This page exists to hold archived copies of items of litigation evidence referenced by the FCRB service accessible from http://www.probonodocs.com/fcrb.html. The evidence was procured lawfully and (insofar as local copyright issues may be material) are protected inter alia by the local litigation exemption s.45(1) Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (UK) in addition to any and all other local protections including but not limited to media/journalistic exemptions available to this site. The documents are ordered by the hypothetical sequence of first reference by the letters of claim produced by the service, noting that different circumstances result in different pleadings and possibly different references and thus not all the letters of claim “pleadings” might refer to the same set of evidence. The second document is the critical one as it ties all the others together, as can be seen from the pleadings.
1. ICO-HO-17-August-2013 (zipfile): The Home Office’s data controller registration with the Information Commissioner (“ICO”) , archived.
2. Police-ICO-&-WMPRR (warning: 10 Mb): Correspondence between the ICO and the Home Office acting through the Chief Constables, and an ICO attendance note of a face to face meeting between them; supplied by the ICO following a FOI request. In summary, cutting through the euphemisms such as “non sanction detection”, it seems the police and the ICO have been in unusual agreement (even before S,Marper v UK and since 2007 at the latest) on several propositions: reclassification of non-crime data as cleared-up crimes is unlawful; fabricating criminal records for persons who have not been informed of the accusations and thus do not even know they are defendants is unlawful; and doing so without even providing, as the ICO put it in 2004 and again in 2007, “good objective reasons” is unlawful. The police said they had recommended to the Home Office that such processing must cease, and apparently gave an undertaking to the ICO that it would cease.
2A. Applicant_guide_v3.3_27.08.13: new Home Office guide.
3. DBS-entire-guide-18-August-2013 (zip file): the CRB/DBS’ web site, archived.
4. DBS_privacy_policy_v3: the CRB/DBS’ privacy policy, archived.
5. ICO-ACPO-17-August-2013: (zip file): The ICO registration of the “Association of Chief Police Officers”, archived (as the word Limited is not mentioned it is not entirely clear whether this is the registration of one of the Chief Constables’ private companies such as the one below, or another unincorporated association with unlimited liability). The pleadings charitably assume the first.
6. sictaocpootuk (zip file): The Companies House Webcheck page, archived, of a company naming itself “THE ASSOCIATION OF CHIEF POLICE OFFICERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM”. The word Limited is not mentioned in the name. Assuming the “SIC” is accurate, the company is just another private club or perhaps trade association. It is limited by guarantee rather than shares (this is not sinister but a well-advised and classic MO to limit liability of a private club or trade association while eliminating the possibility of take over). In such companies profits are termed “surpluses”, and losses “deficits”.
7. crime-recording-in-kent-130617: a HMIC report on Kent constabulary.
8. Home-Office-Counting-rules-2011: “User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics”. This sets out categories of crime recording, useful in interpreting the raw data. However the preamble definitions of what counts as a crime per se is far more significant (note “sanction detections” means punished crimes; “non-sanction detections” means unpunished crimes). Some crimes may appear on the Police National computer against the name of the offender; but all of the following crimes may be recorded on police intelligence or local or other databases against the name of the offender and thus may appear as a matter of course on a CRB enhanced disclosure: “been charged or summonsed…(irrespective of any subsequent acquittal at court)”; “Received a Penalty Notice for Disorder”; “offender was too ill or mentally disturbed for proceedings to take place”; “complainant or an essential witness was dead;” “victim refused or unable to give evidence;” “offender under the age of criminal responsibility”; “police or the CPS decided that it would not be in the public interest to proceed”; “time limit of six months for commencing prosecution had been exceeded”; “where the offender dies before proceedings could be initiated or completed;” “where the CPS decides not to prosecute”; Youth Restorative Disposals; convictions; cautions; reprimands; final warnings.
9. home-office-guidance-PNC-v4: Home Office instructions on Police National Computer data purposes, access, etc; partly redacted by the Home Office in contemplation of public viewing.
10. home-office-raw-crime-data-1995-2013 (zip file, warning – 4 Mb): Three Home Office spreadsheets (supplied by the Home Office via FOI request) containing data on “detections”, all of which may be reported on CRB checks. The totals are broken down by force, by category, and by year from 1995 to 2013, so detailed comparative research into individual forces may be undertaken if desired.
11. Home-office-crime-data-analysis: a non-official data analysis of the detections aggregated from the raw data, and associated graph of certain data records. The graph charts over 5 million records of falsely alleged crimes continuing into 2013, any or all of which could be reported in CRB enhanced disclosures at the whim of individual police officers. This is not central to the pleadings, but it may supply a case theory by inference as well as ground (from certain astonishing correlations) further research.
As specified in the police data (or by implication from the other documents set out above, and indeed many others), these records include fixed penalty notices, penalty notices for disorder, youth restorative disposals, informal warnings, imposition of ASBOs, non sanction detections not included in the other categories, etc. As set out in the pleadings, the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court repeatedly have ruled such things are not crimes and do not impugn character and shall not appear on criminal records. For these and other reasons, the pleadings assert such CRB disclosures are contrary to law on multiple heads, and try to provide a means for individuals to seek private remedy against the Home Office (NOT the police) with a written statement of case and detailed submissions (by way of access to justice), but without being placed at risk on costs (by way of equality of arms). Whether or not the pleadings will succeed is by definition a matter for the Courts alone: thus servants of the government have no legal authority or legitimate reason to comment or make decisions on them.
In fairness some of the pre-1998 procedural abuses, such as the brown envelope information to employers and the disclosure of false information to employers prior to or at the same time as disclosure to the individual, are being phased out by Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (September 2012 and June 2013). However the substantive abuses seem essentially untouched. On p27 of a 2010 document at http://www.theftprotect.co.uk apparently authored by rank and file police under the heading “20 THINGS YOU WON’T HEAR AT ACPO THIS WEEK” is an interesting remark: “9. We’ve all been fiddling crime statistics & detections for so long; we’ve forgotten how to do it legitimately”.
