Investigation after police papers found
THE Information Commissioner is investigating after a cache of confidential police information was discovered by a member of the public in Holmfirth.
West Yorkshire Police say they are also looking into the circumstances of how around 50 items were found flapping around on the morning of Saturday, December 22.
The man who found them asked not to be identified.
He said: “Last Saturday I was walking in the Woodhead Road area of Holmfirth when I noticed all these sheets of paper flapping around.
“A lot of them were being mulched up as it was raining heavily and they were sticking heavily to the ground.
“I don’t like litter so I began picking them up and I noticed that they were marked for restricted access, there were witness statements.
“I began picking them up and found they were confidential documents from the police - witness statements, restraining orders, prison release documents with names, addresses and dates of birth, car registration details clearly obvious.
“It took me a while to get in touch with West Yorkshire Police, they seemed quite lackadaisical about it and didn’t seem very bothered and were quite relaxed about it. I found it quite incredible.
I mentioned GDPR (The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union) and whoever I spoke to said: ‘What’s that?’
“Eventually I got to speak to a sergeant at Huddersfield Police Station and she said she would be speaking to the officer about it when he came back on duty.”
He said two PCSOs did finally turn up and he gave the documents to them after drying them out.
A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: “We are aware of a small number of police documents being found by members of the public in the street in Holmfirth on Saturday morning.
“The documents were recovered and the matter was reported to the Information Commissioner, (the UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest and which promotes openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.
“Police are investigating the circumstances of how they came to be there.” The Information Commissioner has been approached for comment, but had not responded as the Examiner went to press.