Essex Police Officer Leaves Details of a Complainant at Stranger’s House

Background

Mr Matthew McConville, the Head of our specialised Data Breach Department at Irvings Law has successfully represented a client in a data breach compensation claim against Essex Police. The identity of the Mr McConville’s client will be named as ‘Mr M’ for the purposes of this blog.

An Essex Police Officer left her pocket notebook at a third party’s address. In summary, Mr M spoke with this said Police Officer within which a complaint was raised by him but later that day, she attended an unknown address to Mr M and unfortunately, she left her pocket notebook at the said property which contained Mr M’s personal details as well as those relating to his complaint. Mr M was notified about this from the said unknown person as they had called him to tell him what had happened. Not long after, Mr M received an apology from the Force.

Representation

Unhappy with this, Mr M approached Mr McConville for specialist advice and without hesitation no win, no fee terms were offered. Once instructed, Mr McConville lodged a formal Letter of Claim to Essex Police as clearly, they left information pertaining to Mr M with a stranger which was acknowledged and apologised for by Essex Police. Mr McConville alleged that Essex Police had breached / invaded Mr M’s privacy under the Human Rights Act, had breached the Data Protection Act 2018/the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well as confidence following their misuse of private information pertaining to Mr M.

Resolution

In response to this, Essex Police admitted the claims brought by Mr M. After this, settlement discussions were had between Mr McConville and Essex Police which culminated in settlement being achieved for Mr M in a sum just below £5,000.00 without Court proceedings being issued and served.