Details of instructing solicitor in John O'Neill sexual risk order case

The request was partially successful.

Dear North Yorkshire Police,

I refer to the widely publicised sexual risk order case in which your force has come in for widespread criticism from the court, the press, broadcasters and leading lawyers:

Please provide the following information:

1 Name(s) of solicitor(s) instructed to act for the chief constable in the matter of the application for a sexual risk order against Mr John O'Neill

2. Details of selection/tender process by which counsel, Oliver Thorne, was selected to take instructions from the chief constable's solicitor in the same matter.

3. Was Oliver Thorne responsible for drafting the interim order in the matter. If not, who was?

4. Up to and including the hearing at York Magistrates Court on 19th August, 2016 what are the total costs spent on this matter (a) Internally (b) Externally?

5. What is the operational codename by which this matter is known?

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby

Civil Disclosure, North Yorkshire Police

Classification: PROTECT

Good morning,

I write to acknowledge receiving your request for information. This has been recorded under the reference number 475.2016-17. If you have any queries whilst waiting for our response, please write in quoting the reference number stated above.

Kind regards,

Robert Bates
Collar Number 5480
Legal Officer (Civil Disclosure)
North Yorkshire Police

Committed to the Code of Ethics
 
Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for me by my full name or collar number. If using my collar number please state each number individually.
 
Web: www.northyorkshire.police.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NorthYorkshirePolice
Twitter: www.twitter.com/NYorksPolice

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Bates, Robert, North Yorkshire Police

1 Attachment

Classification: PROTECT

Good morning,

Please find attached North Yorkshire Police's response to your Freedom of Information request referenced 475.2016-17.

Kind regards,

Robert Bates
Collar Number 5480
Legal Officer (Civil Disclosure)
North Yorkshire Police

Committed to the Code of Ethics
 
Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for me by my full name or collar number. If using my collar number please state each number individually.
 
Web: www.northyorkshire.police.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NorthYorkshirePolice
Twitter: www.twitter.com/NYorksPolice

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Dear North Yorkshire Police,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of North Yorkshire Police's handling of my FOI request 'Details of instructing solicitor in John O'Neill sexual risk order case'.

The grounds are as follows. The paragraph numbers correspond to those in the request and the response to it:

1. The data controller has misdirected himself in relying on a S40(2) exemption.
a. The data subject(s) can have no realistic expectation of anonymity when they are a solicitor acting on instructions for a chief constable.
b. Furthermore, this is a matter that has attracted huge media attention and the public interest in the disclosure of such detail is very strong.
c. Finally, the John O'Neill matter has been heard in open court twice. The solicitor concerned will, presumably, have appeared behind Oliver Thorne in those hearings and will be on record as solicitor for the chief constable at the court.

2. The question as framed was not answered. However, in the interests of proportionality, I do not intend to pursue the matter. The inference is clear from your response: there was no competitive process entered into.

3. I rely on the same arguments rehearsed at 1a, b and c.
Additionally, I make the point that there is a potential conflict of interest here as the Force Solicitor, Jane Wintermeyer, also heads up the Civil Disclosure Unit.

4 a. The S12 exemption is challenged on the basis that any capably managed organisation with normal, functional, costing and auditing systems must know what component parts of its business cost.
b. Alternatively, even starting from scratch it cannot take a properly briefed accounts team analyst more than 18 hours to collect such information. It is far-fetched to suggest otherwise.

5. Information provided - accepted at face value for the moment.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/d...

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby

Civil Disclosure, North Yorkshire Police

Classification: PROTECT

Good morning,

Confirming that North Yorkshire Police have received your request for an internal review.

A full response will be sent to you in due course.

Kind Regards

Robert Bates
Collar Number 5480
Legal Officer (Civil Disclosure)
North Yorkshire Police

Committed to the Code of Ethics
 
Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for me by my full name or collar number. If using my collar number please state each number individually.
 
Web: www.northyorkshire.police.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NorthYorkshirePolice
Twitter: www.twitter.com/NYorksPolice

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Dear Civil Disclosure,

Thank you for the acknowledgement of the internal review.

Having checked on the status of other internal reviews I find the following:

1. They are rarely finalised within the required 20 working day period.

2. When eventually finalised they are not, as required, undertaken by a supervisor.

When I get time I will update this piece that I published last Friday:

https://neilwilby.com/2016/09/09/police-...

Yours sincerely,

Neil Wilby

Malone, Ashley, North Yorkshire Police

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wilby

 

Please see attached response to your request for Internal Review, of the
outcome of your Freedom of Information Act request 475.2016-17.

 

Kind Regards

 

 

Ashley Malone

Collar Number 4951

Police Lawyer (Civil Disclosure)

Solicitor

Joint Corporate Legal Services

North Yorkshire Police

Committed to the Code of Ethics

Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for me by my full name or collar number.
If using my collar number please state each number individually.

 

www.northyorkshire.police.uk

 

 

THIS EMAIL AND ANY ATTACHMENT(S) MAY BE SUBJECT TO LEGAL PROFESSIONAL
PRIVILEGE - PLEASE DO NOT DISCLOSE THE CONTENT TO ANYONE ELSE WITHOUT
ASKING JOINT CORPORATE LEGAL SERVICES

 

 

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Dear North Yorkshire Police,

A S50 complaint has now been filed with the Information Commissioner's Office and acknowledged by them.

