Subject Access Requests on Family Courts - Audio

elsien

emilianozapata wrote: »

Hey, maybe we should wait for someone who knows some stuff about stuff to provide an answer or directions to my questions? if the thread has not been completely killed off that is. Which I suspect it has.

Hey, maybe we should pay for specialist advice instead of being rude to people on a general moneysaving forum.
If the replies don't meet your exacting criteria, then tough. It's a general forum, open to people to post whatever they want (within reason) whether relevant, accurate or not. That is the nature if the beast. where queries fly off on a tangent more often than not - if you don't like it, feel free to post elsewhere.

emilianozapata

elsien wrote: »

Hey, maybe we should pay for specialist advice instead of being rude to people on a general moneysaving forum.
If the replies don't meet your exacting criteria, then tough. It's a general forum, open to people to post whatever they want (within reason) whether relevant, accurate or not. That is the nature if the beast. where queries fly off on a tangent more often than not - if you don't like it, feel free to post elsewhere.

Actually, my response was entirely in the spirit of yours, only without the passive aggression.
If you read the actual responses, which are not considerate, by the posters own admission wrong, have not considered what I have written, or what I have responded my response is very measured, as is the response of another poster, who has also pointed out gross inaccuracies.
I am glad my post has acted as a lightning rod for your offloading of your general resentment.
Are you in any way interested in SAR's or are you just doing the rounds like a seagull manager?
Worth mentioning the complete hypocrisy of your post in light of the fact you state your right to post what you want, but I should go away.

wannabe_sybil

Have you asked Fathers for Justice?

ETA you appear very confrontational. If you showed this side in court then it will not have been helpful to you.

It is over twenty years since I clerked a court, but IIRC the tapes would sometimes have more than one case on and you would not be allowed to hear the details of another case. Have you applied directly to the company that does the transcripts for a direct and unedited transcript?

Nozama

Guest101 wrote: »

I think your thread never took off to be honest.


Courts like paper. It's rare to be able to use audio or video (in civil cases).

With respect, I do think you're failing to grasp the issue in this thread, which to me seems pretty clear.

The OP disputes the evidence that was heard at the hearing. The Judge's account of the evidence heard is given in the judgment, but the OP does not agree with it and believes the relevant statements have also been omitted from the transcript of the audio tapes. This is all highly pertinent if the OP wishes to appeal the decision, as the evidence that was actually heard will be central to the appeal, and given the nature of such an appeal it is likely the original audio recordings / original complete transcript would need to be adduced at the appeal stage.

OP would be taking a huge risk to appeal without having heard the full audio recordings, hence the need for the SAR. Of course judges know this, and they do make efforts by fair means or foul (whether conscious or subconscious) to make appeals of their decisions more difficult for the prospective appellant.

OP, I can't personally offer any particular advice in relation to accessing the audio files but I would be wary of trying to "blow this thing open", if what you mean by that is exposing the judge's misconduct (if it is the case that he has altered the record of evidence to suit his decision). I know of cases where the judge's notes of evidence have mysteriously vanished or have been altered after a hearing. This sort of thing does go on in our justice system, but if you dare to voice complaints about such a thing, especially as a ground of appeal, you can be fairly certain you will come off worse. I believe there must surely be a positive correlation between people who expressed such sentiments in hearings and disproportionate orders for costs (though of course there is always a way to make the two things appear disconnected).

I hope you manage to get access to the tapes. Best of luck!

emilianozapata

Nozama wrote: »

With respect, I do think you're failing to grasp the issue in this thread, which to me seems pretty clear.

The OP disputes the evidence that was heard at the hearing. The Judge's account of the evidence heard is given in the judgment, but the OP does not agree with it and believes the relevant statements have also been omitted from the transcript of the audio tapes. This is all highly pertinent if the OP wishes to appeal the decision, as the evidence that was actually heard will be central to the appeal, and given the nature of such an appeal it is likely the original audio recordings / original complete transcript would need to be adduced at the appeal stage.

OP would be taking a huge risk to appeal without having heard the full audio recordings, hence the need for the SAR. Of course judges know this, and they do make efforts by fair means or foul (whether conscious or subconscious) to make appeals of their decisions more difficult for the prospective appellant.

