Banner-Flying Millionaire Finally Brought Down to Earth

Jenifer Howlett (represented by Adam Tudor and Isabel Hudson of Carter-Ruck) has succeeded in her application for a civil harassment injunction, in a novel and important High Court ruling.

As regular readers of "Get Carter-Ruck" will be aware, for a period of five years Mrs Howlett, a former Mayor and Councillor of Castle Point, Essex, had been the victim of an extraordinary campaign by multimillionaire Terry Holding to make her life what Mr Holding himself described in Court as a "living hell". It was his practice to use his various private aircraft to fly banners and drop thousands of leaflets over Essex expressing false and highly offensive allegations about Mrs Howlett. Indeed, this had resulted in Mrs Howlett bringing two successful defamation actions in 2003 and 2005, when successive libel juries unanimously awarded her damages of nearly £90,000 and Mr Holding had to pay costs estimated at over £2 million.

Unfortunately, however, these libel defeats were not enough to put a stop to Mr Holding's campaign and he continued to fly banners throughout much of 2005.

With no end to her suffering in sight, Mrs Howlett was left with little alternative but to bring a claim for a harassment injunction under section 3 of the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act - colloquially known as the "anti-stalker" legislation.

When the claim was heard in the High Court, it emerged that as well as flying banners, Mr Holding had engaged private investigators to place Mrs Howlett under video surveillance, even secretly videoing her on her way to and from Court. Mr Justice Eady granted Mrs Howlett's application and ordered a permanent harassment injunction.

This was a particularly welcome victory under the firm's "no win, no fee" scheme. Indeed the Judge expressly recognised that it was only thanks to the fact that Mrs Howlett had access to such a scheme (and had found lawyers willing to support her) that she had been able to put a stop to Mr Holding's campaign.

Get Carter-Ruck
Summer 2006