Christopher Graham's Leveson Evidence

The request was successful.

Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

In his submission to the Leveson Inquiry, the current Information Commissioner provided signed evidence, which contains the following extract:

4.8 This experience informed our decision not to prosecute any of the journalists involved in these cases. We were concerned that even if we were successful in securing convictions the sentencing would be minimal. External legal advice at the time suggested that for this reason it would not be in the public interest to pursue possible prosecutions. This was also because of the difficulty in proving that the journalists involved knew that the information they were seeking could only be obtained by unlawful means.

I would like to request this External legal advice.

I note Mr Graham referenced the timeframe of the advice because he used the phrase “External legal advice at the time”. He also shared the specific contents of the advice.

I apologise if the information is already in the public domain via the Leveson Inquiry but from my searches I have not identified any legal advice that bears comparison to Mr Graham’s description.

Yours faithfully,

Nigel Barker

Information Commissioner's Office

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12 December 2012

Case Reference Number IRQ0477187

Dear Mr Barker

Request for Information
 
Thank you for your correspondence dated 12 December 2012 requesting the
external legal advice cited in the specified extract from the Leveson
Report.
 
Your request is being dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.  We will respond promptly, and no later than 15
January 2013 which is 20 working days from the day after we received your
request.
 
Should you wish to reply to this email, please be careful not to amend the
information in the ‘subject’ field. This will ensure that the information
is added directly to your case. However, please be aware that this is an
automated process; the information will not be read by a member of our
staff until your case is allocated to a request handler.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Steven Dickinson                 Lead Information Governance Officer
 
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Information Commissioner's Office

1 Attachment

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15th January 2013

Case Reference Number IRQ0477187

Dear Mr Barker

Further to our acknowledgement of 12 December 2012 we are now in a
position to provide a response to your request. 

Request 

You requested:

‘In his submission to the Leveson Inquiry, the current Information
Commissioner provided signed evidence, which contains the following
extract:
4.8 This experience informed our decision not to prosecute any of the
journalists involved in these cases. We are concerned that even if we were
successful in securing convictions the sentencing would be minimal.
External legal advice at the time suggested that for this reason it would
not be in the public interest to pursue possible prosecutions. This was
also because of the difficulty in proving that the journalists involved
knew that the information they were seeking could only be obtained by
unlawful means.
I would like to request this External legal advice.’ 

Legal advice on this subject was provided as evidence to the Leveson
Inquiry. In her response to your previous request on this subject
(reference number IRQ0472610)  Helen Ward provided you with copies of a
meeting note dated 27 May 2005 and the legal advice from 2003. There is no
further recorded information to provide to you which falls within the
scope of your request.   

If you are dissatisfied with the response you have received and wish to
request a review of our decision or make a complaint about how your
request has been handled you should write to the Information Governance
department at the address below or email
[1][email address]. 

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response. Any such request received
after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the
Commissioner.
If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint
handler under the legislation. To make such an application, please write
to the First Contact Team, at the address below or visit the ‘Complaints’
section of our website to make a Freedom of Information Act or
Environmental Information regulations complaint online.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Lesley Bett
Head of Information Governance 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Thank you for your response.

However, I note that you have not provided any information in response to my request.

It might be the case that you are infact relying on Section 21 and confirming that the specific information I have requested is already accessible. If that is the case, you should really have quoted the applicable exemption and indeed restated the reliance on Section 40.

I do not wish to request an internal review purely on a point of technicality, but equally I would appreciate it if you could (promptly) clarify what information is held in relation to this request. If you could do so by the end of today you would still be within the 20 working days,otherwise I would suggest you have breached the FOIA.

It would seem exceptionally difficult, for example, to accept that the legal advice from 2003 is relevant to my request, yet your reply implies that it is. If you are simply going to be refer me to a previous response (itself subject to an Internal Review) please be precise about which part of that earlier response is relevant.

Essentially I am uncertain as to whether you are stating that information is held in relation to my request, or not? If it is not, I would invite you to consider the advice contained within the following Decision Notice and provide an explanation as to why the information is not held.

http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/...

Yours faithfully

Nigel Barker

Thank you for emailing the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).  This
is an automatic acknowledgement to tell you we have received your email
safely.  Please do not reply to this email.

 If your email was about a new complaint or request for advice it will be
considered by our Customer Contact Department.  One of our case officers
will be in touch as soon as possible. If you have sent us a complaint we
may need specific information from you before we are able to consider it. 
You can find out the type of information we would need from the
[1]complaints section of our website. 

