2025xi22, Saturday: Stop digging.
Well.
As if it couldn't get worse.
I wrote earlier this month about the astonishing Court of Appeal hearing on 22 October 2025, in which the Chief Constable of Northants Police was found in contempt of court because his force had, for years, broken court orders requiring them to disclose body-worn video footage of a disputed arrest to the arrestee.
The sanctions hearing was two days ago, on Thursday 20 November. As before, the YouTube of the hearing - but perhaps still more the judgment, which is only about 20 minutes long so a pretty quick watch - repays attention.
The Court imposed a £50k fine. It wasn't proven to the criminal standard that the Chief Constable was personally, as opposed to institutionally, at fault; which pretty much took a committal (that is, jail time) off the table.
This wasn't the jaw-dropping bit. That came when it became obvious that Northants kept ignoring court orders - those the Court of Appeal had just imposed - as well as remaining in breach of the original 2023 County Court order, pretty much up to (again!) days before the sanction hearing. As Fraser LJ observed drily, the liability judgment had stated "for the avoidance of doubt" (as if there could conceivably be any) that the Court of Appeal's orders were "not optional" - but Northants had behaved, yet again, as if they were.
Put bluntly: the Court of Appeal could not have been clearer about just how fundamentally Northants Police had screwed up. And yet it wasn't until about a week before the hearing that the Head of Legal took over (!) and the penny really dropped. And - to an extent, at least - an attitude of compliance finally kicked in.
Also (I suspect) a prime example of that old forensic principle: it isn't the cockup that kills you. It's the cover-up.
Equally incredibly, a statement from a Chief Superintendent, intended to satisfy both the CoA and the original 2023 order, was withdrawn - with no explanation even to the Court as to why, all of a sudden, it was found in its totality to be impossible to rely on. I don't know why; but (and you'll note that I'm trying to be as neutral as I can here) I wonder whether the narrative therein may have been at odds with the audit logs that my estimable friend Charlotte Elves had waded through with such forensic diligence.
Anyhow, just astonishing. The whole thing. As Asplin LJ pointed out at one stage: it's bad enough when any public authority ignores a court order. But when those whose whole raison d'être is to uphold the law do so, something really fundamental has gone wrong. Further, the bench was at pains to point out that without a legal error in the first-instance contempt ruling, which meant that Lewison LJ gave permission to appeal, these gross failures of duty on Northants' part would never have seen the light of day. Despite everything Ms BQ had done - to whom the Court, again, paid tribute.
Lessons for police in particular and public authorities in general here. Another abject example of why "noble cause corruption" - on any level, about anything - is a contradiction in terms. You don't get to break the law to maintain the law. That way, everything breaks down.
And also (I suspect) a prime example of that old forensic principle: it isn't the cockup that kills you. It's the cover-up.
