EU: False police data challenged
01 September 1994
Three brothers who were wrongly recorded as football hooligans by the Belgian police and subsequently by the UK National Criminal Intelligence Service's (NCIS) Football Intelligence Unit, have started an appeal to the European Commission to have their records corrected (see Statewatch vol 3 no 2). After being falsely recorded by the Belgian police in 1990 they were later twice detained by them and one was deported to the UK in handcuffs.
Now their case is being taken to the European Commission - the first stage of appeal at the EU level - by Liberty. The Commission is being asked to obtain undertakings from the UK and Belgian governments that their police records will be corrected. The brothers are taking this action after appeals to the Home Office, Foreign Office, the Data Protection Registrar and the UK and Belgian police failed to get their records amended.
The Data Protection Registrar suggested that the NCIS should be asked to amend their records "by making clear that you were only circumstantially involved" - the family say they were not involved at all apart from being on the train that was searched. An approach to the Belgian Data Protection Commission was no help either as legislation was only recently enacted and "does not apply to the Belgian police at this time". A letter from the Foreign Office revealed that the Consular Department has its own Consular database which recorded that one of the brothers had been detained. The NCIS denies it was the source of this "loose statement" on the Consular database which says they "had been detained in Belgium on a charge of disorderly behaviour and assaulting the police" (a wholly inaccurate statement). For its own part the NCIS will not amend its records until a correction is sent over by the Belgian police (the original source).
The NCIS also says that the term "arrest" on their records does not imply they were cautioned, taken in custody and charged it simply means "as soon as someone is detained against their will they are arrested". The fact that someone might be temporarily 'detained' (arrested) but no further police action taken should, the family says, not be recorded as nothing has transpired - in this case it led to their later detention because they were on the "list".
Court given wrong information
A businessman from Kent is to sue the Kent police for sending information to a Belgian court. He was arrested in 1991 for "driving suspiciously" close to a field where a consignment of drugs had been found. In court a fax from the Kent police was read out in court, it said he was "strongly suspected of being involved in drugs. It is suspected he uses his boats to bring drugs to England". His solicitor said he had no previous convictions for drug offences and at the time had never been interviewed about drugs. He was convicted and spent seven months in prison.
In another case a lorry driver, Ron Williams, from Newport in Wales found himself described in a French court as an armed robber. He was convicted of drugs smuggling and got a two year prison sentence. The records sent to the court from the UK said he has three convictions for armed robbery but he had no criminal record at all. The information sent referred to another "Ron Williams" with a different middle name and different date of birth.
Stephen Jakobi of Fair Trials Abroad said that unsubstantiated "off-the-record" information would not be allowed in the UK although it is in France and Belgium.
Information from the family; letters from the Data Protection Registrar 1.10.93 & 30.11.93; letters from the NCIS 16.7.93 & 30.9.93; letter from the Foreign Office 18.5.94; Sunday Telegraph 14.9.94.