 If your email was about an ongoing case we are dealing with it will be
allocated to the person handling your case.

If your email was about a case you have already submitted, but is yet to
be allocated to one of our case officers your email will be added to your
original correspondence and will be considered when your case is
allocated. Please note that further correspondence may not be viewed until
your case is allocated to a case officer.

 If you require any further assistance please contact our Helpline on
0303 123  1113 or [2]01625 545745 if you prefer to use a national rate
number.

 We will not respond to correspondence where the ICO is copied in. If
you have a matter you would like to discuss with us please call our
Helpline on the number above.

         Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner's Office

 ICO Customer Contact Department

 

Making a request for information held by the ICO?

For more information about the ICO’s handling of requests for information
please visit our [3]Information about us section of our website.

Equality and Diversity

The Information Commissioner’s Office is committed to providing equality
for all and opposes all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination. We
have produced a questionnaire to help us to produce a profile of our
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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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Information Commissioner's Office

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15th January 2013

Case Reference Number IRQ0477187

Dear Mr Barker

Thank you for your recent email, I would like to clarify the points you
raise.
 
The fundamental point in our response is that you have recently been
provided with the recorded information in response to a previous request. 
Under section 14(2), public authorities do not have to comply with
repeated requests for the same information from the same person.  It is
Section 14(2) that this office is relying on in response to this request
and please accept my apologies that this was not communicated to you.
 
Section 14(2) states:
 
Where a public authority has previously complied with a request for
information which was made by any person, it is not obliged to comply with
a subsequent identical or substantially similar request from that person
unless a reasonable interval has elapsed between compliance with the
previous request and the making of the current request.
 
Section 14(2) can only be applied where the public authority has
previously provided the applicant with the information they have
requested.  Furthermore, a request will be substantially similar to a
previous request only if we would need to disclose substantially similar
information to respond to both requests (ie with no meaningful
differences).
 
Although your second request was couched in different terms the recorded
information in the scope of your request is identical and therefore we are
satisfied that Section 14(2) applies.
 
I trust this answers your queries.

Yours sincerely

Charlotte Powell
Information Governance Manager

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Thank you for the clarification.

As requested, could you please clarify which part of the previous response/disclosure applies to this request.

Yours faithfully,

Nigel Barker

Thank you for emailing the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).  This
is an automatic acknowledgement to tell you we have received your email
safely.  Please do not reply to this email.

 If your email was about a new complaint or request for advice it will be
considered by our Customer Contact Department.  One of our case officers
will be in touch as soon as possible. If you have sent us a complaint we
may need specific information from you before we are able to consider it. 
You can find out the type of information we would need from the
[1]complaints section of our website. 

 If your email was about an ongoing case we are dealing with it will be
allocated to the person handling your case.

If your email was about a case you have already submitted, but is yet to
be allocated to one of our case officers your email will be added to your
original correspondence and will be considered when your case is
allocated. Please note that further correspondence may not be viewed until
your case is allocated to a case officer.

 If you require any further assistance please contact our Helpline on
0303 123  1113 or [2]01625 545745 if you prefer to use a national rate
number.

 We will not respond to correspondence where the ICO is copied in. If
you have a matter you would like to discuss with us please call our
Helpline on the number above.

         Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner's Office

 ICO Customer Contact Department

 

Making a request for information held by the ICO?

For more information about the ICO’s handling of requests for information
please visit our [3]Information about us section of our website.

Equality and Diversity

The Information Commissioner’s Office is committed to providing equality
for all and opposes all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination. We
have produced a questionnaire to help us to produce a profile of our
customers. The questionnaire can be found on our [4]Equality and Diversity
webpage.

Our newsletter

Details of how to sign up for our quarterly newsletter can be found at
[5]Information Commissioner's Office enewsletter.

Twitter

Find us on Twitter at [6]http://www.twitter.com/ICOnews

 

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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Information Commissioner's Office

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16th January 2013

Case Reference Number IRQ0477187

Dear Mr Barker

Thank you for yesterday's email.

To confirm the recorded information which falls within the scope of this
request was provided to you under points one and two of your previous
request.

Yours sincerely

Charlotte Powell
Information Governance Manager

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Thank you for confirmation of your position that the External Legal advice in question was the ICO drafted meeting note of 27 May 2005.

Unfortunately I would like to request an Internal Review of your response.

You have responded to my request quoting Section14 (2), suggesting that I had made “a subsequent identical or substantially similar request”. You may recall I had previously asked for clarification on Mr Graham’s statement given it differed to your response to a previous information request. You failed to provide any supplementary explanation, hence I was left with no option other than to seek clarity via an FOI request.

