APPENDIX 96
Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Mr Robert Henderson
Since my letter of 12 March, I have received
the details of those due to appear before the Committee on 18
March. Amongst them are the Daily Record and the BBC. You
will find details of gross misbehaviour by both towards me in
the original submission I made to the Committee. I urge you to
tax the Daily Record and the BBC with their misbehaviour
when they appear before you.
One other point, in my letter of 12 March I
omitted one further way in which I can aid the Committee. I have
considerable experience of the Data Protection Act (DPA). Both
the Daily Mirror and the Daily Record on receipt
of a subject access request made by me under the Act admit that
they hold material on me. However, they refuse to disclose it
on the grounds that they are claiming the "journalistic exemption"
under the DPA. As they have not published anything on me for six
years, such a claim is clearly absurd because it is reasonable
to conclude that (1) they have no intention of publishing in present
circumstances and (2) there can be public interest involved if
they have material which they have not published for six years.
The Information Commissioner refuses to act and I do not have
the money to take them to court. Another way in which the "ordinary
member of the public" is blocked from obtaining information/redress.
In the light of Piers Morgan's claim on 11 March
that his lawyers are paradigms of rectitude and efficiency, you
may care to note that Martin Cruddace—the head of the Daily
Mirror's legal team—once answered a subject access request
from me with the claim that the Daily Mirror held no data
on me. Eventually, after much digging, he had to admit to having
59 separate pieces of data to which I was entitled, the data running
to a total of more than 100 A4 pages.
13 March 2003
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