ICO corrects report on sacked policeman
Information Commissioner Gitanjali Gutierrez said her position on an alleged breach of public access to information legislation by a police officer was “presented incorrectly” in an article in yesterday’s The Royal Gazette.
The newspaper reported on Thursday about the dismissal of BPS Sergeant Travis Powell on January 16 after a disciplinary panel found him guilty of gross misconduct.
The policeman had revealed the identity of a Pati requester to former police commissioner Stephen Corbishley in June 2020 and was aware that Mr Corbishley then disclosed it to another officer.
Mr Powell, who joined the police almost 25 years ago, insisted in a statement this week that he acted lawfully at all times.
The Gazette reported on what it understood to be arguments put forward in Mr Powell’s defence by his lawyer, Bradley Houlston, including pointing to a section of the Pati Act which provides an exception to the general obligation to keep the identity of a requester confidential, when the identity is disclosed to someone “required” to deal with the request.
The newspaper reported that it believed the lawyer had said both the Department of Public Prosecutions and the Information Commissioner’s Office were satisfied that the section of the legislation was applicable in this case.
However, the Information Commissioner’s Office said in a statement yesterday that Ms Gutierrez was not contacted before Thursday’s article was published, adding: “Unfortunately, the Information Commissioner’s position on this matter is presented incorrectly.”
The statement said: “In February 2024, counsel for the officer sought an opinion from the Information Commissioner to confirm that, based on section 12 of the Pati Act, the officer had been entitled to disclose the name of the Pati requester to the former Commissioner of Police.
“In her response e-mail to the officer’s counsel, in March 2024, Information Commissioner Gutierrez only confirmed that the correct provision of the Pati Act had been identified.
“Information Commissioner Gutierrez expressly wrote to the officer’s counsel that she could not comment on the application of this provision [section 12 of the Pati Act] to the specific officer’s conduct in that matter because she ‘cannot provide what would essentially be a decision on the correctness under the Pati Act of an information officer’s actions in the context of the handling of a particular request’.”
The statement said Ms Gutierrez told the lawyer she was “only able to make these determinations in the context of a review and decision in accordance with part 6 of the Pati Act”.
It added that the Information Commissioner had oversight of public authorities’ compliance with the requirements of the Pati Act, but it was beyond her statutory mandate to “opine on internal processes or human resource decisions made by public authorities to manage these requirements".
The Gazette is happy to set the record straight, to apologise to the Information Commissioner, and to make clear it was not present at Mr Powell’s in-camera disciplinary proceedings.
Parts of Thursday’s article were based on the newspaper’s understanding of documents it had seen in relation to Mr Powell’s defence and it further apologises to Mr Houlston if it misrepresented any part of his submissions.
The Pati requester identified by Mr Powell was Pc Robert Butterfield, who gave permission to the Gazette to identify him as the applicant in any reporting on this matter.
Pc Butterfield said yesterday it was unfortunate that Mr Powell had to be dismissed, but he understood why Darrin Simons, the Commissioner of Police, recommended that course of action to the panel.
Mr Houlston, of Carey Olsen, said the law firm did not comment on its cases.
• To read the statement from the Information Commissioner’s Office in full, see Related Media
• On occasion The Royal Gazette may decide to not allow comments on a story that we deem may inflame sensitivities. As we are legally liable for any libellous or defamatory comments made on our website, this move is for our protection as well as that of our readers