The first difficulty that I have is that my earlier request was specifically for the meeting dated 27 May 2005 (and in the event it was different the advice that Mr Thomas quoted). You previously provided, with the exception of some minor redactions in relation to personal data, the full meeting note dated 27 May 2005.

My new request was for the External Legal Advice stating that the ICO were informed it was not in the public interest to prosecute journalists because of the likely sentences and the difficulty in proving they knew they were committing an offence.

I would firstly question whether the two requests could fairly be considered to be identical given one is for a specific meeting note and the other is for specific external legal advice. Whilst it might, or might not, be the case that there is an overlap between the requests, and that the legal advice could be contained within the wider meeting note, that does not equate to the information for disclosure being ‘identical’, let alone the request itself.

I firstly suggest that the exemption has been wrongly applied.

As you will hopefully agree, the aforementioned meeting note principally discusses the potential prosecution of Whittamore, with some further references to ‘the remaining defendants’. There is certainly an extensive discourse around the public interest in continuing those prosecutions. However, that description of the remaining defendants clearly does extend to journalists, as they were not defendants. As Mr Thomas described the scene to Lord Leveson, the prosecution of journalists was, at that stage, “not a live possibility”.

Essentially the meeting note you have suggested represents the information held is about the discontinuance of Operation Motorman, not the potential prosecution of journalists. Given no journalists were charged or even interviewed as part of Operation Motorman, I fail to see how the advice can be said to extend to journalists. It might be your position that the advice surrounding the public interest of further prosecutions also, by implication, applies to journalists, but that is not shown by the information you referenced and by choosing to invoke Section 14 (2) you failed to provide any clarity on this point. This was despite the fact that it was quite evident from the wording of my request that I did not recognise that the 27 May 2005 meeting note represented the quoted legal advice.

Further, a search of the 8 page document for the word “journalists” returns only one reference, contained within the following paragraph:

“The only negative to this issue are the comments made by Riel Karmy-Jones in Blackfriars that there was no evidence of press involvement. Ms Karmy-Hones was backed somewhat into a corner in the court proceeding by the Judge and it was unfortunate that the Judge refused to leave the door open on the point of the journalists notwithstanding the evidence located by this office”.

It is unclear whether this statement was the words/advice of External Counsel. Nor does this statement reference the public interest. Nor is there any information contained within the document discussing “the difficulty in proving that the journalists involved knew that the information they were seeking could only be obtained by unlawful means”, as Mr Graham described.

In short, the document does not contain the external legal advice that I requested.

This is an understanding that was (previously, at least) seemingly shared by the ICO, given that an almost identical request was made for the same legal advice previously, and the ICO’s own Decision Notice noted (para 33) that “...the requested information was not held”. Similarly, according to the following article, you have previously responded to the initial FOI request on this matter with the response

“We do not hold a written legal advice in relation to the decision not to prosecute the journalists involved in Operation Motorman.”

http://2040infolawblog.com/2012/01/18/to...

If it is the case that the ICO believes that the 27 May 2005 document represents the legal advice not to prosecute journalists then how could you possibly have not disclosed, let alone shared its existence when responding to a previous request, Internal Review and complaint that was progressed to Decision Notice? The review and Decision Notice even specifically considered the issue of advice and assistance.

Yet now you are effectively suggesting that all along you held a piece of legal advice that fitted Mr Smith’s description. I am not seeking to re-open an issued Decision Notice, merely highlighting evidential support for my position that the information you have supplied does not the constitute external legal advice in relation to journalists and therefore the response here is incorrect.

Alternatively, if you maintain your current position then the Decision Notice is abjectly wrong. Whilst that is not a matter I have any redress about, one would hope that it would be of great concern to the ICO and specifically the ability of the ICO as a complaints handler to investigate complaints effectively – particularly those about the ICO.

I recognise this is a difficult matter, because quite simply I suggest that you cannot produce any recorded information to substantiate Mr Graham’s statement. Your response, however embarrassing to Mr Graham, must therefore be made on that basis. As previously advised, you would then need to provide an explanation as why no information was held, and by implication, why he potentially provided misleading evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. I cannot say whether External legal advice was given on the basis Mr Graham has indicated, but it does seem apparent that no recorded information is held to support his statement.

I should be clear that I am not using an FOI Request and this Internal Review to challenge Mr Graham’s statement, or asking you to somehow prove it was accurate. It is quite clearly a matter for Mr Graham and his conscience what statements that he makes. However, if no information is held that supports his statements then the legislation allows the public to be informed of that fact. You cannot substitute in the information that is the closest you have got – in FOI terms either the information is held, or it is not.

