Background

Mr Matthew McConville, Head of Irvings Law’s specialist Data Breach Department, has successfully represented a client in a claim for compensation against a well-known Court in England. Due to confidentiality, the client will be referred to as Mr W and the identity of the Court will not be disclosed.

As directed by the Court themselves, Mr W sent an email expressly confirming that he wished that ‘this information is not shared with any other parties’. Unfortunately though, the involved Court ignored the same and did so disclose what email Mr W had sent to them in confidence. When he became aware of this, Mr W lodged a complaint to the defaulting Court who responding by confirming that ‘upon receipt of the request that the email not be shared with other parties to your case, the case should have been referred to a District Judge for directions. The Judge would have given directions to either keep the information confidential or return the information to you and advise that any information received subsequently would be issued to all parties. That process was not followed in this instance’. Given this, the involved Court apologised for the administrative oversight in not referring Mr W’s email to the Judge.

Representation

After this, Mrs W approached specialist Data Breach Solicitors, Irvings Law, for assistance. Mr McConville immediately acknowledged that what happened was completely wrong and without hesitation, offered to act for Mr W by way of “no win, no fee” presenting a claim to the involved Court on the basis his human rights to privacy were breached as well as GDPR following this misuse of private information.

Resolution

After presenting the claim, the involved Court wished to then settle Mr W’s claim and an agreement was reached not long after such discussions took place in excess of £3,000.00 including the payment of his legal costs.