OP, I can't personally offer any particular advice in relation to accessing the audio files but I would be wary of trying to "blow this thing open", if what you mean by that is exposing the judge's misconduct (if it is the case that he has altered the record of evidence to suit his decision). I know of cases where the judge's notes of evidence have mysteriously vanished or have been altered after a hearing. This sort of thing does go on in our justice system, but if you dare to voice complaints about such a thing, especially as a ground of appeal, you can be fairly certain you will come off worse. I believe there must surely be a positive correlation between people who expressed such sentiments in hearings and disproportionate orders for costs (though of course there is always a way to make the two things appear disconnected).

I hope you manage to get access to the tapes. Best of luck!

Thanks for the support and advice, yes you are correct from all angles.
My work on this will not be finished if I win, by exposing this, I mean via process and campaign, in general terms (no individual cases named). It is outrageous that in any other industry such lack of audit and oversight would be illegal (irony). You are correct, there is a lot of malpractice, its an open secret many judges don't read bundles for example and with the rise in Litigants in Person represented litigants regularly have a field day. I think this is why in Liverpool Court the judges like to write their own orders, rather than having the represented party lawyers do it (another outdated and ridiculous convention).
There are some very respectable Judges, I would cite Justice Jackson as an example, but areas of life where there is secrecy attract abusers.
There is plenty of research that shows there to be a disproportionate number of Cluster B types in the legal profession. I may even have come across one recently.

emilianozapata

wannabe_sybil wrote: »

Have you asked Fathers for Justice?

ETA you appear very confrontational. If you showed this side in court then it will not have been helpful to you.

It is over twenty years since I clerked a court, but IIRC the tapes would sometimes have more than one case on and you would not be allowed to hear the details of another case. Have you applied directly to the company that does the transcripts for a direct and unedited transcript?

Thanks for the response...

I'm not like that in court, I think if you read the whole thread you'll see someone is being rather silly with me. Compare how I am with the ones not out of the Billy Goat Gruff book.
Unfortunately, the transcript company are not allowed to give you an unedited transcript, or even tell you its been edited - from the horses mouth.

Fortunately there are often errors in recording cited on transcripts, such as 'the tape was missing... ' or 'the tape ended before being sworn off...' such things can also give leverage.
So far as presenting, I think even with good evidence it would be difficult in a UK court. Good for the ECHR though.
In the US, just for contrast, you pay $10 and get a CD.

judyjetson

It's been a while since I worked in tape transcription/court reporting, but when we transcribed tapes (and I believe they are mostly DAT now, rather than the cassettes that tapes that were previously used) they were verbatim.

I do remember judgments/summings up going to the judge for checking, but it would be for minor adjustments. The judge would check it, make any amendments (if any) and then return it to the transcription company. I don't ever recall in 12 years of court reporting a judge deleting huge chunks of evidence/statements, etc.

I did find this, if this is of any use to you:
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications/practice-direction-access-to-audio-recordings-of-proceedings.

This was 2014, I can't find any further updates, so assume it's still relevant.

The other thing to bear in mind is there are designated firms on the Tape Transcription Panel. If the tapes were freely available to anyone, then they could be transcribed outside the TTP, which I'm sure wouldn't go down terribly well with them.

rpc

emilianozapata wrote: »

a defense of 'no, its got my personal data on' wouldnt be entertained (one would hope - in any case even I am not aware of such a defense). Same with the Judges notes, they are filed with the case record, it has a retrievable code and is part of 'your case' - I noted the example to show how bad things get, people do also regularly get such handwritten notes.

I pointed you at where this comes in - application of principle 6. Sadly you seem to prefer to blindly maintain your position than go and look up references you are given. Disclosure following a SAR must generally not divulge third party personal data.

When you are talking about "ownership" of court cases and disclosure (discovery) to the other side then that isn't within the scope of the DPA. The DPA is not the only means to access data, but any access using a SAR must comply with DPA requirements. Other legal routes lead to other scopes of disclosure.

If what you suggest was true, you would be entitled to the full unedited transcript from the company that holds it - it has your personal data on it and is subject to the DPA.


It doesn't really sound like you want advice from a internet forum - you either want people to agree with you or you need specialist (£££) advice.

emilianozapata

rpc wrote: »

I pointed you at where this comes in - application of principle 6. Sadly you seem to prefer to blindly maintain your position than go and look up references you are given. Disclosure following a SAR must generally not divulge third party personal data.

