Durham County Council v Dunn [2012] EWCA Civ 1654
In this case, the Court of Appeal laid down useful guidelines for courts dealing with this kind of problem. The Claimant was a resident at Aycliffe Young People’s Centre in Newton Aycliffe between 1980 and 1984, which was run by the Defendant council. He made a claim for damages in respect of assaults alleged to have been committed by staff at the Centre when he was there in the early 1980s. At first the Defendant would only disclose his personal records from Aycliffe, but at a case management conference, they were ordered by a District Judge to provide further disclosure, providing certain parts of the records were redacted. This order was overturned on appeal. The judge ordered that all records should be disclosed as unredacted. The Council appealed to the Court of Appeal. Kay LJ said that it was misleading to refer to a duty to protect data as if it were a category of exemption from disclosure or inspection, and the Data Protection Act 1998 was a distraction in these circumstances. The true position was that Part 31 of the Civil Procedure Rules, read as a whole, enabled and required the court to excuse disclosure or inspection on public interest grounds. There was no longer any public interest immunity attaching to social services records. Section 35 of the 1998 Act exempted a data controller from the non-disclosure provisions where disclosure was required in the context of litigation. In effect, it left it to the court to determine the issue by the application of the appropriate balancing exercise under the umbrella of the CPR, whereupon the court’s decision impacted upon the operation of disclosure under the 1998 Act.
In this case, the Court of Appeal laid down useful guidelines for courts dealing with this kind of problem. The Claimant was a resident at Aycliffe Young People’s Centre in Newton Aycliffe between 1980 and 1984, which was run by the Defendant council. He made a claim for damages in respect of assaults alleged to have been committed by staff at the Centre when he was there in the early 1980s. At first the Defendant would only disclose his personal records from Aycliffe, but at a case management conference, they were ordered by a District Judge to provide further disclosure, providing certain parts of the records were redacted. This order was overturned on appeal. The judge ordered that all records should be disclosed as unredacted. The Council appealed to the Court of Appeal. Kay LJ said that it was misleading to refer to a duty to protect data as if it were a category of exemption from disclosure or inspection, and the Data Protection Act 1998 was a distraction in these circumstances. The true position was that Part 31 of the Civil Procedure Rules, read as a whole, enabled and required the court to excuse disclosure or inspection on public interest grounds. There was no longer any public interest immunity attaching to social services records. Section 35 of the 1998 Act exempted a data controller from the non-disclosure provisions where disclosure was required in the context of litigation. In effect, it left it to the court to determine the issue by the application of the appropriate balancing exercise under the umbrella of the CPR, whereupon the court’s decision impacted upon the operation of disclosure under the 1998 Act.