Geoffrey Driver v Crown Prosecution Service
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Julian Knowles |
| Judgment Date | 10 October 2022 |
| Neutral Citation | [2022] EWHC 2500 (KB) |
| Docket Number | Case No: QB-2020-003392 |
| Court | King's Bench Division |
[2022] EWHC 2500 (KB)
Mr Justice Julian Knowles
Case No: QB-2020-003392
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LIST
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Aaminah Khan (instructed by Forbes Solicitors) for the Claimant
Brynmor Adams (instructed by GLD) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 8–9 December 2021
APPROVED JUDGMENT
Introduction
The Claimant brings a claim against the CPS in the following causes of action: (a) breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016) (the GDPR), alternatively, breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 ( DPA 2018); (b) misuse of private information (MPI); (c) breach of the Human Rights Act 1998 ( HRA 1998). An extension of time is necessary for the human rights claim. A pleaded claim in negligence is no longer pursued.
The claim arises out of an email sent by a CPS lawyer to a member of the public in June 2019 about a criminal investigation in which the Claimant was a suspect. The Claimant says, first and foremost, that this was a breach of the GDPR and/or the DPA 2018 because it constituted the unlawful processing of his personal data.
At the time the alleged data breach occurred the GDPR had direct effect in domestic law. This case is therefore unaffected by Brexit. Following the UK's withdrawal from the EU, the GDPR was replaced by the UK GDPR. The UK GDPR is the GDPR as amended by the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/419) and the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (SI 2020/1586).
To be clear, in this judgment, when I refer to the GDPR, I am referring to it in its original (EU) form, and not to the UK GDPR.
The Claimant seeks damages not exceeding £2,000 and declaratory relief. The CPS denies liability.
The Claimant has been involved in local politics for many decades. He was first elected to Lancashire County Council (one of the largest in the country) in 2005, and became leader of the Opposition in 2008–2009. He was then leader of the Council from 2009 to 2013; leader of the Opposition from 2013 to 2017; and leader of the Council again from 2017 to 2021. He was awarded the CBE in 2013 for services to local government. He is plainly a well-known figure in Lancashire politics.
In 2014, he became a suspect in a local government corruption investigation called Operation Sheridan. The precise details of the investigation do not matter, although I will give a bare outline of it in a moment. It is being carried out by the Lancashire police.
Following two years of investigation, in March 2016, the Claimant was informed by the police that he was being excluded from the investigation, and that he was no longer a suspect.
There is in evidence an exchange of emails between the Claimant and Lancashire police in March 2016 which will be relevant to the Claimant's misuse of private information claim. On 20 March 2016 the Claimant wrote to Superintendent Halstead (the Head of Serious and Organised Crime in the Lancashire Constabulary):
“Hi Superintendent Halstead
Further to our discussion on Thursday 17 th March, would you be prepared to issue the following statement to the press?
‘Lancashire Constabulary has undertaken a thorough investigation into allegations it received from Lancashire County Council and we can confirm that County Councillor Geoff Driver has been completely exonerated. We thank County Councillor Driver for his full co-operation throughout this inquiry.”
The following day, Superintendent Halstead replied:
“Good afternoon Councillor,
I have held a strategy meeting today with our Corporate Communications department and discussed the content of my briefing with you and your legal representatives last Thursday. I have reiterated to them that as the SIO of Operation Sheridan I have accepted the responsibility for ‘putting the record straight’ in relation to your role within the investigation, the fact that we have established your innocence and also that you have fully cooperated throughout.
The professional advice I have been given, is that Lancashire Constabulary have never actually named, nor confirmed that you were part of the investigation, and I have been reminded that I have taken a strong stance on this by way of policy. Consequently it would be unique for the Constabulary to now proactively make a statement in which we name you, to every monitoring media outlet.
Could I suggest by way of a compromise, that you choose the media platform you feel is most appropriate best deliver the message and you contact them directly, therefore accepting the personal responsibility of publicly naming yourself. I would then, as I suggested I would, make a formal reply to them including the suggested content listed below.
