CHESTER COUNCIL STILL REFUSING FOI REQUESTS: MONEY TAKEN FROM THE PUBLIC PURSE
CHESTER COUNCIL STILL REFUSING TO COMPLY WITH THE LAW BY DENYING FOI REQUESTS FROM MEMBERS OF PUBLIC RE : MONEY TAKEN FROM THE PUBLIC PURSE. See link below
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/court_costs_5…
Justice Watch URGE all justice seekers to put in the same request via the WHAT DO THEY KNOW WEBSITE. Let's force this council to account. Let Justice Watch know the outcome.
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Background Story Below
LETTER SENT BY JUSTICE WATCH TO THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER AFTER ONE OF OUR ADMINS ARE THREATENED WITH PRISON BY COUNCIL FOR MAKING A FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST.
Dear information commissioner
I wish to make a complaint about a public authority who is not only unlawfully withholding information from me but has also refused me this information in an oppressive and very alarming manner by using what can only be described as bullying tactics in order to force me to decease with my request for the said information!
On 12th September 2016 by way of the What Do They Know website I sent a FOI request to Cheshire West and Chester Council. You can view the request on the website, however for your convenience I have copied and pasted my request and CWaC's responses below:
Dear Cheshire West and Chester Council
Can you please tell me if you are legally entitled pay for ( from the public purse ) the private legal fees of any of your officers or any other persons employed by CWaC .
Yours faithfully,
Zelda Davies
....................................................................................................................
Dear Ms Davies
Thank you for your email of 12 September 2016.
Please be advised that the FOIA provides the general right of access to information held (i.e. recorded) by a public authority, it does not oblige public authorities to answer a question unless recorded information exists. It is not clear from your email what specific recorded information you are requesting.
We would be grateful therefore if you would clearly define what recorded information you are seeking. Your request remains on hold until we receive a clarified request.
Yours sincerely
Ruth Winson
Solutions Team
...................................................................................................................
Dear FOI West,
further to my request please provide the following data.
[a] In 2015 Your Council sued a member of the public in the high court under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Please Confirm which authority it is that permits your Council to privately sue members of the public under that act.
[b] In the same case your Council funded the private legal fees of the two officers and two elected members who privately prosecuted the same member of the public.Please confirm which authority it is that enabled your Council to fund its officers and elected members private legal fees.
[c] Please confirm by what means your Council financed its own private prosecution and those of its two officers and two elected members. I am aware Councils may raise insurance indemnities to defend their officers, staff and elected members but never to fund those individuals private prosecutions.
[d] Please confirm how many times since its formation in 2009 your Council has funded its own and its officers, staff, and elected members private prosecutions .
Yours sincerely,
Zelda Davies
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Case Reference: 101004520341
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RE: Your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
Case Reference: 101004520341
Dear Ms Davies
Thank you for your email of 2 November 2016.
It will be treated as a request within the meaning of the Act: this means that we will send you a full response within 20 working days, either supplying you with the information which you want, or explaining to you why we cannot supply it.
If we need any further clarification or there is any problem we will be in touch.
In the meantime if you wish to discuss this further please contact FOI WEST. It would be helpful if you could quote the log number.
Solutions Team
Cheshire West and Chester Council
Dear Ms Davies
The Council has considered your request for information under the FOIA, reference 4520341.
The request relates to High Court proceedings brought by the Council against Robert Pickthall under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
The proceedings were brought because of an excessive and persistent campaign by him against officers and councillors involving ill-judged communications and online posts in which he made allegations of dishonesty, corruption and criminality. The Council did not bring a prosecution against Robert Pickthall.
Your request for information is refused under section 14 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as it is vexatious.
The Council holds information relating to your request. However, under section 14(1) of the FOIA the Council need not comply with a request for information if it is vexatious. There is no obligation to explain why the request is vexatious. However the ICO considers it good practice to give reasons.
The purpose of section 14 is to protect public authorities from exposure to a disproportionate burden or an unjustified level of distress, disruption or irritation in handling information requests.
