Barking & Dagenham and others v Persons Unknown and others

The High Court has ruled that several borough-wide blanket bans on Traveller and Gypsy encampments on council property were unlawfully made. This decision, which involved a large number of local authorities defendants, restates the procedure and principles required to obtain interim and final injunctions to restrain unauthorised encampments by Traveller and Gypsy communities. It will have a significant impact on the way in which local authorities address the issue of encampments and authorised stopping places and provides important guidance on the availability of injunctions generally against “Persons Unknown”.  

In a lengthy judgment, Mr. Justice Nicklin draws on recent Supreme Court and Court of Appeal authority on service of claim forms, protestor cases and Traveller rights to produce a synthesised approach across the numerous areas of the CPR engaged by these applications. Traveller and Gypsy rights were represented by Intervenors.

Sarah Wilkinson was appointed by the Attorney-General as Advocate to the Court. The judgment can be found here. Press from The Guardian newspaper can be found here.

Sarah was appointed to the same role in a protestor rights case in the Court of Appeal last year which involved many of the same issues; Canada Goose UK Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] 1 WLR 2802.