Met Police agrees to delete information after referral of primary school age child under Prevent programme

The Metropolitan Police has agreed to delete information relating to a referral of a primary school age child under the government’s Prevent programme, and other referring authorities have also agreed to correct and delete the relevant records.

Law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn (DPG) said its client was concerned that the records could be used against them in the future, even though they were based on a mistake.

They relied on the Data Protection Act and Human Rights Act to secure their deletion including from the National Police Counter Terrorism Headquarters Prevent Case Management database, the existence of which was only recently made public.

DPG said that without deletion, such records would have been retained for at least six years under the police’s national retention assessment criteria policy, which does not differentiate between adult and child records.

The police had refused to give any assurance that such records would not be used in relation to the child or would not feature in any Disclosure and Barring Service criminal records checks against them as an adult.

DPG said the facts of the case and the settlement terms were confidential.

Mark Smulian