In reaching this decision, the Council has considered ICO Guidance “Dealing with vexatious requests” and the decision in the case of Information Commissioner v. Devon County Council & Dransfield (2012) where the emphasis on protecting a local authority’s resources from unreasonable requests was acknowledged. Public authorities are free to refuse a request as vexatious based on their own assessment of all the relevant circumstances.
Reasons
The Council considers that your request is vexatious because in July 2015 the High Court granted Cheshire West and Chester Council’s application for an injunction against Robert Pickthall under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The order includes prohibitions on him:
o Directly or indirectly contacting or attempting to contact any Cheshire West and Chester Council employee or Councillor by any means;
o Publishing to the public at large by any means any allegation that any employee, former employee, officer or former officer
of Cheshire West and Chester Council is dishonest or is engaged in or is suspected of being engaged in corruption or criminality of any kind.
He was given a suspended prison sentence in December 2015 for breach of the injunction order made by the High Court. Following further breaches of this order, on 20 July 2016 he was sentenced by a High Court judge to three months imprisonment. The judge also struck out three claims brought by Mr Pickthall against Cheshire West and Chester Council as being totally without merit. The Court also ordered Mr Pickthall to pay the costs of the legal action.
We would advise you that the Injunction Order also states:
“ANY OTHER PERSON WHO KNOWS OF THIS ORDER AND DOES ANYTHING WHICH HELPS OR PERMITS THE DEFENDANT, ROBERT PICKTHALL, TO BREACH THE TERMS OF THIS ORDER MAY ALSO BE HELD IN CONTEMPT OF COURT AND MAY BE IMPRISONED, FINED OR HAVE THEIR ASSETS SEIZED”
In considering your request, the Council has made the assumption that you are the same Zelda Davies known to be a friend of Mr Pickthall. Details of your support for him have been published, including on the Chester Chronicle news site,
.The Council has received similar enquiries about the funding of this
case from other parties. Bearing in mind that a disclosure under FOI is a disclosure to the public at large, and that you have a known connection to Mr Pickthall, the Council considers that your request is vexatious.
If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been handled you can request a review by writing to the Solutions Team within 40 working days from the date of the Council’s response.
You are entitled to a review by the Council if:
• You are dissatisfied with the Council’s explanation of why the application was not dealt with within the 20 working day time limit.
• All the information requested is not being disclosed and you
have not received an explanation why some information is not being
disclosed.
• A reason for the disclosures under the request being refused
is not received.
• You consider that exemptions have been wrongly applied,
and/or
• You consider that a fee has been wrongly applied.
Please set out your grounds for seeking a review together with what specific part of your request those grounds apply to and the outcome you are seeking. The Council reserves the right to ask you for clarification of the grounds for your review request if the grounds are not clear, and to delay commencing the review if such grounds are not provided.
The Solutions Team can be contacted by email via:
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
IIn their response to me CWaC first state that they will supply me with the information I have requested or they will explain why they cannot do so, they do not state that for any reason they simply WILL NOT supply the information!
CWaC are right in their assumption about my request being in relation to a Mr Pickthall and they are correct in their assertions of my connection with him. CWaC go on about the proceedings against Mr Pickthall despite this having no relevance whatsoever to my FOI request. Admittedly I erroneously stated that CWaC has brought a private prosecution against Mr P and this was quickly picked up on as they had already attempted to bring a prosecution against him in 2013 which was unsuccessful due to lack of any evidence! the fact that CWaC brought proceedings against Mr Pickthall in a civil court as opposed a prosecution in a criminal court bears no relevance on the matter and makes no difference to my FOI request as the request is still in relation to the costs of the case!
