Data Rights Enforcement & Contempt of Court: The Highland Council should be worried about the implications of Buzzard-Quashie.
The recent fascinating case of Nadine Buzzard-Quashie v. Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police [2025] EWCA Civ 1397.
The Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police, Ivan Balhatchet was found in contempt of court & fined £50,000 after failing to comply with a court order under the Data Protection Act obtained by party litigant, Nadine Buzzard-Quashie in County Court in England after they failed to provide her with police body-worn camera footage of her arrest in 2021.
Iain Gould, a solicitor in England who specialises in civil liberties and taking public authorities to task in court wrote such a wonderful article on this recent case that I will point the readers here to his very detailed blog post so you can read about this fabulous outcome at the Court of Appeal…👇
Buzzard-Quashie is a win for data rights enforcement for every individual in the UK.
Albeit an England & Wales Court of Appeal decision, Buzzard-Quashie shows the courts are serious about enforcing their orders in data protection cases & this case's precedent is likely to be influential & persuasive in Scotland.
Nadine Buzzard-Quashie's story is very reminiscent of my own. She put in a tremendous effort to obtain her personal data after allegedly being assaulted during an arrest that later resulted in no charges against her in the end.
Imagine having gone through the ICO complaint process only to be ignored & then having to follow through to get court orders which took her 9 months to obtain, only for Northamptonshire Police to completely ignore all three orders she obtained against them granted by the County Court?
Then to top it off, when she then raised the contempt action against the police for failing to follow those orders, that was denied in the face of clear failure of the police to follow those orders? The appeal overturning that decision is a truly remarkable victory for Nadine Buzzard-Quashie and for every individual's data rights in the UK and she should be congratulated for her determination to see this through! Bravo also to barristers Charlotte Elves & James Leonard KC for taking up the appeal on behalf of Nadine on a pro bono basis. 👏
It's fairly clear to me, many public authorities in the UK are not only institutionally arrogant but, totally indifferent to & dismissive of data protection and individual's rights & so this appeal victory is a real turn up for the books.
Why Buzzard-Quashie presents serious potential problems for the Highland Council.
On 27 October 2025, I raised a second court action at Inverness Sheriff Court against the Assessor of the Highland & Western Isles Valuation Joint Board as 1st Respondent & The Highland Council as 2nd Respondent in likely the first claim involving issues of data laundering & racketeering under the Data Protection Act in Scotland, INV-SM11-25.
Data laundering is exactly what it sounds like…. unlawfully obtained or processed data is laundered through an intermediary in an attempt to make it appear to be being used or processed for a legitimate purpose.
What is data racketeering? Racketeering most often involves financial gain through illegal activities such as extortion, fraud, harassment, intimidation or bribery via coordinated actions of multiple people as a group - organised crime. However, racketeering can involve any sort of gains such as - influence, control or leverage.
Data racketeering simply involves unlawful processing of data & weaponisation of that data to obtain these gains.