Police may go to court in row over Wick man’s death

information commissioner orders naming of officers working at the time

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North police’s top officer is considering costly court action after being ordered to publish the names of colleagues who were working at Wick police station over three months in 1997 – around the time of a young man’s death.

Chief Constable Ian Latimer has repeatedly refused to release their names when they were requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

He claimed releasing the personal details of 29 officers could put them at risk.

But yesterday Scottish Information Commissioner Kevin Dunion said the evidence presented to him by the police was not enough to conclude that the information “would, or would be likely to, endanger the safety of any officer”.

Last night a force spokeswoman said it was “disappointed” by the decision and refused to rule out appealing to the Court of Session, which could prove very costly to taxpayers.

She said: “Northern Constabulary is considering the ruling and is taking legal advice.”

The commissioner’s decision to rule against Northern Constabulary marks another victory for the family of Kevin McLeod, a 24-year-old whose body was found in Wick harbour in 1997.

His parents, June and Hugh McLeod, and his uncle, Allan McLeod, who submitted the FOI request and made the appeal to Mr Dunion, are convinced Kevin was beaten up shortly before he went into the water.

At the time, police concluded Kevin’s serious abdominal injuries happened when he fell on top of a bollard and his death was the result of “tragic accidental circumstances”.

The family have since mounted a high-profile campaign to establish the truth about what happened in the hours before Kevin’s death, and they are now funding a private investigation into the incident.

Mr Dunion’s decision came about 18 months after an earlier ruling against the Northern Joint Police Board, requiring that it publish a report considering the manner in which Northern Constabulary dealt with complaints by the McLeod family. In December last year the family received a personal apology from Mr Latimer after the new Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland accused the force of behaving with “institutional arrogance” in its handling of the complaints.

In the latest case, Northern Constabulary outlined a series of defences of their decision not to release the information.

The chief constable also cited the need to protect personal data, and he referred to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, suggesting that the disclosure of names would lead to an intrusion into the private lives of the individuals concerned.

But each defence was rejected by Mr Dunion, who pointed out that the information requested related to the police officers’ professional, rather than private, lives, and he ruled that Mr Latimer failed to comply with the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act.

Last night Allan McLeod, of Alness, welcomed the decision.

He said: “This is another victory for the family in our quest to expose the skulduggery that we suspect has existed in this case.”

He said the family had a “legitimate interest” in obtaining the information in relation to their private investigation, but they had “no intention” of confronting any police officers.