In this case there is no external legal advice of the nature reported, probably because the prosecution of journalists was not on the agenda.

I therefore ask the Internal Review to consider whether the information provided is infact the information I have requested and also whether Section 14 was applicable here.

Thank you

Nigel Barker

Ben Jones left an annotation ()

If the ICO previously issued an FOI response stating no legal advice was held (which was progressed to a Decision Notice) and they are now saying they do hold such advice, does this not potentially become a potential Section 77 issue?

Of course, not every inaccurate reply is potentially a Section 77 offence, but when you consider the various accounts and refusal across all requests to accept any errors or provide any clarity, it does look a bit more dubious.

Treating this request a repeated request, despite the fact that they previously declared no information was held and have changed their position here, seems particularly provocative.

Information Commissioner's Office

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18th January 2013

Case Reference Number RCC0481456

Dear Mr Barker  
  
Thank you for your correspondence of 16 January 2013.
 
This correspondence will now be treated as a request for an internal
review of the response we provided to your recent request for information
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. 
 
We will aim to respond by 13 February 2013 which is 20 working days from
the day after we received your recent correspondence.  This is in
accordance with our internal review procedures which were provided with
our response. 
 
Yours sincerely

Charlotte Powell
Information Governance Manager 
 
 
 
 
 

Yours sincerely

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Information Commissioner's Office

Dear Mr Barker

Internal review of request IRQ0477187 

I have conducted an internal review of the above request and I have upheld
the use of section 14(2).   The request you have made is a substantially
similar request within the terms of section 14(2) of FOIA.  Although the
wording of the requests is not identical the information we hold that
falls within its scope is the same as information provided in response to
your previous requests.  There is no further recorded information held by
the ICO that falls within the scope of the request other than information
previously disclosed.  The approach taken is in line with the ICO’s
guidance on section 14(2)  page 11 – “Similarly, a request will be
substantially similar to a previous request only if you would need to
disclose substantially similar information to respond to both requests (ie
with no meaningful differences)”.
 
If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the review you may make
section 50 complaint to the ICO. 
Information on how to complain is available on the ICO website at:
[1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...
By post: If your supporting evidence is in hard copy, you can fill in the
Word version of our complaint form, print it out and post it to us with
your supporting evidence. A printable Freedom of Information Act
complaints form is available from the ICO website. Please send to:
 
Case Reception Unit
Customer Service Team
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
 
By email: If all your supporting evidence is available electronically, you
can fill in our online complaint form. Important: information included in
the form, and any supporting evidence will be sent to us by email.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Steve Wood
Head of Policy Delivery
 
 

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

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Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

Thank you for your prompt Internal Review.

The information in the meeting note of 27 May 2005 does not contain what I asked for.

As you have once again refused to offer any clarity or explanation I will now submit a complaint to the ICO. Hopefully a Decision Notice will address this point and specifically deal with the conflict between your previous response that no legal advice was held and this one stating the polar opposite. Perhaps a Decision Notice will also examine the contents of the information and try to extract the parts that represent the requested legal advice. As I have explained, I certainly cannot.

Observers may find it revealing that it will take a Decision Notice to provide this explanation and analysis. Not very helpful, not very transparent and certainly not very efficient.

Yours faithfully,

Nigel Barker

Thank you for emailing the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).  This
is an automatic acknowledgement to tell you we have received your email
safely.  Please do not reply to this email.

 If your email was about a new complaint or request for advice it will be
considered by our Customer Contact Department.  One of our case officers
will be in touch as soon as possible. If you have sent us a complaint we
may need specific information from you before we are able to consider it. 
You can find out the type of information we would need from the
[1]complaints section of our website. 

 If your email was about an ongoing case we are dealing with it will be
allocated to the person handling your case.

If your email was about a case you have already submitted, but is yet to
be allocated to one of our case officers your email will be added to your
original correspondence and will be considered when your case is
allocated. Please note that further correspondence may not be viewed until
your case is allocated to a case officer.

 If you require any further assistance please contact our Helpline on
0303 123  1113 or [2]01625 545745 if you prefer to use a national rate
number.

 We will not respond to correspondence where the ICO is copied in. If
you have a matter you would like to discuss with us please call our
Helpline on the number above.

         Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner's Office

 ICO Customer Contact Department

 

Making a request for information held by the ICO?

For more information about the ICO’s handling of requests for information
please visit our [3]Information about us section of our website.

