The High Court allowed Peter Griffiths’s appeal and dissolved the perpetual injunction against him. Mr Justice Noonan held that the evidence did not establish a substantial risk that the conduct complained of would recur. He also found that the first plaintiff had not come to court with clean hands.
The case arose from an incident on 20 November 2014 in Dublin’s north inner city. The plaintiffs, Zabrina Collins and Michael O’Donnell, were distributing “The Truth About Drugs” leaflets near Capel Street when the defendants, Griffiths and John McGhee, followed them closely for about half an hour and spoke disparagingly about their beliefs. Griffiths recorded the encounter on a camera attached to his chest.
The judge found the defendants’ conduct unlawful and amounting to intimidation and harassment. He found that McGhee physically assaulted Collins, though relatively mildly. The evidence did not show physical contact between Griffiths and either plaintiff; the judge nevertheless found Griffiths complicit in and condoning McGhee’s conduct.
The Circuit Court had awarded the plaintiffs €2,000 damages against Griffiths and €3,500 against McGhee, and granted a perpetual injunction against both in broad terms. Griffiths appealed only the injunction. Neither damages award was appealed. The High Court noted that the claim concerned the single incident and that there had been no suggestion Griffiths breached the injunction during nearly three years after it was granted. Griffiths accepted that the incident was wrong and unlawful and apologised. The judge considered McGhee the main protagonist and concluded the likelihood of repetition by Griffiths was small, below the “proven substantial risk of danger” required for a perpetual injunction.
The judge gave a further reason for allowing the appeal. In separate defamation proceedings heard alongside the claim, Griffiths had received €5,000 over an email Collins sent to a school headmaster in May 2013. The judgment described the email as making untrue allegations, including that Griffiths was a paedophile and a criminal. The judge found Collins’s conduct a calculated attempt to demonise and discredit Griffiths and a failure to come to court with clean hands.
The appeal concerned the injunction only. The High Court dissolved it insofar as it related to Griffiths; the judgment does not state that the injunction against McGhee was dissolved.