Council threatens Hackney Citizen with legal action

Hackney Council has today written to Hackney Citizen asking us to remove two audio recordings from our website.

The audio clips are recordings of a Hackney Council employee wrongly informing a caller that there was no Conservative party candidate standing in the Hackney Mayoral election.

The Council says that it will apply for an injunction and its legal costs if we do not comply with its request forthwith.

We take the view that it is in the public interest to disclose the way the Council was dealing with the issue, as evidenced by the audio clips.

The recordings can be found on our website here.

The letter to Hackney Citizen from Hackney Council’s legal department is reproduced below.

Follow up story here: Hackney Citizen launches fighting fund for legal battle with Council

Hackney Citizen Letter 060510 001

28 Comments

  1. Denny on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 20:04

    Legally I believe they’re in the right, but in terms of the actual story this is only making them look even worse. When you’re in a hole, stop digging!



  2. Ben Locker on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 20:28

    Is there anyone left at Hackney Council who doesn’t have ‘interim’ in their job title?

    The council’s actions to prevent voters hearing from Andrew Boff are a disgrace.

    Hackney residents deserve better.



  3. kris on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 20:34

    hummm…

    if what Boff did was “unlawful”, I am wondering why Hackney don’t tell the Citizen the exact section and Act that makes it unlawful.

    But hey, we are always left expecting more from Hackney.



  4. Jamie on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 21:19

    From wikipedia:

    A recording made by one party to a phone call or e-mail without notifying the other is not prohibited provided that the recording is for their own use; recording without notification is prohibited where some of the contents of the communication—a phone conversation or an e-mail—are made available to a third party.

    However, I’d imagine there’s a public interest defence there – which this would surely fall under.



  5. blood and property on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 21:21

    I’d have thought that the law was there to protect the employee, not the council.

    So I suppose the question is whether it was the employee who initiated the action? Could you try a freedom of information request on who was involved in making the decision? Would be a bit slow though.

    Are there any lawyers out there who can help you out?



  6. raggy on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 21:23

    Like Denny I’m worried that the “without consent” part might be a sticky issue. Still, the only people or entity who will be worse off is Hackney council.

    Legalized gangsters is what they are.



  7. kris on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 21:26


  8. blood and property on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 21:28

    And like ben points out, interim head – I thought Gifty Edila was head of legal services at Hackney, is she not there any more?



  9. Jack of Kent on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 21:36

    Whoopsie. Looks like Hackney may have the law wrong. May follow this up.



  10. howradmichello on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 22:07

    seems suspect to me…

    (here’s to a free press)



  11. howradmichello on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 22:12

    Hackney Council should celebrate the beacon of information that is the Hackney Citizen!



  12. raggy on Thursday 6 May 2010 at 22:37

    “and there is no public interest in such disclosure or the invasion of the person’s privacy is otherwise unjustified”.

    case closed.



  13. kris on Friday 7 May 2010 at 06:24

    whoomp, there it is.

    Hackney can’t even get their lame bullying right.



  14. del on Friday 7 May 2010 at 10:33

    the funny thing is that if you ring the hackney service number they tell you that the call is being recorded. So if hackney tells you the call is being recorded do you have also to tell that the call is being recorded because they already know….

    reminds me of that song “whispering grass don’t tell the trees because the trees already know”



  15. al on Friday 7 May 2010 at 10:46

    I believe that now that this has become a ‘news story’ regarding the threatened legal action, the audio recordings are now classed as “news” and “in public interest” and thus are protected from removal.

    Refer to the case of the scientologists demanding a tom cruise related video was taken down by youtube (?), when it became a news story, their demand to remove the video actually became second to the demand of the law to keep the video up so that people could see the news.



  16. A Hackney sicko on Saturday 8 May 2010 at 16:01

    Assuming the Boffmeister has no objections, why doesn’t everyone who has a blog or website post the “Boff-doesn’t-exist” audio recording on their own website? If there are scores or hundreds of websites out there, hosting copies of the recording, our Interim Head may have to give up and eat humble pie.

    Can this get more Orwellian?



  17. A Hackney sicko on Tuesday 11 May 2010 at 12:02

    Don’t forget to buy your copy of Private Eye tomorrow (Wednesday) and check out the Rotten Boroughs page. Tee hee!



  18. Kristin on Sunday 16 May 2010 at 12:26

    I can’t believe that in an attempt to discredit the Council Hackney Citizen is overlooking the fact that some poor lowly paid staff who was trying to earn an honest living is being made a fool of instead.

    How can you be partisan and support a candidate in the elections? I got my copy of the mayoral booklet and noticed 4 of the candidates managed to get their message in there without a fuss. Why couldn’t Boff get his act together and do the same? After all I understand he is GLA member?



  19. Joe on Monday 17 May 2010 at 10:09

    Which “lowly paid staff” is being made a fool of?

    The call centre operative remains anonymous.

    The only people making fools of themselves are Hackney Labour.



  20. Mr Clissold on Tuesday 18 May 2010 at 20:57

    Would that it were legal and democratic.



  21. del on Thursday 20 May 2010 at 12:58

    I don’t think Kristin understands the point.

    Boff was not allowed to include his statement because the incumbent […] deemed that it criticised them.

    Whereas it was a statement of fact – albeit unflattering to the council.

    I don’t think anyone is holding the staff member to account – actually for that matter no one is holding the council to account either.

    Democracy only matters to socialists if you vote the right way of course.



  22. Jack of Kent on Monday 5 July 2010 at 16:22

    Will be writing on this extraordinary threat this week.

    Please send any relevant material to me at jackofkent [@] gmail.com



  23. kris on Monday 5 July 2010 at 17:02

    I’m gonna enjoy this.

    Thanks, Jack.



  24. Chris on Tuesday 6 July 2010 at 12:06

    Surely, the threat is a dead letter by now?



  25. Hackney Citizen on Friday 9 July 2010 at 08:48

    In its most recent (3 June 2010) letter to us, Hackney Council said:”As it is the matter remains unresolved and I am having to consider the options available to the Council”.

    However, the Council has now (8 July 2010) told blogger Jack of Kent that: “The case is closed from the Council’s point of view”.

    Jack of Kent states: “this was complete news to the Hackney Citizen which still believes it was facing the threat of legal proceedings. To threaten a misconceived and baseless injunction application is one thing; to not bother to tell the potential defendant that the case has been dropped is quite another.”

    http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2010/07/improper-and-disgraceful-conduct-of.html



  26. John Probert on Thursday 20 December 2012 at 22:38

    What is Diane Abbott’s take on all this?



  27. The Great Smell Of Brute on Friday 21 December 2012 at 17:32

    Diane Abbott’s view? Whatever she thinks will earn her the most brownie points without having to lift a finger herself, in all likelihood. Then again, much depends upon whether she’s making a pre-written statement to the press, or typing without thinking first on Twitter… 😉



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