jamieroberton.substack.com
Exclusive: Reform on brink of losing Durham control after three councillors quit in one night
Reform UK is in serious danger of losing control of its flagship council after three councillors quit in succession, less than a week after a Sky News investigation.
![...within hours of journalists on either the *Guardian* or *Sunday Times* contacting Reform for comment on the same stories ahead of them publishing their own investigations. Reform deputy leader Richard Tice and his fiancée, supposed journalist Isabel Oakeshott, even crowed online about their spoiler tactics.
Not that the *Telegraph* doesn't do its own leg work when reporting on Reform. After James Orr, the party's head of policy, had to resign after a sting by *Channel 4 News* (see "*Right Orr Wrong*, p14"), *Telegraph* chief reporter Rob Mendick texted Orr: "I was hoping to talk to you entirely on background," he schmoozed. "You must be feeling very bruised and I totally Appreciate [sic] the sensitivities. I suspect you deserve better and I wanted to see how I can put the record straight in some way." Alas, instead of the Reformer and Cambridge theologian, Mendick messaged someone else, who shared it with the *Eye*!](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6laekojw3whqu64tlaxopvgx/bafkreieipkj46khnpw7hzz3bb6qr6ofuedp7ct22qifewv7t2il3icjskm)
![Article 8 privacy and data protection
Further, and in any event, we remind you of the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 the "Act).
We refer you to the chronology of events set out at (2) above. You will therefore appreciate that pursuant to the Act our client's conviction is spent, as of 14 December 20244.
A conviction which is spent for the
purposes of the Act is that person's private information pursuant to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As the Supreme Court put it:
"As [the conviction] recedes into the past, it becomes a part of the person's private life".
That principle was upheld more recently in NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC®.
Our client therefore has a reasonable expectation of privacy in that information. In all the circumstances, given the lack of any legitimate or genuine justification for publicising it, whether on X, Substack or otherwise, there can be no public interest in the publication you have threatened and already effected, let alone one which is sufficiently strong to outweigh the compelling Article 8 rights of our client.
NT1&NT2 also clarified that a person's criminal conviction, particularly if that conviction is spent, constitutes personal data and is therefore protected by UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 ("DPA").
2(1999] UKHL 45
Section 1(1) and 1(4)(a), Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
* Section 5(2), ibid
5 R(L) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2009) UKSC 3 at (27]
• (2018] EWHC 799 (QB)
10-113064784-2068140-0
4
Dr J T D Wilson
10 April 2026
The provisions of the UK GDR concering the processing of personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences are detailed and onerous, imposing a higher duty of care on controllers and processors of such information, which in this case is you.
It is highly unlikely that the journalism exemption under the DPA® would be applicable in these circumstances, given that (a) you are not a journalist, and (b) in any event, not only - for the …](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:movn6xzezospl7lnkhy7nzpt/bafkreidkd36t4s5z47luqrplaqxizdb42nj2icbdagyxai6dsrygjnt5wi)