I hope you appreciate the need for caution from the Constabulary perspective and see this as a way of ultimately delivering the same message but in a subtly but importantly different way.”
The same day, the Claimant replied:
“Hi Superintendent Halstead,
Thank you for your email. I understand your dilemma and I have therefore sent the attached press release to The Lancashire Telegraph, the Lancashire Evening Post, BBC North West and Radio Lancashire. I would be most grateful if you would respond to any enquiries they make along the lines set out in my email below.”
The Claimant's Press Release read:
“PRESS RELEASE BY COUNCILLOR GEOFF DRIVER CBE
I have been informed by Lancashire Constabulary that after their lengthy investigation into allegations made by Lancashire County Council, they are satisfied I am entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.
I am now in discussion with my legal advisers as to the best course of action to take against those individuals who have knowingly made false, malicious and libellous allegations against me and I shall therefore not make any further comment at this time.”
The Claimant's Press Release was extensively covered in the local media. A headline from the Lancashire Evening Post from around this time gives the flavour:
“Tory chief takes legal advice after police probe dropped
Conservative opposition leader is no longer subject to investigation over One Connect”
Matters did not end there, however. In or around May 2017, the Claimant became aware of allegations that he had conspired to pervert the course of justice and/or intimidated witnesses in the Operation Sheridan investigation. He was arrested, and a search warrant was executed at his home on 22 May 2017. Search warrants were also executed at a number of other suspects' houses.
The Claimant's involvement in Operation Sheridan, and the 2017 allegations, were referred to in R (Fitzgerald) v Preston Crown Court and Chief Constable of Lancashire Police [2018] EWHC 804 (Admin), which was a judicial review brought by one of the other suspects, Gerard Fitzgerald, in respect of the lawfulness of the search warrant, and related matters. At the time, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Liverpool City Council (LiCC) and had previously been Chief Executive Officer of Lancashire County Council (LaCC) from 2008 – 2011.
At [20]–[25] the Court said:
“20. The application form completed by the police ran to 29 pages with another 27 pages of appendices. D.C. Fishwick was questioned by HHJ Altham for the best part of a day and the transcript of her evidence comprises another 52 pages. It is not easy to summarise this material, presented as it was to the Judge as an impenetrable, discursive mass lacking a discernible sense of order. Understandably, the police are concerned to comply with their duty as to disclosure; but the answer to that obligation does not lie in simply “throwing” material at the Court in the manner in which it was done in this case. We have, though, considered the application to see whether – despite the failures of presentation – it complied with the statutory requirements or whether any of Mr Bowers' grounds of challenge should succeed.
21. The application identified two offences in connection with which the warrants were sought: conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice contrary to common law (“conspiracy to pervert”); and witness intimidation contrary to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, s.51. In the event, HHJ Altham was not satisfied that there was evidence that witness intimidation had taken place and Mr Bird on behalf of the police did not seek to support the warrant by reference to that offence.
22. So far as conspiracy to pervert was concerned, the application had to explain the underlying offence whose investigation, it was said, was endangered by the conspiracy. This underlying offence was in essence fraud on and, effectively, corruption in local government – in Mr Bird's phrase what was said to be a case of “jobs for the boys”. This underlying police investigation was called “Operation Sheridan”. It began in 2013 following an investigation by a firm of solicitors (DAC Beachcroft) of an aborted procurement exercise relating to the potential outsourcing of Lancashire County Council's vehicle fleet to BT. As already mentioned, BT by then had a joint venture with LaCC — OCL. The solicitors' review had been critical of Mr Geoffrey Driver, the Leader of LaCC and Philip Hassall, then Chief Executive of LaCC. The application explained that Operation Sheridan had widened to include alleged criminality within Liverpool City Council and the Merseyside Pension Fund (‘MPF’). As we have said, the Claimant was the Chief Executive of LiCC and Mr McElhinney was the Chief Executive Officer of a joint venture, LDL, between BT and LiCC.
23. As already...
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