The grounds for complaint are as follows:

1. Firstly, the police lawyer finalising the internal review is Ms Ashley Malone. She is a deponent, and has appeared as a witness, in a civil civil claim in which I am claimant and NYP is defendant. The claim concerns breaches of the Act, and the Data Protection Act, by the data controller.

https://neilwilby.com/2016/06/10/chief-c...

2. Ms Malone's intervention in information requests and internal review finalisations, made by me, since she made her witness statement in that claim (on 23rd September, 2016) plainly lack objectivity and independence. It is an ethical and regulatory requirement that a solicitor cannot continue to act where she adopts the cause of a client.

3. The cause of Ms Malone's client in this particular civil claim includes an inherently absurd Defence, made on 15th July, 2016, that states that no information request has EVER been finalised as non-compliant by NYPCC and that all future requests will be compliant.

4. Since Ms Malone made that witness statement, the finalisations she has provided have all been variously unreasonable, perverse, irrational. The time, and financial, burden this has placed on me has been close to intolerable.

5. Of those finalisations (they include NYP and NYPCC requests) four have necessitated internal reviews, five have necessitated complaints to the ICO. Part of each and every complaint is the objection to the involvement of Ms Malone in any matters concerning my requests, whilst the proceedings referred to at para 1 are extant.

6. This conduct and the unlawful, unethical, discriminatory approach to finalising my requests or reviews, it is submitted with increasing force as part of this complaint, is part of a wider and persistent campaign by NYP (and NYPCC) to cause distress, vex and annoy. This is a complaint I have made to NYP (and NYPCC) and the ICO repeatedly, in writing, over the past six months.

7. More particularly, in the instant complaint, Ms Malone has abdicated her responsibility under the Act, Authorised Professional Practice and ICO Guidance in not reviewing the information request afresh. Nor has she fully and properly addressed the complaints at all at 1a, b or c. or 3. She has ignored, in particular, the conflict of issue complaint.

8. The answer provided at 4a and b is similarly unstisfactory. If S12 is engaged, as alleged, then a S16 offer of assistance should follow.

9. Ms Malone's unevidenced assertions concerning workload is an old, and overused, red herring. It is well rehearsed in the public domain that a 'backlog' has existed, at more or less the same level, since at least 2011.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9307514....

10. There is no contemporaneous evidence available on either this website (WhatDoTheyKnow), or the data controllers own force disclosure log, to support her claim of either increase in requests, or complexity of those requests. Ms Malone does not burden me with any supporting data to prove her point. This data controller has also persistently refused to provide any in previous requests concerning this topic.

11. The sequential URN's allocated to this data controller's requests do not support the assertions of Miss Malone, either. They suggest normal levels of activity. It is simply a systemic response routinely trotted out by this data controller to meet complaints of non-compliance.

12. The reality is, the obsessive pre-occupation of this data controller with not disclosing any information that harms the reputation of his police force, rather than focus on information and data principles, is at the heart of this matter and every other complaint I have made, either by way of internal review or to the ICO.

In summary, it is the overarching submission of the requester that the response to this internal review was carried out inappropriately, by an officer lacking the necessary hierarchal and/or institutional independence; with ill-intent and with an outcome that is almost wholly misconceived under the requirements of the Act, ICO Guidance and Approved Professional Practice.

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby

Civil Disclosure, North Yorkshire Police

Good morning,

Please accept this message as acknowledgement of your email dated 23 October 2016.

Kind regards,

Robert Bates
Collar Number 5480
Legal Officer (Civil Disclosure)
North Yorkshire Police

Committed to the Code of Ethics
 
Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for me by my full name or collar number. If using my collar number please state each number individually.
 
Web: www.northyorkshire.police.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NorthYorkshirePolice
Twitter: www.twitter.com/NYorksPolice

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Dear Civil Disclosure,

This ECHR ruling handed down last week is, arguably, relevant in this request.

https://panopticonblog.com/2016/11/14/hu...

If ICO don't uphold my complaint then I will test this legal precedent at FTT.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Wilby

Malone, Ashley, North Yorkshire Police

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wilby

 

Further to your complaint to the Information Commissioner, please see the
attached letter.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Regards

 

Ashley Malone

Collar Number 4951

Police Lawyer (Civil Disclosure)

Solicitor

Joint Corporate Legal Services

North Yorkshire Police

Committed to the Code of Ethics

Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for me by my full name or collar number.
If using my collar number please state each number individually.

 

www.northyorkshire.police.uk

 

 

THIS EMAIL AND ANY ATTACHMENT(S) MAY BE SUBJECT TO LEGAL PROFESSIONAL
PRIVILEGE - PLEASE DO NOT DISCLOSE THE CONTENT TO ANYONE ELSE WITHOUT
ASKING JOINT CORPORATE LEGAL SERVICES

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Malone, Ashley, North Yorkshire Police

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wilby

 

Please see attached response to your questions 1 & 3, following your
correspondence with the ICO.

 

Please do let us know if your position has been in anyway misunderstood.

 

Regards

 

Ashley Malone

Collar Number 4951

Police Lawyer (Civil Disclosure)

Solicitor

Joint Corporate Legal Services

North Yorkshire Police

Committed to the Code of Ethics

Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for me by my full name or collar number.
If using my collar number please state each number individually.

 

www.northyorkshire.police.uk

 

 

THIS EMAIL AND ANY ATTACHMENT(S) MAY BE SUBJECT TO LEGAL PROFESSIONAL
PRIVILEGE - PLEASE DO NOT DISCLOSE THE CONTENT TO ANYONE ELSE WITHOUT
ASKING JOINT CORPORATE LEGAL SERVICES

 

 

 

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