British stalker wins the ‘right to be forgotten’ by Google

A BUSINESSMAN who served a prison term for crimes linked to stalking was yesterday given the right to have his past removed from online search results.

A High Court judge said his criminal history was nothing to do with his life now, and people looking him up on the web did not need to be warned about it.

The decision by Mr Justice Warby means anyone entering the man’s name into Google or any other search engine will not be able to access contemporary or more recent reports about him.

However details of the crime will still be available online to those who find it by means other than a search engine.

The test case follows the 2014 ‘right to be forgotten’ decision by the European Court of Justice, which found in favour of a Spanish citizen who did not want stories about his debts appearing in Google results. Under EU law, Court of Justice rulings must be applied in this country. The name of the businessman – believed to be the first in England to win a legal case over the ‘right to be forgotten’ – was kept secret by the judge. However Mr Justice Warby refused to order Google to hide stories about the history of a second man, who was jailed for false accounting.

Leaving his past easily available online, the judge said, ‘serves the purpose of minimising the risk that he will continue to mislead, as he has in the past’.

In many cases Google deletes information its managers believe is covered by the right to be forgotten in response to complaints. But it declined to remove material about the businessmen because it said details of their crimes were in the public interest.