the outset that she had visited the site in her professional capacity and had no knowledge of the injunction, as a “conspicuously honest and careful witness”.
By contrast, he said: “The claimants persisted in a cross-examination of Ms McGivern in which allegations of the utmost seriousness were made suggesting, not only that had she, a solicitor, had deliberately breached a court injunction, but that she had brazenly and repeatedly lied for over a day in the witness box. The evidential support for this line of cross-examination was tissue thin.”
In questioning, McGivern, who was called to the bar in 1994 before becoming a solicitor, said that the contempt application against her had led to her “falling apart”. She said: “If I lose, I could lose my home. I will lose my reputation. I haven’t slept, I have barely eaten.”
In light of his decision, Nicklin made an order requiring MBR Acres to obtain the permission of the court before they bring any further contempt application against any “persons unknown” alleged to have breached the injunction.
Camp Beagle was set up in July last year. The injunction order was granted to MBR Acres in November last year to stop protesters blocking access to the site and surrounding vehicles entering or leaving it.