CWaC say their reason for denying my request is that it is vexatious. This was a first time request which I was polite in asking for. They state that they have considered ICO guidance on dealing with vexatious requests and they go on to quote the Dransfield case where the emphasis on protecting the local authorities resources from unreasonable requests was acknowledged and public authorities are free to refuse a request as vexatious based on THEIR OWN ASSESSMENT of all the relevant circumstances. CWaC then give the reason for my request as being vexatious and to the ICO I say this on those reasons:
They again go into the Pickthall case despite it having no bearing on my request. I do not ask for any details of the circumstances of the case, I do not state nor imply anything whatsoever about CWaC being dishonest or corrupt nor do I make any allegations of corruption or criminality of any kind at all! I have not made repeated requests for the information,I have not spoken to, written to or conversed in any manner with anyone from CWaC nor have I made any attempt to contact any employee at any time except for this request made on a public website therefore I ask how it can be conceived by CWaC that my request is vexatious!
The ICO definition of a vexatious request :
If the request is likely to cause disproportionate or unjustifiable level of disruption, irritation or distress to the public authority.
Based on the ICOs own definition of vexatious it is clear that my request does not fall into that remit and appears to demonstrate that by making such a statement against me CWaC appear to have done nothing other than shockingly used the website for a personal rant about Mr Pickthall. By CWaCs own admittance to holding the information which I seek and their own admittance that other members of the public have been requesting the same information (which demonstrates a public interest in the matter) not to mention the fact that the information which we seek ought by law to be available for public viewing on their website ( yet it is not) it cannot be conceived that my FOI request is anything other than genuine.
CWaC then continue their rant by bullying me with threats which they refer to as advice.(emphasized by printing in all uppercase letters ) They imply that as a friend of Mr Pickthall who is aware of the injunction against him and its terms that I am helping him and breaching his injunction which clearly I am not as my request relates only to the costings in the case! I ask you to again look at their clear threat to me written below :
“ANY OTHER PERSON WHO KNOWS OF THIS ORDER (meaning me as they refer to me by name as knowing of the order) AND DOES ANYTHING WHICH HELPS OR PERMITS THE DEFENDANT, ROBERT PICKTHALL, TO BREACH THE TERMS OF THIS ORDER (which they imply that I am doing by stating that my request is vexatious on such grounds) MAY ALSO BE HELD IN CONTEMPT OF COURT AND MAY BE IMPRISONED, FINED OR HAVE THEIR ASSETS SEIZED” This statement by CWaC cannot be misconstrued as anything other than a direct threat to me, bullying and scare tactics to force me into abandoning my request for the information that they continue to unlawfully withhold from the public!
CWaC state that they assume I am a friend of Mr Pickthall and that details of my support for him have been published on the Chester Chronicle news site which is correct. I should add that I am also an administrator for the public watchdog group JUSTICE WATCH and I am breaking no laws by bringing matters of interest to the attention of the public, nor am I breaching any court injunction by speaking to the press about the case of Mr Pickthall. In suggesting so CWaC are dangerously near to breaching my rights under article 10 freedom of expression and information and I would suggest that they are also bordering on the threshold of harassment themselves in their attempt to cause me alarm and distress by such threats!
CWaC admit in their response that they have had other similar FOI requests about the Pickthall case from other parties, this clearly demonstrates the public interest in the case. What CWaC do no state however is that they have not complied with their duty to disclose the information to those other parties, that they have either denied them the information or informed them (wrongly) that the case is still in progress and therefore they cannot grant the request. At the time of one enquirers request I can categorically confirm that the case was not in progress and had been concluded, I can confidently state this as I was in attendance at the concluding court hearing!
To state that my request is vexatious simply because I have a known connection to Mr Pickthall does not fall within the lawful remit of vexatious and it is clear that CWaC have abused their powers of discretion in assessing the relevant circumstances of my FOI request to avoid providing the public with the information that I seek!
The ICO definition of vexatious : If a request is likely to cause disproportionate or an unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress to the public authority.
My first time request, politely written is not disproportionate, does not cause unjustifiable disruption and cannot be perceived as either irritating or distressing to the public authority therefore the ICO must surely agree that there are no grounds to call me vexatious.
