Bridle-ing at a SAR?

a post by Christopher Wright for the Panopticon blog (a blog about information law written by specialist barristers from 11KBW)

Sometimes the Easter Bunny comes bearing mysteriously non-egg shaped gifts to the data protection practitioner. The judgment of the always-worth-reading Warby J in Rudd v Bridle & J&S Bridle Ltd [2019] EWHC 893 (QB) is just such a delivery, albeit that this one appears to contain a high content of asbestos.

The factual background to the case is set out in the judgment in some detail, and it is, frankly, too long, boring and depressing to warrant repetition here. In essence, Dr Rudd is a medical expert on exposure to asbestos. Mr Bridle is a long-standing campaigner on asbestos issues, who takes a heavily divergent view from Dr Rudd and is mostly sceptical of claims about the effects of asbestos exposure. Mr Bridle has been running an almost equally long-standing campaign against Dr Rudd, which including reporting him to the GMC on the grounds of having made false reports in his expert evidence in various legal proceedings. It is clear from the evidence set out in the judgment that Mr Bridle considers that Dr Rudd is part of conspiracy to assist asbestos claimants to recover damages on (in his view) a false basis.

Entirely unsurprisingly, Dr Rudd is unkeen on Mr Bridle’s allegations against him and wished to learn more about what Mr Bridle was doing. He made a subject access request under section 7 DPA, and indeed issued a notice under section 10 DPA 1998. This, on any view, somewhat spiralled. On being told by Mr Bridle that he was not the data controller at all, but rather his company was, a second SAR and notice were issued against the company. The view of the Defendants in response to the issued subsequent claim was that almost all of the data requested was exempt on grounds of legal professional privilege (para 10 of Sch 7), the journalism exemption (section 32) or the regulatory proceedings exemption (section 31). By the time of trial, the data withheld on the basis of the latter two exemptions had been disclosed, but on the basis that it had been properly within the exemptions.

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Hazel’s comment:
I do not as a normal rule bring you items on data protection or, indeed, on other aspects of information law but this case fascinated me not so much for the legal aspects but the personal animosity shown between the two parties.

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