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In November 2024, I submitted a Subject Access Request (SAR) to Humberside Police. For those unfamiliar, a SAR is a formal request allowing an individual to access personal information an organisation holds about them. Organisations typically have one month to respond, and this right is most often exercised in situations of dispute.

I decided to submit my request after a troubling exchange with the Humberside Police control room in Autumn 2024. I had been trying to reach a specific officer who had been assigned a call log involving Lizzie. Despite my repeated efforts, this officer ignored all my calls. It was a simple question that prompted my persistence: had he received the information I’d sent him? That’s all I wanted to know.

I followed up multiple times. My messages were ignored. The switchboard assured me they’d pass the message on and even copied his sergeant into the emails. Yet, still, no one responded. The lack of acknowledgment felt infuriating, unprofessional and, frankly, disrespectful.

The switchboard and control room staff seemed equally perplexed by the officer’s refusal to respond to a simple request from a member of the public. All I needed was a yes or no answer.

By November 2024, in my eighth week of trying to get a response, a lady in the control room made a startling discovery. She said, “It is very odd. There’s a lot of information on this call log, let me just see if there’s been an update. Forgive me, I don’t know the case at all, so I’m just looking through the notes. So, this is something to do with a vulnerable young person who left her foster home to move in with her boyfriend?”

“Her … foster home?” I questioned, incredulous. “Sorry, could you repeat that? Did you just say ‘foster home’?”

Suddenly and mysteriously, she couldn’t find it. “You’ll have to do a Subject Access Request if you want information recorded about you,” she advised.

And so, that’s exactly what I did.

That single line “… left her foster home and moved in with her boyfriend” contained so many factual inaccuracies that I felt compelled to find out what Humberside Police had actually recorded about us. Wouldn’t you? For any parent, imagine how you would feel if you or your home were described with the word “foster”? Lizzie is my daughter. I am her dad. This is her home. End of.

Humberside Police had already been obstructive and dismissive. Worse, they had acted, in my view, as a kind of enforcement arm for Coral, ensuring Lizzie remained isolated. Thanks to their decisions, I am not even permitted to knock on the door of the house where my daughter is now living (as detailed in podcast episode 19). They are also the reason Lizzie’s uncle endured the trauma of arrest and vile allegations of rape (podcast episode 17). Furthermore, Humberside Police mishandled welfare visits and completely failed to follow statutory protocols on gathering evidence in cases of coercive or controlling behaviour (podcast episode 10).

What on earth did they have recorded on their systems?

One month after my SAR was submitted, I heard nothing.
Two months after my SAR was submitted, still nothing.
A further couple of reminders went ignored.

By this point, not only was the individual officer ignoring me, but the entire organisation was refusing to meet its legal obligations under international data-protection rules.

Is there a “How Can We Make A Bad Situation Worse” Department within Humberside Police, dedicated to making my life as distressing as possible?

With considerable dismay and frustration, in January 2025, I lodged a formal complaint within the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO is the UK’s independent body responsible for regulating data protection and information rights, and it handles complaints and takes action against organisations that violate these rights.
Although it took some months for my case to be assessed, seemingly due to a backlog at the ICO, they eventually ruled that Humberside Police had breached their data obligations and ordered them to disclose the information.

Finally, under pressure and with evident reluctance, Humberside Police released the information this week. The document I received was so heavily redacted that printing it would be pointless unless I needed black paper. Block after block was blacked out, and much of what wasn’t redacted was information I had initially sent to them, hardly news to me. The reference to Lizzie leaving her “foster home” – how dare they? – was conspicuously absent, presumably hidden beneath the swathes of black.

However, three or four lines that survived the redaction were absolutely shocking. Those few lines revealed the real reason for this entire nightmare – the accusation that had prompted the agencies to justify Lizzie’s isolation.

For almost two years now, I have consistently asked Adult Social Care, Humberside Police and Linkage College: “Why was a subversive, secretive plot carried out to extract Lizzie from our household the moment she turned eighteen? What possible justification could there be for that?“

What could possibly justify tearing her away from everyone who loves her and systematically preventing all contact?

I have questioned what monstrous accusation could explain the total indifference of these agencies to our pain. It was as if some dark, terrible suspicion had been directed not only at me and Jane but at Lizzie’s entire extended family and support network – grandparents, godparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, church – to rationalise this isolation.

That suspicion could only ever have been false. But knowing that someone had whispered those lies to justify the premeditated removal of Lizzie, and knowing that those lies had been enough to blind everyone involved – that’s what breaks my heart most.

And now, at long last, this Subject Access Request has brought some of those lies into the light.

This is a critical stage in my fight for the truth. Bear with me a little longer as I prepare to reveal the full story.

More will follow.

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Thank you for reading. If you have any insights, comments or advice, please feel free to add them below.