Although I have requested an internal review I and my colleagues at JUSTICE WATCH feel that due to the bullying tactics used by CWaC and even more concerning the threats of imprisonment etc this response by CWaC to avoid answering a perfectly reasonable FOI request is a matter for the attention of the ICO
We look forward to your response at your earliest convenience
Regards
Ms Zelda Davies on behalf of JUSTICE WATCH and the public interest.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/court_costs_5…
Justice Watch URGE all justice seekers to put in the same request via the WHAT DO THEY KNOW WEBSITE. Let's force this council to account. Let Justice Watch know the outcome.
.........................................................................................
Background Story Below
LETTER SENT BY JUSTICE WATCH TO THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER AFTER ONE OF OUR ADMINS ARE THREATENED WITH PRISON BY COUNCIL FOR MAKING A FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST.
Dear information commissioner
I wish to make a complaint about a public authority who is not only unlawfully withholding information from me but has also refused me this information in an oppressive and very alarming manner by using what can only be described as bullying tactics in order to force me to decease with my request for the said information!
On 12th September 2016 by way of the What Do They Know website I sent a FOI request to Cheshire West and Chester Council. You can view the request on the website, however for your convenience I have copied and pasted my request and CWaC's responses below:
Dear Cheshire West and Chester Council
Can you please tell me if you are legally entitled pay for ( from the public purse ) the private legal fees of any of your officers or any other persons employed by CWaC .
Yours faithfully,
Zelda Davies
....................................................................................................................
Dear Ms Davies
Thank you for your email of 12 September 2016.
Please be advised that the FOIA provides the general right of access to information held (i.e. recorded) by a public authority, it does not oblige public authorities to answer a question unless recorded information exists. It is not clear from your email what specific recorded information you are requesting.
We would be grateful therefore if you would clearly define what recorded information you are seeking. Your request remains on hold until we receive a clarified request.
Yours sincerely
Ruth Winson
Solutions Team
...................................................................................................................
Dear FOI West,
further to my request please provide the following data.
[a] In 2015 Your Council sued a member of the public in the high court under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Please Confirm which authority it is that permits your Council to privately sue members of the public under that act.
[b] In the same case your Council funded the private legal fees of the two officers and two elected members who privately prosecuted the same member of the public.Please confirm which authority it is that enabled your Council to fund its officers and elected members private legal fees.
[c] Please confirm by what means your Council financed its own private prosecution and those of its two officers and two elected members. I am aware Councils may raise insurance indemnities to defend their officers, staff and elected members but never to fund those individuals private prosecutions.
[d] Please confirm how many times since its formation in 2009 your Council has funded its own and its officers, staff, and elected members private prosecutions .
Yours sincerely,
Zelda Davies
....................................................................................................................
Case Reference: 101004520341
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
RE: Your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
Case Reference: 101004520341
Dear Ms Davies
Thank you for your email of 2 November 2016.
It will be treated as a request within the meaning of the Act: this means that we will send you a full response within 20 working days, either supplying you with the information which you want, or explaining to you why we cannot supply it.
If we need any further clarification or there is any problem we will be in touch.
In the meantime if you wish to discuss this further please contact FOI WEST. It would be helpful if you could quote the log number.
Solutions Team
Cheshire West and Chester Council
Dear Ms Davies
The Council has considered your request for information under the FOIA, reference 4520341.
The request relates to High Court proceedings brought by the Council against Robert Pickthall under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
The proceedings were brought because of an excessive and persistent campaign by him against officers and councillors involving ill-judged communications and online posts in which he made allegations of dishonesty, corruption and criminality. The Council did not bring a prosecution against Robert Pickthall.
Your request for information is refused under section 14 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as it is vexatious.
The Council holds information relating to your request. However, under section 14(1) of the FOIA the Council need not comply with a request for information if it is vexatious. There is no obligation to explain why the request is vexatious. However the ICO considers it good practice to give reasons.
The purpose of section 14 is to protect public authorities from exposure to a disproportionate burden or an unjustified level of distress, disruption or irritation in handling information requests.
In reaching this decision, the Council has considered ICO Guidance “Dealing with vexatious requests” and the decision in the case of Information Commissioner v. Devon County Council & Dransfield (2012) where the emphasis on protecting a local authority’s resources from unreasonable requests was acknowledged. Public authorities are free to refuse a request as vexatious based on their own assessment of all the relevant circumstances.
