Ashley v Revenue and Customs - Data Protection Enforcement

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  Ashley   v Revenue and Customs [2026] EWHC 725 (KB) (24 March 2026)

URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2026/725.html
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[2026] EWHC 725 (KB) | | |
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| | | Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EWHC 725 (KB) |
| | | Case No:KB-2024-000136 |
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LIST

| | | Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London
WC2A 2LL |
| | | 24th March 2026 |
B e f o r e :

MR. JUSTICE COPPEL

Between:
| | MICHAEL ASHLEY | Claimant/
Respondent |
| | - and - | |
| | THE COMMISSIONERS FOR HIS MAJESTY'S REVENUE AND CUSTOMS | Defendant/
Applicant |

Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd.,
2nd Floor, Quality House, 6-9 Quality Court, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1HP.
Telephone No: 020 7067 2900. DX 410 LDE
Email: info@martenwalshcherer.com
Web: www.martenwalshcherer.com

____________________ MR. RICHARD LISSACK KC and MR. JACOB TURNER (instructed by Taylor Wessing LLP) for the Claimant/Respondent
MR. JAMES CORNWELL (instructed by HMRC Solicitors Office and Legal Services) for the Defendant/Applicant

HTML VERSION OF APPROVED JUDGMENT ____________________

Crown Copyright ©

1. MR. JUSTICE COPPEL:
3. This is an application by the defendants in the proceedings, HMRC, to vary an order made by Collins?Rice?J on 16th?December 2025 directing the listing for a half-day hearing of an application made by the claimant in the proceedings ("the Enforcement Application").
5. The Enforcement Application seeks (at least in large part) to enforce aspects of an order made by Heather?Williams?J on 30th?January 2025, following a trial of the claimant's claim against HMRC, that they had breached their data protection obligations when responding to a?Subject Access Request ("SAR") made by the claimant. Having found that HMRC had acted unlawfully in their handling of the SAR, Heather Williams J ordered inter alia that HMRC provide the claimant with further personal data which it had already identified (paragraph 2 of her Order) and which it would identify having undertaken further searches for the same (paragraph 3), and to provide an explanation where any personal data was withheld pursuant to an exemption (paragraph 5). Paragraph 6 made provision for the claimant to apply to enforce those paragraphs of the Order within three months after completion of steps taken by the defendants pursuant to paragraph 5.
7. There was correspondence between the parties concerning HMRC's compliance with the Order of Heather?Williams?J and extensions of time for an application to enforce the Order to be made. The details of this are not important for present purposes. Suffice it to say that the Enforcement Application was made on 5th?December 2025, seeking a declaration that HMRC had not fully complied with the Order of Heather?Williams?J and directions to require them to comply with it (and/or to take certain steps which were not ordered by her). The application sought a hearing of one day.
9. HMRC responded to the application, making representations in a letter dated 10th?December 2025, which addressed the claimant's suggestion in its witness statement supporting the application that HMRC file evidence in response by 16th?January 2026. HMRC sought a revised deadline of 27th?February 2026, arguing that this was a lengthy application with a huge volume of material for them to consider.
11. Collins?Rice?J considered the Enforcement Application on the papers and directed that the parties apply to list a hearing of the Enforcement Application with a time estimate of half a day, subject to the parties reviewing and revising the time estimate. She set a deadline for HMRC to respond by evidence of 13 January 2026. She included a liberty to apply to apply to vary or discharge the Order. Her observations noted she was giving directions towards the hearing of the application.
13. HMRC responded to the application by the first witness statement of Mr.?Wray, dated 13th?January 2026. That statement served a dual purpose. It also supported the application before me for a variation of Collins?Rice?J's order. HMRC's application seeks a half-day hearing, in advance of the hearing envisaged by Collins Rice J, to address certain points which HMRC wish to raise to the effect that the Enforcement Application is obviously unfounded. HMRC wish to argue that the Enforcement Application is misconceived in that, in particular: (a) it seeks to require HMRC to conduct searches which were not ordered by Heather?Williams?J because the relevant allegations as to such searches not having been done when they should have been done were abandoned by the claimant before trial and not ruled on at the trial; (b) it seeks to require HMRC to conduct searches of certain custodians' e-mail accounts when the claimant had withdrawn the relevant issues from consideration at trial and instead reserved his position on them as recorded in one of the recitals to the order of Heather?Williams?J. Those first two submissions are put on the basis that the Enforcement Application is in essence abusive. HMRC also submit (c) that the claimant has framed the relief sought as relief under CPR 70.2A when this is not available against the Crown. The claimant has since indicated that he will instead rely upon section?167 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as the basis for the relief which he seeks, albeit that no application to amend the Enforcement Application has yet been made.
15. HMRC wish to contend at the half-day hearing that those aspects of the Enforcement Application should be "summarily dismissed" (to use a phrase which appears in their application today). HMRC accept that there are some issues raised by the Enforcement Application on redactions of data disclosed to the claimant which will require a hearing in any event.
17. HMRC's application was considered by Aidan?Eardley?KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, in an order of 6?February 2026. He directed the hearing which has taken place before me today and he characterised the application of HMRC as?"far-reaching", in that it was inviting the court to determine summarily or otherwise exclude from consideration a number of issues that are presently raised in the Enforcement Application. He opined, "That is an unusual application to make and it requires close scrutiny."
19. My starting point in considering HMRC's application is as follows:
21. i) Collins?Rice?J has already considered the appropriate course for disposing of the application and she adopted the conventional approach that the application should be heard and ruled on in one go. She adopted that approach having considered representations from HMRC which did not suggest there had been any abuse of process or that the application ought to be disposed in any way other than the conventional way.