When you are talking about "ownership" of court cases and disclosure (discovery) to the other side then that isn't within the scope of the DPA. The DPA is not the only means to access data, but any access using a SAR must comply with DPA requirements. Other legal routes lead to other scopes of disclosure.

If what you suggest was true, you would be entitled to the full unedited transcript from the company that holds it - it has your personal data on it and is subject to the DPA.


It doesn't really sound like you want advice from a internet forum - you either want people to agree with you or you need specialist (£££) advice.

"When you are talking about "ownership" of court cases"

funny, that. ICO have advised me you are wrong. Who could have guessed. SAR's regularly divulge 3rd party information where the data can be shown to not be owned by the 3rd party exclusively.

You are simply wrong. It depends on the nature of the case and the disclosures therein. Though you talk of 'disclosures to the other side' for why, I don't know. I am talking about disclosures to the Court. Which is a public space where the disclosures are by their nature shared with the other side. You may see reference above to advice on EU courts upholding such requests.

OMG
I want advice from people who, when I disagree, don't become passive aggressive. You clearly don't understand that there is a possibility I know more about this subject than you, but am looking for nuance from others specifically because I regularly run up against people like you when submitting various applications.

People get this data via SAR/application/just asking. I already have on related matters from another court (a helpful one) as well as more sensitive data from other agencies. As you have no idea what the background is, its rather odd that you want to save me from doing something you are sure will fail.

There is plenty of good advice on this thread.
Thank you so much for your response. I don't need any more advice from you. You are wasting your time with me, especially as you are just repeating what you've already said.
I am reminded of another rather negative contributor who posted about courts liking paper. As has also been stated on here 'Courts like Paper' is quoted, as if that were written on a block of stone. They also like wigs, and lots of standing up and sitting down. I have a tendency to change things. I suspect you wouldn't understand. Just as you fail to understand that airing in general terms this issue of clear injustice and lack of comity as a Public Interest furthers my purpose.
Thanks for helping.

emilianozapata

judyjetson wrote: »

It's been a while since I worked in tape transcription/court reporting, but when we transcribed tapes (and I believe they are mostly DAT now, rather than the cassettes that tapes that were previously used) they were verbatim.

I do remember judgments/summings up going to the judge for checking, but it would be for minor adjustments. The judge would check it, make any amendments (if any) and then return it to the transcription company. I don't ever recall in 12 years of court reporting a judge deleting huge chunks of evidence/statements, etc.

I did find this, if this is of any use to you:
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications/practice-direction-access-to-audio-recordings-of-proceedings.

This was 2014, I can't find any further updates, so assume it's still relevant.

The other thing to bear in mind is there are designated firms on the Tape Transcription Panel. If the tapes were freely available to anyone, then they could be transcribed outside the TTP, which I'm sure wouldn't go down terribly well with them.

"I don't ever recall in 12 years of court reporting a judge deleting huge chunks of evidence/statements, etc."
Yes, there really are some great Judges, always reassuring to hear again.

Thank you, that is very useful. The official reason for not providing these 'generally' is to stop 'misuse'.
The advice you reference is useful, I have seen this, but it is not definitive. It's very useful for me to read your general overview. I can see a challenge could be made on the basis that actually the principle objection is a closed shop relationship with the transcription companies. It seems to be one elephant in the room here that some people think Justice should be for those who can pay. Others think there should be a parity. Though I sympathise with Transcription Companies, other countries do it differently - issuing a CD recording for a few pounds. I know which I think is more equitable.

Many LIP's these days are leaving court with Court Ordered criminal investigation disclosures, at that point it is ridiculous that recordings could not be issued on grounds of possible misuse, otherwise the court would be mocking itself for releasing Criminal Investigations.
In terms of 'thinking out loud' about the link, like a lot of stuff that doesn't actually reach the public light of day because the general public have no idea, it is
full of massive holes. For a kick-off it appears that the entire direction of 6. refers to reporters who have already paid for the transcript of judgement (not rest of proceedings) even though the rest of it mentions proceedings. Anyone else (3. 4. 5) still has to convince the judge/editor him/herself that they have exceptional reasons for believing mis-transcription. N.B. there is an undisclosed fee! (Human Rights activists feel free to chip in at this point).
Not definitive, obviously, but useful for getting direction towards a case for better Justice. Thank you for your time on this, much appreciated.