An 88-year-old campaigner with no criminal record has won a landmark legal case to have his details removed from the police’s National Extremism Database, where he had been labelled a “domestic extremist”.
John Catt, an anti-war activist, had regularly attended demonstrations against a Brighton arms factory near his home, which had at times descended into disorder.
However, the judges dismissed arguments from Adrian Tudway, the police chief then in charge of the covert unit, that police needed to monitor Catt because he “associates closely with violent” campaigners against the factory.
The ruling by three senior judges, including Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, puts pressure on the police, already heavily criticised for running undercover operatives in political groups, to curtail their surveillance activities against law-abiding citizens.
The appeal judges said the inclusion of personal information relating to Mr Catt on the database “does involve an interference with his right to respect for his private life which requires justification”.
They said they had reached the conclusion that the “interference with Mr Catt’s right to respect for his private life has not been justified and that the appeal must therefore be allowed”.
Mr Catt, who was not present at the hearing, said he hopes the judgment will bring an end to the abusive and intimidating monitoring of peaceful protesters by police forces nationwide, as police surveillance of this kind only serves to undermine democracy.
However, a spokesperson for the police said they were disappointed with the judgment and intend to consider it carefully before reaching a decision on whether to appeal.
They said that police databases, including those containing data on domestic extremism, are maintained in compliance with the police information statutory code of practice and provide a framework for the collection of information for policing purposes.