The dispute of non-disclosure has raised its head yet again in another area of my case. Not only are Essex Police deliberately and illegally not conforming to Court Orders to disclose all of the evidence in my case, but the Forensic Science Service are also refusing to hand over material they hold without any authority to do so.
The Forensic Science Service
Laboratory at Huntingdon who handled exhibits and conducted experiments and
tests in 1985/1986 on exhibits pertinent to my case was closed in 2012. All of
the documentation including examination records, booking in logs, lab notes,
reports, internal transfers and photographs were transferred to the ForensicArchive Ltd. (FAL) based at Birmingham. This Government-owned company was
formed to retain and manage case files from all investigation work previously
undertaken by the Forensic Science Service (FSS).
On 22nd July 2016, I
contacted the archive by letter to establish that they did hold the complete
case files and informed them that I was making a Freedom of Information (FOI)
request to have full access and disclosure of all the material they held
relative to the three case numbers which featured in my case during the Essex
Police Investigation.
Alison
Fendley the Executive Director of the FAL sent me a reply dated 4 August 2016
and confirmed that after a brief look they did hold pertinent files adding she
did not know if all the case material generated by the Huntingdon Lab was held.
In response to the Freedom of Information request, Ms Fendley continued: “It is
not within the authority of the FSL to release such information to individuals,
defence teams or appellants under the mandate to which we operate”. This
statement contradicts the FSL website information, which states:
“For the purposes of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI Act), FAL is a Government Owned Company,
and therefore meets the description of a public authority. As such, FAL is
under an obligation to comply with the FOI Act’s legislative provisions
concerning access to recorded information.”
Following this negative response I
wrote again, requesting that they provide the information, which allowed them
exemption from disclosure of case material. I also wrote to Mr John Lees, at
the Information Commissioners Office and to my MP Mary Creagh to highlight this
refusal to disclose. I received no response from my MP and the response from Mr
Lees discussed a Data Protection Request for material. I had not made a Data
Protection Request, I had made a Freedom of Information request for all
documents and wrote back to advise him of his misinterpretation of the request.
Realising
the error Mr Lees wrote to me again in December 2016 requesting copies of the
two letters I had sent to when I made my requests. I do not hand copy every
letter I write, but a typed manuscript copy of the two letters was available
from my campaign team and these were immediately sent to Mr Lees so he could
conduct his investigation into the non-disclosure of the material. Following
the ICO involvement I received a garbled 2-page response from the FAL, which
went into great detail about Data Protection Requests, which I had not made! In
addition they stated they would not release all case material under a Freedom
of Information Request, but specific items which they would then make a
decision whether they would disclose or not. They further stated:
“The FAL is only obliged
to consider FOI requests which do not exceed the appropriate limit. The
appropriate limit for the FAL is set at £450, and represents the estimated cost
of one person spending 2 ½ days working on determining whether the FAL holds
the information, locating the information or a document containing it.”
The
archive also stated:
“It is therefore
important that you explain as precisely as you can, the information to which
you are seeking access in order for us to identify and locate the correct
material.”
I do not want cherry picked extracts from documents. I need to have the
complete case files they hold and I have advised them of this in the last
letter I sent to them in February 2017. The
archive have also tried to fob me off by stating that:
“requests for such information would need to be directed to
the original investigating police force or the CPS. The pertinent force can
then instruct the archive to release the appropriate information to you/your
defence team.”
I sought legal advice on this and have been informed that I am not
required to obtain permission for my case files from either the CPS or Essex
police as no legal restrictions are in place regarding my case documents.
In response to the comments made by the archive regarding the “precise
material” I want that is easy. I want the full set of case files they hold
regarding the three case numbers relevant to the events at White House Farm
which they have no right to withhold from me. The fight continues.
Jeremy
