Case Nos: CA-2024-002167 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1230

XGY’s Claims and the Applications To Strike Out/Reverse Summary Judgment

On 4 February 2022, XGY commenced proceedings against the appellants. The claims are pleaded pursuant to the HRA by reference to Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. There are also claims pursuant to the DPA and for misuse of private information and breach of confidence. There is no claim in negligence. The claims seek conventional damages, aggravated damages and exemplary damages.

The claims against the appellants under Articles 2 and 3 are concerned, respectively, with the right to life and the prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Such claims can only be advanced if XGY is or would be a victim of the unlawful act pursuant to section 7 of the HRA. The Particulars of Claim assume that XGY meets the criterion set out in section 7, without spelling this out.

The claims under Articles 2 and 3 are put in two ways. First, it is said that the appellants were in breach of the operational duty under Articles 2 and 3 in respect of the Hampshire disclosure, because they knew or ought to have known of the existence of a real and immediate risk to XGY’s life and/or her physical integrity from the criminal acts of DYP; and that, amongst other things, they failed to take measures within the scope of their powers which, judged reasonably, might have been expected to avoid that risk. It is said that the police failed to protect and/or actively undermined the confidentiality of the Hampshire address by sharing this information with the CPS, contrary to the interests and express wishes of XGY. As against the CPS, it is said that they failed to protect and/or actively undermined the confidentiality of the Hampshire address by sharing this information with the court (and therefore DYP).

Secondly, the claim under Articles 2 and 3 is made by reference to the systemic duty which it is said that both the police and the CPS owed to XGY, to put in place an appropriate system for protecting and sharing sensitive and confidential information in respect of victims of domestic violence. Reliance is placed on the incompatibility of the police’s domestic abuse checklist with the CPS’s case file system. This relates to the alleged failure on the part of the police to pass on to the CPS, in an effective way, XGY’s instruction that her address was confidential.

There is a separate claim under Article 8 in respect of XGY’s right to respect for her private, family and home life. Again, that claim assumes that XGY met the necessary criterion under section 7. There are then two further claims: one for breach of the DPA, which asserts that the address was “personal data” and /or “special category data” within the meaning of sections 3(2) and 10 of the DPA; and a claim that the disclosure of the address was a misuse of and/or unjustified disclosure of private information and a breach of confidence.

Both appellants applied to strike out the claims against them based on the disclosure of the Hampshire address. The CPS did not serve a defence: it was their stated position that they had an immunity from suit because the claim related to something said by an advocate in court. The police served a defence in which, amongst other things, they denied (in some detail) XGY’s status as a victim under section 7. Their primary defence was that the core immunity extended to their provision of the Hampshire address to the CPS.