FOI Request
In August 2015, a disciplinary panel found one of your officers, [redacted information], guilty of misconduct. In April 2016 an appeal tribunal overturned the decision.
Please can you provide me with the following information by return email:
- A transcript of the original disciplinary hearing
- Any written decision or reasons issued by the original panel
- The officers’ notice(s) of appeal
- A transcript of the appeal hearing
- Any written decision or reasons issued by the original panel
Since all the hearings took place in public and were announced on your website, and as the matter has been fully ventilated in open court (HHJ Saffman gave judgment on your Chief Constable’s judicial review application in May 2017), I presume there will not be any difficulties with privacy.
FOI Response
In this instance I have decided to exercise our right to “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” (NCND) whether or not any information is held.
Such a disclosure I would contend, be unfair, and breach the First Data Protection Principle and thereby breach an individuals right to privacy.
Accordingly, the OPCC neither confirms nor denies that it holds the information you have requested as the duty in Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of a Section 40(5)(b)(i) exemption.
Section 40(5) of the Act provides:
(5) The duty to confirm or deny-
(a) does not arise in relation to information which is (or if it were held by the public authority would be) exempt information by virtue of subsection (1), and
(b) does not arise in relation to other information if or to the extent that either-
(i) the giving to a member of the public of the confirmation or denial that would have to be given to comply with section 1(1)(a) would (apart from this Act) contravene any of the data protection principles or section 10 of the [1998 c. 29.] Data Protection Act 1998 or would do so if the exemptions in section 33(a)(1) of that Act were disregarded, or
(ii) by virtue of any provision of Part IV of the [1998 c. 29.] Data Protection Act 1998 the information is exempt from section 7(1)(a) of that Act (data subject’s right to be informed whether personal data being processed).
Date responded: 18 September 2017