Dear North Yorkshire Police (NYP),

In October, 2020 I wrote and published this article:

https://neilwilby.com/category/north-yor...

Within it is referenced an incident involving offensive posting on a newspaper website by a NYP Force Control Room operative.

Please disclose the following by way of the Freedom of Information Act:

1. Was the operative served with a Police Regulations notice?

2. If so, what were the Standards of Professional Behaviour allegedly breached?

3. If so, in what form did the disposal of such proceedings take?

4. Was the subject operative an authorised contributor to NYP social media account output
(i) at the material time (ii) currently?

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

Dear North Yorkshire Police (NYP),

I am writing to request an internal review of North Yorkshire Police's handling of my FOI request 'Rivers deaths in York'.

The grounds for complaint are:

1. You have breached section 10 of the Act.

2. You have breached section 17 of the Act.

3. To the extent that, in my respectful submission,

(i) the information is being deliberately withheld by NYP to avoid further reputational damage. I hold an account from one of the bereaved mothers that heavily supports that proposition.

(ii) the information is being deliberately withheld as part of a wider, and long-running, campaign of harassment, conducted by the chief constable and at least one other very senior officer against a journalist following his vocation. A simple reference to other requests made by this applicant to NYP, via the WhatDoTheyKnow website, lend significant weight to that assertion.

All rights of remedy, either by way of section 77 of the Act, or by civil proceedings are, accordingly and herewith, reserved.

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

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

Dear Civil Disclosure,

A complaint, by way of Sections 50 and 77 of the Act, is being prepared for submission to the Information Commissioner's Office. They will, no doubt, be in touch with you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Wilby
Investigative Journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby
Web: neilwilby.com

Dear North Yorkshire Police ("NYP"),
I am writing to request a second internal review of North Yorkshire Police's handling of my Freedom of Information Act request 'Rivers deaths in York'.

The grounds for complaint are as follows:

1. To almost any independent observer, with a working knowledge of the Act, this has the appearance another pre-formed finalisation by NYP's hierarchy not to disclose information to this particular journalist, whom has exposed their persistent, mendacious lawlessness and failing after failing in the running of their force. A significant number, it must be said, via FOIA requests. As such, the decision maker(s) has/have breached the fundamental principles of requests being both applicant and motive blind.

2. More crucially, relying on section 45(b) as an exemption to frustrate disclosure is, in my respectful submission, both wholly misconceived and, very arguably, mischievous.

2. In so doing, again in my respectful submission, NYP has breached both section 17 and section 77 of the Act.

3. To the extent that;

(i) it is part of the wider, and long-running, campaign of harassment, referred to in the first internal review request against a journalist following his vocation as "social watchdog" (a term coined by Upper Tier Tribunal judge, Nicholas Wikeley). Again, the reviewer is invited to reference other requests made by this applicant to NYP, via the WhatDoTheyKnow website, that lend significant weight to that assertion.

(ii) A number of Code of Ethics breaches are self-evident.

4. The reviewer's attention is drawn to the fact that, in 2018, I succeeded in First Tier Tribunal proceedings (EA/2017/0076) against the NYP's Civil Disclosure Unit in a challenge to a section 45(b) exemption. It may not be entirely a coincidence, but it was the very same disclosure officer (Caroline Williams) who signed off the finalisation of that request.

5. Early in those proceedings it was established, beyond any doubt, that section 45(b) can only be relied upon by a public authority (or police force) if a distinction is made between section 40 (5) (b) (i) and 40 (5) (b) (ii). No such distinction is made here. Guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office is very clear: In all cases, a public authority needs to consider the details of the exemption. In any refusal notice under the Act it is necessary to explain exactly which subsection is engaged, and why.

https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

6. It should be self-evident to the reviewer that Parts 1. to 3. of the request are, effectively, consecutive and, as such, conjoined by the same narrow issue. Part 4. of the request is, however, a discrete matter and should have been subject to separate analysis by the decision maker. It plainly wasn't.

7. Taken together, paras 5. and 6 above strongly support the proposition, advanced at para 1 above, of a pre-formed decision, probably rushed and forced onto the disclosure officer by her superiors, and generic, rather than fact specific, reasoning is attached to it.

8. Further, and in any event, the disclosure requested is not personal information. The request was carefully framed to circumvent that possibility. Parts 1, 2 and 3 are of the same class routinely posted on the NYP website regarding misconduct outcomes: https://northyorkshire.police.uk/access-...

9. The reviewer is also invited to (NCND) consider Foster v IC (EA/2013/0176) in assessing whether the 'neither confirm nor deny' can sustain.

10. There is no prejudice to the rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of an unidentified officer in disclosing the requested information There are also no Article 8 Convention rights in issue..

10. The public interest test is deficient insofar as it raises no points of argument specific to the requested disclosure at either at Parts 1,2 and 3 or, separately, point 4. Indeed, the reviewer may well find that no such test was carried out.

11. The presumption at the outset of any such test is to disclose the information, a point not in evidence in this finalisation. Further, it is respectfully submitted that there can be no sustainable points placed in the balance that outweigh the interests of bereaved families knowing the truth and that miscreant officers have been appropriately dealt with in accordance with the applicable statutory framework. The conduct complained of was discreditable conduct, not a matter to be treated so lightly as NYP appear to have done.

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

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby

Web: neilwilby.com

Dear North Yorkshire Police (NYP),

Thank you for acknowledging the internal review request (IRR).

The history of this request has now been storified andpublished at this weblink:

https://neilwilby.com/2021/03/15/sold-do...

It will be updated further, either when NYP has provided a response to the IRR or when a second complaint is made to the Information Commissioner's Office regarding non-disclosure of the requested information. Whichever event comes first. The latter is diarised for 14th April, 2021.

Yours faithfully,

Neil Wilby
Investigative journalist

Twitter: @Neil_Wilby

Web: neilwilby.com