Police Disclosure Protocol

The police are inundated on a daily basis with requests for information, from a variety of sources, for use in connection with ongoing or contemplated family proceedings. Often the requests for information are unclear as to the persons involved and fail to specify addresses at which incidents have taken place. The requests are often incorrectly addressed to police officers who have no active continuing responsibility for the information held by the police. Where family proceedings are pending with a known date of hearing, the requests are frequently made at very short notice with little proper opportunity for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to respond. In consequence very considerable police time and resources are taken up in trying to respond appropriately to such requests.