Equality and Diversity

The Information Commissioner’s Office is committed to providing equality
for all and opposes all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination. We
have produced a questionnaire to help us to produce a profile of our
customers. The questionnaire can be found on our [4]Equality and Diversity
webpage.

Our newsletter

Details of how to sign up for our quarterly newsletter can be found at
[5]Information Commissioner's Office enewsletter.

Twitter

Find us on Twitter at [6]http://www.twitter.com/ICOnews

 

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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Information Commissioner's Office

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26 July 2013

Case Reference Number IRQ0477187

Dear Mr Barker
 
We are writing to provide a fresh response to your request, originally
handled under IRQ0477187.
 
As you know we provided an initial response stating that the information
you requested was exempt from disclosure by virtue of section 14 (2) FOIA
because it was a repeated request and this position was upheld in the
internal review.  
 
However, we understand that ICO policy has moved on and in light of that
we are revising our response to your request.
 
We have withdrawn our reliance on section 14(2) FOIA.
 
However, we maintain that we have no further recorded information to
provide in response to your request beyond the two pieces of legal advice
that were cited to you previously. As these are already available to you
they fall under section 21 FOIA which states that information already
reasonably accessible to the applicant is exempt.
 
It might also be of interest to you for us to point to any other documents
which reflect the legal position or internal/external/joint deliberations.
These documents are available on the Leveson Inquiry website and so if
they or any part of them were considered to be in the scope of your
request we consider are also exempt under section 21 FOIA.
 
Please see links to these documents below:
 
 

 1. Legal Department Attendance Note dated 3 October 2003 -
[1]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...
 2. Legal Department Attendance Note dated 20 October 2003 -
[2]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...
 3. ICO report form written by Phillip Taylor dated 30 July 2004. -
[3]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...
 4. Motorman File Note dated 4 August 2004. -
[4]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...
 5. Motorman Instructions to Counsel dated 26 August 2004. -
[5]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...
 6. Motorman File note dated 1 September 2004 -
[6]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...
 7. Motorman File note dated 18 January 2005 -
[7]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...
 8. Motorman File note dated 27 May 2005. -
[8]http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-cont...

 
I hope this response provides the information you require.
 
However, if you are dissatisfied with the response you have received and
wish to request a review of our decision or make a complaint about how
your request has been handled you should write to the Information
Governance Department at the address below or email
[9][email address]

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response.  Any such request
received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the
Commissioner.
If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint
handler under the legislation.  To make such an application, please write
to the First Contact Team, at the address below or visit the ‘Complaints’
section of our website to make a Freedom of Information Act or
Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

A copy of our review procedure is available [10]here.

Yours sincerely

 
 
Helen Ward
Information Governance Manager
 

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.org.uk

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Dear ICO

Thank you for your updated reply.

I note you have commented that "we maintain that we have no further recorded information to provide in response to your request beyond the two pieces of legal advice that were cited to you previously".

For the avoidance of any doubt, and in accordance with Section 1(1)a, could I check that you are saying the 2 pieces of legal advice represent the information held in relation to this request?

Yours sincerely,

Nigel Barker

Information Commissioner's Office

1 Attachment

PROTECT

 

2nd December 2013

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0477187

 

Dear Mr Barker

Further to the Decision Notice served on 29 October 2013 in the matter of
FS50483981.
 
We have been instructed to disclose the remainder of the December 2003
Opening Advice. As you know, this information is available on the Leveson
Inquiry website and has been for some time. However I have included a
scanned copy of this document to assist you further.
 
There are minor redactions because we consider some information to be
exempt under section 40 (2) FOIA. Section 40 (3) (a) (i) permits a public
authority to withhold personal data of an individual other than the
applicant where disclosure would breach a data protection principle. The
first principle requires that personal data is processed fairly and
lawfully and we do not consider disclosure would be consistent with this
principle.
 
Secondly, we have been instructed to disclose any external legal advice
held in connection with Operation Motorman.
 
On 26 July 2013 we sent an email to you listing 8 further documents.
 
The following are 3 documents where external Counsel is recorded as being
present and where Counsel appears to make reference to the prosecution of
journalists:
 
3 October 2003 – page 2
20 October 2003 – point 4
18 January 2005 – point 14 
 
Again this information is, and has been, available on the Leveson Inquiry
website. Nevertheless I have included scanned copies here for your
reference. For the avoidance of doubt external legal advice is that
received from Counsel, Bernard Thorogood.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
 
Helen Ward
Information Governance Manager
 

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Cheshire, SK9 5AF
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