Rathlin Energy, a gas exploration company working in East Yorkshire, sought a bankruptcy order this morning against a leading anti-fracking campaigner.
Lawyers representing the company went to the High Court in London to recover thousands of pounds from Ian Crane, a broadcaster and speaker against fracking and the activities of the onshore oil and gas industry.
Rathlin Energy said the money was owed from the costs of an earlier legal case.
But the judge, Chief Registrar Stephen Baister, adjourned the hearing until January next year for Mr Crane to contest the debt.
After the hearing, a member of Rathlin’s legal team told Mr Crane the cost of the bankruptcy proceedings amounted to more than £5,000 and that alone would be enough to bankrupt him.
Mr Crane said in the light of this comment:
“It has become personal. Rathlin Energy are going for the jugular”.
Mr Crane, a former oil executive, presents the weekly web broadcast Fracking Nightmare, in which he comments on the activities of Rathlin Energy and other onshore drilling companies. He also gives talks to community groups about what he says are the risks of fracking.
Rathlin Energy has consistently said it has not carried out hydraulic fracturing at its sites in East Yorkshire and has no intention of doing so.
Crawberry Castle
Today’s case dates back to 2014. In June that year opponents of Rathlin Energy’s operations built a structure called Crawberry Castle, blocking access to the company’s Crawberry Hill exploration site, near Beverley.
Rathlin Energy asked the High Court for permission to remove the structure and Mr Crane was one of four people named as defendants in the case. A judge granted a possession order and in July 2014 bailiffs evicted protesters and removed Crawberry Castle. Rathlin then sought to recover the costs of the case from Mr Crane and the three other named defendants.
Rathlin’s barrister, Ashley Cukier, said the company was seeking £34,000 plus interest from Mr Crane and asked the judge to make a bankruptcy order.
Mr Crane asked the court to regard Ian Crane as a trust and said he was its executor. But Chief Registrar Baister described this as “nonsense” and said he would grant the order unless Mr Crane confirmed that he was appearing before the court in person.
Mr Crane said he had not received a transcript of the original court case or a breakdown of the costs incurred by Rathlin Energy.
He asked for the default costs certificate to be set aside and the judge adjourned the hearing for 28 days until 20th January 2016.
Reaction
Mr Crane said after the hearing he was now considering his options. He said:
“Rathlin are looking to neuter me and the rest of the industry is watching to see how this will go down.”
He said if he were made bankrupt he would have to rely on cash donations.
Mr Crane said the government and industry was “prepared to ride rough-shod over anyone who gets in the way”. The lesson from the case was, he said, “to take your action but do not put your name to it.” He added:
“If you have the audacity to challenge the corporation as a private citizen you are running a risk of losing everything that you accumulate but no individual in the corporation has put anything at risk”.
A spokesperson for Rathlin Energy said this evening:
“As far as Rathlin Energy is concerned this is a matter of pusuing costs of the High Court case and nothing else.”
The case continues on 20th January 2016.
Categories: Legal
DRILL OR DROP? 
Reblogged this on Peddling and Scaling God and Darwin and commented:
Should we feel any sympathy for the chemtrail conspiracy theorist?
Are Rathlin right to sue him when he caused finacial loss for them?
Some interesting ethical questions
Hmm – interesting ethical questions might include should retired vicars condone theft as well Michael 🙂
Well done Rathlin for taking a stand.
Free speech. ? You like bullies ? You put your opinion up , why shouldn’t others ?
You have had free speech ? Why shouldn’t others. So it’s ok to bully people because they have a different view to yours ?
You may come seriously unstuck there.
So the future of this plant is in oil is it ?
Kiss your kids goodbye now then. What will you tell them in 30 years when the oils gone , Well kids I did nothing,
Ian Crane has produced so much misinformation, winding people up, with his non scientific nonsense. When you see his website, he is a conspiracy theorist of the quite mad variety! ‘Fake alien invasions’ at the 2012 Olympics, 90% of the world population are scheduled for extermination by the super rich, so many disasters all orchestrated by the evil ones, 9/11 was a conspiracy, as was Pricess Di’s ‘murder’ and so on. He somehow has made a living of this for years. See http://www.ianrcrane.com and look at some of the stuff he sells.
Forget all that , this is about free speech, you may come unstuck yourself with that one as you have ,,,,and rightly so ,,,,,,,,Opinions ? A different view point should destroy you
fooking corporations are dead fooking entities and all who work for them are dead while they do their allotted hours..
IC made the mistake of appearing as a dead entity in a court not of his own… So now he learns a lesson – all he says is based on vibrations made from corps/gov/molloch/satan …
You’re all dead !
Oh Bless, looks like the trolls are having a melt-down…
That is disgusting that a company should try to break a man for telling the truth.
I don’t know about any of his other stuff that anon (who is obviously a really credible contributer? lol), is obviouly spouting as part of a calculated and concerted effort to discredit this man, and quite frankly I have no interest in it at all.
The bottom line for me, which is surely the bottom line for anyone else with even minimal powers of discernment, is that his work to expose the dangers of fracking (and the rest of the relatively new extreme energy extraction techniques), has got Rathlin Energy very very rattled indeed.
And for me, the fact that they are persuing him so ruthlessly, whilst knowing he has no assets of significant value, serves only to confirm that what Mr Crane has been saying about them is precisely the truth.
Natural justice will be if Mr Crane were to win a million on the lottery this xmas.
If he paid them from that, how peed off would they be? …. having put all that time and energy into trying to silence him, only to find his voice could then be broadcast even futher than before they decided to go after him.
Presuming that the good vicar is on the side of ‘natural justice’ (yes I realise that is a dangerous presumption, as I have met many that are not, in spite of what they say), perhaps he can put in a word with his friend in the sky?
I own ALL rain water that falls from the heavens. Every man/woman owns just one equal share, it is free to ALL domestic properties. Corporations can charge corporations or those operating in commerce. It is FORBIDDEN to charge man/woman. It is FORBIDDEN to injure, harm, pollute rain water or the ground upon which it falls. It is a criminal offence to injure, harm, pollute property (rain water)
or the ground upon which it falls.In God we must trust.
So “Anon”, you have been clearly stalking Mr Crane for some time, and too chicken to leave your name – I wonder what your position is on fracking – on your knees, kissing backside perhaps? As long as the cheques from your puppetmasters keep arriving… Maybe one day you will find yourself or a friend or family member debilitated because they live near a site, and those 30 pieces of silver will cover your doctors bill..?
Thanks for your support of Crane. ANON is A nonentity, jealous overzealous backer of Frackers. He/zhe/it is not worth our time.
It appears Crane did work for Schlumberger, in Human Resources. You can see more of his stuff at:
http://datab.us/Search/Uploaded%20by%20UCiwB4KjNtPfq750zgHC2UnA
Form your own opinion.
Does not appear to have been an engineer or geologist based on the web information and therefore not qualified to comment on subsurface O & G issues.
Fracking is dangerous? and your evidence is??? nutters like Ian R Crane? See comments below.