Scottish Sea Farms wins permanent 'stay-away' pledge from activist
Staniford agrees to keep off salmon farmer's property in 'bad, bad day' in court
Anti-salmon farming activist Don Staniford has given a permanent undertaking to stay away from property owned by Scottish Sea Farms (SFF).
His promise to Oban Sheriff Court yesterday means he is now banned from the marine farms and some or all of the other property of Scotland’s two biggest salmon farmers, Mowi and SSF.
“It was a bad, bad day in Oban Sheriff Court yesterday as lawyers representing Norskott Havbruk - operating in Scotland as Scottish Sea Farms - forced me into a permanent undertaking, which is effectively an injunction/interdict,” Staniford said in an email.
Broader ban
He added that the ban is much wider than the interdict won last year by Mowi Scotland because it also includes land bases, yards, staff houses, processing plants, offices, engineering workshops, freshwater hatcheries, feed barges, a storage yard and waste disposal in Orkney, a laundry room, a car park, and boats.
Staniford said legal firm Shepherd and Wedderburn, which represented SSF, is now seeking an even more extensive interdict for Faroese-owned salmon farmer Bakkafrost Scotland at a hearing scheduled for September 24 in Dunoon Sheriff Court.
The order that Staniford agreed to abide by yesterday states: “The Defender [Staniford] by himself or by his agents, employees, volunteers or servants, or by anyone acting on his behalf or under his instructions or procurement [is] to refrain from boarding, entering onto, physically occupying, attaching himself to, attaching vessels to, trespassing upon, all structures, docks, walkways, buildings, yards, floats, vessels, boats, or pens of aquaculture sites of the Pursuer [SSF].”
Extended interdict
In April, SSF’s lawyers renewed a request to the Sheriffdom of Strathclyde for an extended interdict (injunction) against Staniford.
The original request was based on a precedent set by the interdict that was granted to Mowi Scotland. Staniford appealed the Mowi interdict, and SSF agreed to pause its own action while the appeal process ran its course. At the same time, Staniford gave an undertaking not to visit SSF’s farms.
Staniford lost his appeal against Mowi in November. He faces a bill understood to be approximately £123,000 for legal costs incurred by Mowi for securing its interdict and for advice and representation from an advocate at two appeal hearings.
SSF always maintained that it would seek an interdict once Staniford had exhausted the appeal process against Mowi.
'Rude awakening'
In April, Staniford said he would fight SSF in court, although he no longer had the support of lawyers who had been representing him, effectively for free, in the appeals against Mowi's interdict.
“If Norskott Havbruk think they can ride roughshod over the laws of Scotland then they are in for a rude awakening,” he said at the time.
Staniford has been opposing salmon farming, first in Canada and then in Scotland, for more than 20 years. His modus operandi is to kayak to fish pens, often in the early morning when there are no staff on site, so that he can climb on to walkways and film morts and moribund fish in pens by using a GoPro camera attached to a long pole. He uses the footage to make short videos that he puts on social media sites.
The activist claims the bans imposed by Mowi and SSF are SLAPPs - Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation – preventing him revealing what he regards as the truth about fish farming.
