Chief constable loses legal challenge against ruling

Scotland’s chief constable has lost a legal challenge against a freedom of information ruling which, it was claimed, would have “a chilling effect” on the recruitment of police informants in the fight against organised crime.

Police Scotland refused to tell a journalist who made a request last year how many Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) it had had since the formation of the new national force in 2013.

But in October the Scottish Information Commissioner Rosemary Agnew found that the force had wrongly applied exemptions in legislation to withhold the information and required it to be disclosed.

Following the ruling Chief Constable Philip Gormley appealed to the Court of Session in Edinburgh seeking to have the decision quashed.

In the appeal it was pointed out that extracts from a briefing paper had been produced which warned of an increase in efforts by organised crime gangs to identify CHIS and of people being wrongly identified as being informants and suffering severe harm as a result.

The commissioner said in her ruling that she was not satisfied that any of the submissions made by Police Scotland had explained how the effective use of any “relevant source” or CHIS could be compromised by disclosure of the information sought.

The civil appeal judges refused the appeal and said they were satisfied that the commissioner gave clear and intelligible reasons for her decision which were untainted by any of the faults asserted by the force.

Chief constable Philip Gormley.