Possession - unlawful occupation of woodland by travellers - possession order extending to other areas not lawful

Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs v Drury: CA (Lords Justice Ward and Mummery, and Mr Justice Wilson): 26 February 2004

The defendant and other travellers were in wrongful occupation of a wood owned by the claimant and managed by the Forestry Commission.

It was feared that they might decamp and move into any one of 30 woodland areas within a 20-mile radius, all owned by the claimant and managed by the commission.

The judge granted the claimant an order for possession of the occupied wood and the 30 other areas.

The defendant appealed.

Richard Drabble QC and Richard Hickmet (instructed by Community Law Partnership, Birmingham) for the defendant; John Hobson QC (instructed by Whitehead Vizard, Salisbury) for the landowner.

Held, allowing the appeal to the extent of restricting the terms of the order to the area actually occupied by the defendant, that the issue concerned the extent to which the court could make a possession order in relation not only to an area of land occupied by trespassers but also by reference to separate areas of land in the same ownership; that applying the principles set out in University of Essex v Djemal [1980] 1 WLR 1301, CA and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food v Heyman (1989) 59 P & CR 48, in exceptional circumstances the court had jurisdiction if satisfied that there existed a real danger of the trespassers decamping to the other areas; and that, there being insufficient evidence to establish the existence of such risk, the order made in such wide terms was unlawful.