Miss Andresen, 33, sought an injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 against her uncle, Paul Lovell, alleging that nearly 20 years before, when she was about 14, “he is said to have stood against her and stroked her shoulders in a “creepy” way”. The second and more recent incident relied upon, in April 2009, involved Mr Lovell calling at the workplace of Miss Andresen and his sister, to be told by Miss Andresen, in a conversation lasting “no more than a minute” that his sister (her mother) was out. This followed Mr Lovell’s publication on the internet, on several sites, that his sister’s businesses had been ”closed down following investigations into fraud”. 

On these facts an injunction and an order for costs was granted in August 2009, the uncle failing to appear, being out of the country at the time the original order was made, at a family funeral (a fact, so the Judge concluded, known to his sister and niece when Miss Andresen’s application was made). On his return, at the instigation of his sister,  Mr Lovell was arrested on the aircraft in which he had travelled to Heathrow and kept overnight in jail, being then released with no charge. His niece then proceeded to enforce the order for costs in her favour assessed at £15,666, with a statutory demand under the Insolvency Act 1986.

Whilst concluding in the first court hearing to hear Mr Lovell’s account that Mr Lovell’s website postings were “…spiteful and irresponsible”, Mr Justice Eady found that the allegations of Mr Lovell’s behaviour towards his neice “…lacked the necessary ingredients to establish a cause of action”. Miss Andresen’s claim was therefore struck out.