The High Court (Fordham J) has handed down two judgments bringing the most recent badger cull litigation to a close. 

In the first (handed down on 26 June 2026 with neutral citation [2026] EWHC 1573 (Admin)), Fordham J refused the Claimants’ invitation to make an advisory declaration on a hypothetical question arising out of Natural England’s decision to grant 26 supplementary badger control licences.

In the second (handed down on 28 July 2026 with neutral citation [2026] EWHC 1932 (Admin)) Fordham J found that Badger Trust had breached the court embargo by circulating a press-release communicating the substance of the First Judgment to more than 80 journalists before judgment had been handed down.

The Substantive Judgment: [2026] EWHC 1573 (Admin)

The proceedings challenged NE’s May 2024 decision to grant 26 supplementary badger control licences under s.10(2)(a) of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. The principal ground of challenge alleged that the decision-maker had had regard to five irrelevant considerations (the “Five Considerations”) identified in an internal briefing note. That factual premise fell away when NE’s witness evidence established that the decision-maker had never in fact accessed the briefing note. The Claimants then reconstituted their case around what Fordham J called the “Would-If Question”: whether, if regard had been had to the Five Considerations, they would have been legally irrelevant.

By the time of the hearing, there was only limited dispute regarding the correct approach to the Five Considerations (as opposed to the wider questions as to the scope of Natural England’s powers). Rather, the dispute between the Claimants and the Secretary of State regarding the scope of the power to grant licenses under section 10(2)(a) of the 1992 Act (see J/8(iv)) was not a necessary stepping stone in order to decide the extent to which the Five Considerations were legal irrelevancies (see J/8(v)). Fordham J accepted the submissions of NE and the Secretary of State that the advisory declaration should be refused. The Would-If Question was hypothetical and rested on a false premise. The issue did not involve deciding the lawfulness of any past or proposed public authority action. It was not a short point of pure statutory construction apt for advisory declaration, and in the absence of any real dispute between the parties the Court would not be deciding a genuine controversy. 

The Embargo Breach Judgment: [2026] EWHC 1932 (Admin)

The second judgment concerned the critical distinction between a court embargo, and a journalistic embargo. This is a distinction which the Court has sought to emphasise in the clearest possible terms, stating in emboldened capital letters: THE COURT EMBARGO IS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FROM A JOURNALISM EMBARGO.

The facts leading to the breach were that, at 09:26 on 26 June 2026, the CEO of Badger Trust sent a press release to more than 80 journalists ahead of the 10am hand-down of the substantive judgment and before receipt of the final judgment, in breach of the court embargo on the confidential embargoed draft judgment. 

Fordham J found that there had been a significant breach of the embargo. As he observed, this is the fourth occasion on which the court has had to address this problem, following Match Group LLC v Muzmatch [2022] EWHC 1023 (IPEC), R (Kinsey) v Lewisham LBC [2022] EWHC 2723 (Admin), and R (Glaister) v Assistant Coroner for North Wales [2025] EWHC 1018 (Admin). 

As the judgment makes clear, the Court will always treat breaches very seriously, and investigate their circumstances fully. They may amount to contempt of court.

In this case, Fordham J commended the “measured and helpful” submissions filed on behalf of the Secretary of State. He accepted that the breach arose from miscommunication and human error rather than deliberate misconduct, noting that the Claimants’ solicitors had specifically reiterated the importance of not sending the judgment to journalists, even under embargo, until confirmation that judgment had been handed down was received, but that this had not been communicated to Badger Trust’s CEO. He recorded that Badger Trust’s apology and their agreement to pay the Secretary of State’s costs, making clear that his narrative judgment making clear what had gone wrong was the necessary, but also the appropriate and proportionate, response.

A copy of the judgments are available here and here.

Charles Streeten appeared for the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (instructed by the Government Legal Department) in both proceedings.