Reasons
The Council considers that your request is vexatious because in July 2015 the High Court granted Cheshire West and Chester Council’s application for an injunction against Robert Pickthall under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The order includes prohibitions on him:
o Directly or indirectly contacting or attempting to contact any Cheshire West and Chester Council employee or Councillor by any means;
o Publishing to the public at large by any means any allegation that any employee, former employee, officer or former officer
of Cheshire West and Chester Council is dishonest or is engaged in or is suspected of being engaged in corruption or criminality of any kind.
He was given a suspended prison sentence in December 2015 for breach of the injunction order made by the High Court. Following further breaches of this order, on 20 July 2016 he was sentenced by a High Court judge to three months imprisonment. The judge also struck out three claims brought by Mr Pickthall against Cheshire West and Chester Council as being totally without merit. The Court also ordered Mr Pickthall to pay the costs of the legal action.
We would advise you that the Injunction Order also states:
“ANY OTHER PERSON WHO KNOWS OF THIS ORDER AND DOES ANYTHING WHICH HELPS OR PERMITS THE DEFENDANT, ROBERT PICKTHALL, TO BREACH THE TERMS OF THIS ORDER MAY ALSO BE HELD IN CONTEMPT OF COURT AND MAY BE IMPRISONED, FINED OR HAVE THEIR ASSETS SEIZED”
In considering your request, the Council has made the assumption that you are the same Zelda Davies known to be a friend of Mr Pickthall. Details of your support for him have been published, including on the Chester Chronicle news site,
.The Council has received similar enquiries about the funding of this
case from other parties. Bearing in mind that a disclosure under FOI is a disclosure to the public at large, and that you have a known connection to Mr Pickthall, the Council considers that your request is vexatious.
If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been handled you can request a review by writing to the Solutions Team within 40 working days from the date of the Council’s response.
You are entitled to a review by the Council if:
• You are dissatisfied with the Council’s explanation of why the application was not dealt with within the 20 working day time limit.
• All the information requested is not being disclosed and you
have not received an explanation why some information is not being
disclosed.
• A reason for the disclosures under the request being refused
is not received.
• You consider that exemptions have been wrongly applied,
and/or
• You consider that a fee has been wrongly applied.
Please set out your grounds for seeking a review together with what specific part of your request those grounds apply to and the outcome you are seeking. The Council reserves the right to ask you for clarification of the grounds for your review request if the grounds are not clear, and to delay commencing the review if such grounds are not provided.
The Solutions Team can be contacted by email via:
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
IIn their response to me CWaC first state that they will supply me with the information I have requested or they will explain why they cannot do so, they do not state that for any reason they simply WILL NOT supply the information!
CWaC are right in their assumption about my request being in relation to a Mr Pickthall and they are correct in their assertions of my connection with him. CWaC go on about the proceedings against Mr Pickthall despite this having no relevance whatsoever to my FOI request. Admittedly I erroneously stated that CWaC has brought a private prosecution against Mr P and this was quickly picked up on as they had already attempted to bring a prosecution against him in 2013 which was unsuccessful due to lack of any evidence! the fact that CWaC brought proceedings against Mr Pickthall in a civil court as opposed a prosecution in a criminal court bears no relevance on the matter and makes no difference to my FOI request as the request is still in relation to the costs of the case!
CWaC say their reason for denying my request is that it is vexatious. This was a first time request which I was polite in asking for. They state that they have considered ICO guidance on dealing with vexatious requests and they go on to quote the Dransfield case where the emphasis on protecting the local authorities resources from unreasonable requests was acknowledged and public authorities are free to refuse a request as vexatious based on THEIR OWN ASSESSMENT of all the relevant circumstances. CWaC then give the reason for my request as being vexatious and to the ICO I say this on those reasons:
They again go into the Pickthall case despite it having no bearing on my request. I do not ask for any details of the circumstances of the case, I do not state nor imply anything whatsoever about CWaC being dishonest or corrupt nor do I make any allegations of corruption or criminality of any kind at all! I have not made repeated requests for the information,I have not spoken to, written to or conversed in any manner with anyone from CWaC nor have I made any attempt to contact any employee at any time except for this request made on a public website therefore I ask how it can be conceived by CWaC that my request is vexatious!
