Contempt, disclosure failures, and information governance

Earlier this month the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in Buzzard-Quashie v Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police [2025] EWCA Civ 1397, a decision involving police law, information rights and contempt of court. Despite the appeal ultimately being conceded by the Chief Constable, the Court of Appeal provided a detailed judgment addressing contempt, the accountability of Chief Constables in law for contempt and systemic information governance failures.

For police forces and information law practitioners, the judgment is a stark reminder of the crucial role that accurate data handling and robust audit systems play. The case also indicates the weight that the courts place on the role of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) following data handling complaints.

Four years of attempts to obtain body-worn video (BWV)

Ms Nadine Buzzard-Quashie was arrested in September 2021. Days later, she made a complaint by phone to a sergeant not involved in the arrest. She alleged wrongful arrest and excessive force – involving being thrown to the ground and having her face pushed into stinging nettles. From her phone call, it became apparent that BWV existed of her arrest as the sergeant narrated what he was watching during their conversation. Ms Buzzard-Quashie requested the BWV be preserved before subsequently seeking to obtain it. Ms Buzzard-Quashie was charged but the case was discontinued by the CPS at court [2, 13].

In addition to the wrongful arrest, Ms Buzzard-Quashie went on to allege malicious prosecution and sought to obtain the BWV to substantiate her claims. Initially she submitted a Subject Access Request (SAR), but after an inadequate response, she made a data protection complaint to the ICO. In April 2022 the ICO decided in her favour and wrote to Northamptonshire Police requiring them to revisit the way they handled her request and provide comprehensive disclosure as soon as possible [15].

Four months later, Ms Buzzard-Quashie had only received piecemeal BWV disclosure – she believed the footage had been altered or deleted. Consequently, she issued a claim against the Chief Constable for breaching of statutory duty under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) [17].

In April 2023, the County Court found in her favour and issued an order including terms that the Chief Constable [18]: “[…] shall within 28 days disclose all and any video footage taken on police cameras relevant to the arrest and detention of the Claimant on 3 September 2021. [and…] If any such video evidence is not available or disclosable, a statement from an officer of a rank no lower than Inspector must accompany the disclosure stating why such video footage is no longer available or disclosable.”

The Chief Constable did not comply with any aspect of this Order [22].

County Court contempt proceedings

In June 2023 Ms Buzzard-Quashie issued contempt proceedings against the Chief Constable. The case was set down for case management in November when, shortly before the hearing, the first witness statement was served by the police. It came, not from an officer, but from a civilian Data Protection Officer asserting all relevant BWV had already been disclosed (this remained the Chief Constable’s position until shortly before the Court of Appeal hearing in late October 2025).

In March 2024 the contempt application was heard and dismissed by HHJ Genn who decided Ms Buzzard-Quashie had not satisfied her to the appropriate criminal standard (required for both civil and criminal contempt). HHJ Genn ruled that Ms Buzzard-Quashie’s application faced several impediments: (1) there was no penal order notice attached to the original county court order; (2) the Chief Constable could not be personally liable in contempt for the acts / omissions of his employees; and (3) there was no deliberate intention on his part not to comply with the order, or to interfere with the administration of justice [30].

Ms Buzzard-Quashie applied for permission to appeal. Leave was refused by HHJ Genn but granted by Lewison LJ. Thereafter, the Chief Constable sought to rely on fresh evidence in the form of a statement from a Chief Superintendent which repeated the earlier statement of the Data Protection Officer that the footage had been “automatically deleted” and that all remaining footage had been already disclosed [34]. Ms Buzzard-Quashie remained unconvinced.

Discovery of undisclosed BWV

Shortly before the Court of Appeal listing, the Chief Constable applied to rely on two further statements from a police lawyer which explained further BWV had since been discovered. Consequently, all previous representations about the state of BWV disclosure were factually incorrect. The statements explained that those representing Ms Buzzard-Quashie had obtained and analysed police audit logs from the original arresting officers. These logs revealed when and how the BWV was uploaded. The force Data Protection Officer further explained how two new files for one of the arresting officers have been identified but these files were saved against an incorrect occurrence number and would not have been identified using a “standard” search. It transpired that the BWV search did not use the arresting officers’ names but an occurrence number (which turned out to be wrong) [36]. A further third video was also located from a separate officer (ultimately five additional video clips were discovered).[1]

Facing incontrovertible evidence which contradicted earlier statements, the Chief Constable conceded the appeal and issued an apology to Ms Buzzard-Quashie.

