Chief Constable in contempt of court following body-worn video disclosure

An article by data protection specialist Jon Baines highlights an extraordinary judgment by the Court of Appeal in the case Buzzard-Quashie v Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police, in which the Chief Constable was forced to admit civil contempt of court. The admission followed the discovery of body-worn video camera footage that the police force had repeatedly and formally insisted did not exist, including in proceedings before the lower courts.

The appellant, Ms Buzzard-Quashie, had been arrested in 2021 and sought copies of the body-worn footage after complaining about the arrest. Although the charge was dropped, Baines writes that the force made only piecemeal disclosure before claiming that no further footage existed or that any remaining footage had been destroyed.

After the force failed to comply with an instruction from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Ms Buzzard-Quashie obtained an order from the Brentford County Court requiring the force to disclose the footage or provide an explanation from a high-ranking officer. Remarkably, the force failed to comply with any element of this order, leading to contempt proceedings in the High Court, where the Chief Constable maintained under oath that all footage had been produced and no other footage existed.

However, ahead of the Court of Appeal hearing, the force admitted that the footage did still exist, conceding that its previous searches had been manifestly inadequate. The Court of Appeal found that the Chief Constable had not only failed to comply with the County Court order but had also advanced a wholly erroneous factual case before both the lower court and the Court of Appeal itself.

Baines concludes that the judgment is notable for highlighting the extreme difficulty Ms Buzzard-Quashie faced in vindicating her rights, as the police force felt able to disregard both the ICO and a direct court order. The issue of sanction for the admitted contempt has been reserved for a future hearing. The police force has referred itself to the Independent Office of Police Conduct, a referral which the Court of Appeal reinforced as part of its own order.

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