The ICO definition of a vexatious request :
If the request is likely to cause disproportionate or unjustifiable level of disruption, irritation or distress to the public authority.
Based on the ICOs own definition of vexatious it is clear that my request does not fall into that remit and appears to demonstrate that by making such a statement against me CWaC appear to have done nothing other than shockingly used the website for a personal rant about Mr Pickthall. By CWaCs own admittance to holding the information which I seek and their own admittance that other members of the public have been requesting the same information (which demonstrates a public interest in the matter) not to mention the fact that the information which we seek ought by law to be available for public viewing on their website ( yet it is not) it cannot be conceived that my FOI request is anything other than genuine.
CWaC then continue their rant by bullying me with threats which they refer to as advice.(emphasized by printing in all uppercase letters ) They imply that as a friend of Mr Pickthall who is aware of the injunction against him and its terms that I am helping him and breaching his injunction which clearly I am not as my request relates only to the costings in the case! I ask you to again look at their clear threat to me written below :
“ANY OTHER PERSON WHO KNOWS OF THIS ORDER (meaning me as they refer to me by name as knowing of the order) AND DOES ANYTHING WHICH HELPS OR PERMITS THE DEFENDANT, ROBERT PICKTHALL, TO BREACH THE TERMS OF THIS ORDER (which they imply that I am doing by stating that my request is vexatious on such grounds) MAY ALSO BE HELD IN CONTEMPT OF COURT AND MAY BE IMPRISONED, FINED OR HAVE THEIR ASSETS SEIZED” This statement by CWaC cannot be misconstrued as anything other than a direct threat to me, bullying and scare tactics to force me into abandoning my request for the information that they continue to unlawfully withhold from the public!
CWaC state that they assume I am a friend of Mr Pickthall and that details of my support for him have been published on the Chester Chronicle news site which is correct. I should add that I am also an administrator for the public watchdog group JUSTICE WATCH and I am breaking no laws by bringing matters of interest to the attention of the public, nor am I breaching any court injunction by speaking to the press about the case of Mr Pickthall. In suggesting so CWaC are dangerously near to breaching my rights under article 10 freedom of expression and information and I would suggest that they are also bordering on the threshold of harassment themselves in their attempt to cause me alarm and distress by such threats!
CWaC admit in their response that they have had other similar FOI requests about the Pickthall case from other parties, this clearly demonstrates the public interest in the case. What CWaC do no state however is that they have not complied with their duty to disclose the information to those other parties, that they have either denied them the information or informed them (wrongly) that the case is still in progress and therefore they cannot grant the request. At the time of one enquirers request I can categorically confirm that the case was not in progress and had been concluded, I can confidently state this as I was in attendance at the concluding court hearing!
To state that my request is vexatious simply because I have a known connection to Mr Pickthall does not fall within the lawful remit of vexatious and it is clear that CWaC have abused their powers of discretion in assessing the relevant circumstances of my FOI request to avoid providing the public with the information that I seek!
The ICO definition of vexatious : If a request is likely to cause disproportionate or an unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress to the public authority.
My first time request, politely written is not disproportionate, does not cause unjustifiable disruption and cannot be perceived as either irritating or distressing to the public authority therefore the ICO must surely agree that there are no grounds to call me vexatious.
Although I have requested an internal review I and my colleagues at JUSTICE WATCH feel that due to the bullying tactics used by CWaC and even more concerning the threats of imprisonment etc this response by CWaC to avoid answering a perfectly reasonable FOI request is a matter for the attention of the ICO
We look forward to your response at your earliest convenience
Regards
Ms Zelda Davies on behalf of JUSTICE WATCH and the public interest.