The Court of Appeal’s Judgment

Despite the Chief Constable’s concession, the Court of Appeal took the opportunity to set out in detail the law and procedure relating to contempt proceedings, useful for anyone wishing to better understand the proper application of contempt proceedings in the civil courts [50 to 75]. In summary, the Appeal Court held:

(1) Nature of the breach. For contempt, there is no requirement to show that breaching a court order is wilful, deliberate or contumelious, nor to show an intention to interfere with the administration of justice [64]. Not even subjective understanding of the order by the contemnor is required. Instead, the starting point is whether the order had been breached [68 to 69].

(2) Penal notice. A penal notice is not an essential pre-requisite to a finding of contempt. The presence or otherwise of a penal notice is instead relevant to sanction. CPR 81.4, which specifies a requirement for a penal notice, relates only to contempt committal proceedings and not to the ultimate finding of contempt [87 to 88].

(3) Chief Constable’s accountability. HHJ Genn had erred in ruling Chief Constables could not, as a matter of law, be liable in contempt for the acts and omissions of their employees. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 Schedule 2 Paragraph 2, states Chief Constables are a corporation sole. Accordingly, no distinction could be drawn between a Chief Constable and the actions and omissions of his employees (police officers, lawyers or data protection officers) [77, 80]. The Chief Constable had sought to rely upon the recent High Court authority of Bush v Chief Constable of Northamptonshire [2024] EWHC 690 (KB) to deny liability in contempt, however the Court of Appeal declared that case had been decided in error and instead referred (and deferred) to M v Home Office [1994] UKHL 5 [1994] 1 AC 377 [78, 83].

Information and data management – takeaways

(1) The impact of the ICO. The Court placed significant weight on the role and intervention of the ICO and the failure of the Chief Constable to comply with ICO directions [15 to 16]. At [23] Fraser LJ said: “Both the ICO, and by that stage the court, had ordered that this material be produced, yet this had still not happened.” On the face of the Judgment, it is unclear specifically what powers the ICO were exercising in “ordering” disclosure of the BWV, but the Commissioner (IC) has powers under s142 DPA 2018 to issue Information Notices and s145 allows the IC to apply for a court order specifying the form, timing and place for production. S51 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 also empowers the IC to seek documents and information from a public authority.  Whatever powers were exercised, the Court’s dissatisfaction with the lack of compliance with the SAR and then the ICO directions is clear from the Judgment, and all responding to SARs and information requests from the ICO should not underestimate the weight the Court will attach to ICO directions in future cases.

(2) Data management, handling and audit systems. Despite the sustained involvement of the Chief Constable’s Data Protection Officer, his systems were plainly found wanting and for an extensive four-year period. The Court criticised searches for BWV being limited to merely the incident number, instead stating it would be more obvious for material to be searched via arresting officers’ names [36]. Additionally, it appears that the BWV was only ultimately discovered following the direct involvement of Counsel searching audit logs. The Court also criticised the Force for only conducting comprehensive searches in the immediate run-up to the Appeal. Putting these observations together, this would suggest respondents to SARs would do well to consider making evidence recoverable via a variety of means and ensuring robust and multi-faceted searches are carried out at the earliest opportunity. Recording steps taken to obtain data, in response to SARs, may assist in responding to future accusations that searches have been inadequate.

(3) Recipients of SARs should closely monitor compliance with ICO directions and court orders. Considering the weight placed upon ICO directions by the Court, Chief Constables and other recipients of SARs should have vigorous systems of oversight to monitor how their relevant bodies are complying with SARs / ICO directions. Moreover, the failure of the force to respond to a court order in this case, ultimately resulted in the Chief Constable being held in contempt. The consequences of failing to monitor court orders and ICO directions could therefore not be clearer.

Finally, in a decision dated 20 November 2025, the Court of Appeal fined the Chief Constable Ivan Balhatchet £50,000. Fraser LJ noted a prison sentence would not be appropriate as “the vast majority of what has occurred has been done by those who act on his behalf, not by him in his personal capacity”. The Court also acknowledged that the fine would be paid out of the Northamptonshire budget impacting front line policing.[1]

Matthew Simpson is a barrister at 5 Essex Chambers.

[1] Fraser LJ reported at: BBC news