22. ii) The course proposed by HMRC is an unusual one, effectively seeking an opportunity for strike out or summary judgment of parts of an application which has already been listed for a hearing. That is an apposite description because the Enforcement Application applies for certain directions and HMRC wishes to establish that some of what is applied for should be rejected on threshold grounds without considering all of the issues which are raised by the relevant directions. Another way of seeking to describe HMRC's application is for the determination of preliminary issues raised by the Enforcement Application in the expectation that if HMRC are successful the relevant parts of the Enforcement Application will not proceed any further. However it is described, I agree with Mr.?Eardley?KC that the application requires "careful scrutiny" or, to put it in the way that I would prefer, that there must be a powerful case management justification shown by HMRC if the application is to succeed.
23. Contrary to submissions of the claimant, I consider that I do have power to grant HMRC's application on the basis that it is an application that the court determine certain issues raised by the Enforcement Application before it determines other issues (CPR 3.1(2)(k)). The claimant submitted that I had no power to vary the Order of Collins?Rice?J, citing paragraph 3.1.17.2 of the White?Book, which is concerned with the discretion to review interim orders, where a material change of circumstances or misstatement of facts to the court making the original order are usually required.
25. Collins?Rice?J was not making an interim order; she was simply determining an application on the papers, whilst (as is common with such determinations) giving the parties express liberty to apply to vary or discharge her order. HMRC did have an opportunity to respond to the Enforcement Application before directions upon it were made and it could have made the point which it now makes. However, Collins?Rice?J did not formally invite the submissions of the parties and she did not, in my judgment, rule out such further submissions being made. On the contrary, she expressly permitted an application to vary or discharge her order.
27. Therefore, I would not conclude that HMRC's application is precluded by the Order of Collins?Rice?J; rather her order and the circumstances in which it was made supports the position that there must be good reason for departing from the conventional approach that she adopted.
29. I also accept HMRC's submission that there is no insuperable conceptual difficulty with the application. Although HMRC's Draft Order somewhat confusingly sought?"summary" determination of certain issues, it does not propose to invite the court to apply a summary judgment or strike-out test at the first-stage hearing and nor does it need to. As I have already noted, HMRC's application in substance invites the court to determine certain issues raised by the Enforcement Application before other issues and, if those issues are determined in HMRC's favour, the Court's determination will preclude certain aspects of the Enforcement Application from being pursued.
31. However, having considered the application, I reject it. In my judgment, there are no strong case management reasons for adopting a two-stage approach to the determination of the Enforcement Application. Indeed, sound case management, including the overriding objective, points in favour of a single hearing with an agreed time estimate of three days. That is for the following reasons:
33. i) Even if HMRC were?successful at a first-stage hearing it would not deliver a knock-out blow to the Enforcement Applications. As I have noted, HMRC accept that there are certain issues concerning redactions which would go forward for a hearing, which it says would last up to a day. I accept Mr.?Lissack KC's submission for the claimant that that one-day estimate seems optimistic;
34. ii) I also consider HMRC's time estimate of a half a day for the first-stage hearing to be over-optimistic. There is some reason to doubt that HMRC's points boil down to neat issues of law and construction of the Heather?Williams?J order, as Mr.?Cornwell, for HMRC, submitted to me. The claimant says there is a factual dispute as to what was agreed between counsel and the court on the first searches issue concerning whether the claimant was pursuing allegations other than in relation to searches of records held by the Valuation Office Agency (which is the relevant allegation ruled upon by Heather Williams J). I am not entirely clear what that dispute is, but I accept that a dispute is possible. More significantly, on the Relief Issue, HMRC's case that section?167 of the Data Protection Act 2018 is not in principle available to ground enforcement of Heather Williams J's Order, seems to me to raise potentially interesting points of law which would warrant relatively extensive legal argument;
35. iii) There are case management disadvantages in what the claimant referred to as salami-slicing of different aspects of determination of the application. There is the obvious potential disadvantage that if HMRC is unsuccessful, there will need to be a further hearing to determine the remaining bulk of the Enforcement Application, which would overall be inefficient and costly. There are also disadvantages to the court in being required to determine relief issues in principle, i.e.?whether section 167 is available in principle, without reference to the facts of the case, it being Mr.?Cornwell's submission that factual application of section 167 would be reserved to the second-stage hearing in the event that the provision was found to be available in principle;
36. iv) I was not persuaded that hearing the application at a single hearing would involve substantially more preparation by HMRC than has already been done, noting that the statement of Mr.?Wray in support of the application before me already covers the vast majority, if not all of the territory covered by the Enforcement Application, even if HMRC would wish to file more detailed evidence on certain issues.
37. v) Overall the better course of action in my judgment is to retain the approach of the Collins?Rice?J order in determining the application at a single hearing, subject to case management directions which I will invite the parties to agree and submit to me for my approval. If there are, as Mr Cornwell submits, short answers to certain of the directions sought in the Enforcement Application, those answers can most efficiently be given at the single hearing which has already been directed.
38. None of that should be taken as expressing any scepticism as to the force of the points on the substance of the Enforcement Application which have been made by HMRC. I pressed the claimant's counsel in argument as to what their answer was to the allegations of, in essence, abuse of process. I was far from satisfied by the answers that I was given, which accepted that the Enforcement Application did indeed seek directions which were not by way of enforcement of the Order of Heather Williams J but extended to other matters which had not been ruled upon at trial. However, I say no more about that question, which will be for the judge hearing the application at a single application hearing.
40. Therefore, the application is dismissed. There will be a single hearing of the Enforcement Application.
42. (For continuation of proceedings: please see separate transcript)
43. - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
55. (This Judgment has been approved by Mr Justice Coppel.)

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URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2026/725.html