Jess Phillips Hopes Supreme Court Overturns Domestic Abuse Ruling
A survivor's address was passed to her violent ex-partner, and the Court of Appeal ruled she cannot sue the police or prosecutors over it
By AXY War & Crime Desk ·
Key points
- Labour MP Jess Phillips said she hopes the UK Supreme Court will overturn a Court of Appeal ruling that blocks a domestic abuse survivor from suing Sussex Police and the CPS.
- The woman, known in court as XGY, had her address disclosed by a CPS lawyer to her violent ex-partner, and she moved home as a result.
- Sussex Police had not marked the address as confidential when sending it to the CPS.
- The Supreme Court will hear the case on Wednesday and Thursday.
- Phillips, David Davis and Andrew Mitchell have tabled an amendment that would counteract the ruling if it is not overturned.
Labour MP Jess Phillips has said she hopes the UK’s highest court “sees sense” and overturns a ruling that stops a domestic abuse survivor from suing Sussex Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over the disclosure of her address to her violent ex-partner. The Supreme Court is due to hear the case on Wednesday and Thursday, and its decision could decide whether the woman, known in court as XGY, can take her claim any further.
Phillips said that if the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision, police would be shielded from being held accountable for failures in cases of violence against women and girls. For a survivor who says she was put at risk by the way her information was handled, that is not a small legal point. It goes to whether anyone can be made to answer for the mistake.
How the address was disclosed
The address was disclosed by a CPS lawyer during a magistrates’ court hearing. At that hearing, prosecutors were seeking a condition that would stop her former partner from entering the road where she lived. He was accused of raping her, and of threatening to kill her and throw acid on her.
Sussex Police had not marked the address as confidential when it sent the details to the CPS. In plain terms, the information was not flagged as needing protection, so nothing in the paperwork signalled that it should be handled with extra care. The woman moved home as a result of the disclosure.
That sequence matters for ordinary readers because it shows how a routine administrative step can have physical consequences. A woman who says she was accused of a serious crime against her and then had to move home after her address reached the person she feared is not a remote legal abstraction. Her case asks who is responsible when personal information leaves the hands of the people who are meant to protect it.
What ‘core immunity’ means
The central legal issue is a protection known as “core immunity.” It is a long-standing principle in English and Welsh law that witnesses and lawyers taking part in court proceedings generally cannot be sued for what they say or do in that process. The idea is that people should be able to give evidence and make arguments in court without the fear that they will be sued for it afterwards.
The Court of Appeal ruled last year that XGY could not sue Sussex Police and the CPS. In reaching that conclusion, it said core immunity applied beyond evidence given in court. It also said the protection covered a broad range of police activity, including matters outside the courtroom that related to an investigation.
That wider reading is the reason the case has drawn attention beyond one woman’s claim. Legal protections of this kind often turn on exactly where the line falls. If the broader reading stands, it could affect how far police decisions made during investigations can be challenged in civil courts. The Supreme Court will be asked to examine where that line should be drawn.
Phillips argues civil claims drive change
Phillips is a Labour MP and a former minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls. She has spent years on these issues, and she used that background to make the case for civil claims as a tool for reform.
She said she has been involved in many cases in which the police and the CPS were held to account through civil remedy for their failures. Civil remedy generally means a court order or payment that gives a person a legal route to redress, usually in the form of damages, rather than a criminal conviction of the people involved.
Phillips also argued that these cases do more than produce payouts. She said: “This isn’t just that I want people to be able to make financial claims against the police. Often these cases where there’s been failures lead to longer-term change for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.” She gave an example from grooming cases, describing police failures in which women were charged with crimes rather than helped as victims.
Her wider argument is that criminal law has not been enough on its own. She said: “Criminal law in cases of domestic abuse has seen decades of failure so civil law is used to try and make the systems better and nowhere more so than in violence against women and girls.” In her view, civil claims put pressure on institutions to change how they work, not just how they explain themselves afterwards.
Why critics see the ruling as a problem
Phillips described the Court of Appeal ruling as “chilling.” She said she did not think it helped the police or the CPS. In her view, the idea that the two agencies cannot be held accountable is not something they need at the moment, or should want.
Her concern is trust. She said there is “a real problem with how victims of domestic abuse perceive the police.” She pointed to a run of inquiries and scandals that, in her words, have given women reasons to doubt the police. She named the 2021 murder of Sarah Everard, and a case at Charing Cross police station in which officers were filmed making racist and misogynistic comments.
She said: “Inquiry after inquiry” had shown why women do not have faith in the police. She argued that this is bad for the police and bad for future change. She added that she did not want to see “a sort of really wide-ranging exemption for police to be held accountable with civil action.”
Phillips also said she has seen real improvement. She said that if there was one agency that had improved its approach to violence against women over the past 20 years, it was the police. Her argument is that the progress is real but fragile, and that removing the threat of civil action could weaken the incentive to keep improving.
This is a sensitive area. Officers and prosecutors need room to make decisions in difficult cases, often under pressure and with incomplete information. The legal question for the courts is how to balance that need against a survivor’s right to seek a remedy when something goes wrong.
Parliament’s response
Phillips stressed that it is for the Supreme Court to reach its own decision. She has not tried to tell the judges how to rule. At the same time, she has acted in Parliament. Along with fellow MPs David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, she has tabled an amendment to a bill.
The amendment would counteract the effect of the Court of Appeal ruling if it is not overturned. Phillips said the ruling had created “a precedent that was never intended by parliament.” That wording suggests the MPs believe the courts have read the law more widely than lawmakers meant when they wrote it.
The approach matters because it gives Parliament a route to respond if the judges back the Court of Appeal. Courts interpret legislation, but Parliament can change the law when it concludes that the judges have gone further than intended. If the amendment were passed, it would shape the legal position regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on this particular claim.
What happens next
The Supreme Court will hear the case on Wednesday and Thursday. Its decision will determine whether XGY’s claim against Sussex Police and the CPS can proceed. It will also set out how far core immunity reaches beyond the courtroom, which could matter for future claims involving police investigations.
If the Supreme Court overturns the Court of Appeal, the claim could move forward, and the broader reading of core immunity would be narrowed. If the ruling is upheld, the amendment tabled by Phillips, Davis and Mitchell could become the main route for changing the law. Lawyers and campaigners will likely watch the wording of any judgment closely, because the reasoning may matter as much as the result.
Court judgments are not always delivered immediately after a hearing, so the timing of the final decision is not yet clear. For survivors, police and prosecutors alike, the outcome will show whether civil courts remain a route to accountability when personal information is mishandled, or whether that route becomes narrower.
Questions and answers
Why can’t the domestic abuse survivor sue the police and the CPS?
The Court of Appeal ruled that XGY could not sue Sussex Police and the CPS because it found that core immunity applies beyond evidence given in court. It said the protection also covers a broad range of police activity, including matters outside the courtroom that relate to an investigation.
What happened to the woman whose address was disclosed?
A CPS lawyer disclosed her address during a magistrates’ court hearing. Sussex Police had not marked the address as confidential when sending it to the CPS, and the woman moved home as a result.
When will the Supreme Court hear the case?
The Supreme Court is due to hear the case on Wednesday and Thursday. Its decision will determine whether the claim against Sussex Police and the CPS can proceed.
What is Jess Phillips doing about the ruling?
Phillips has said she hopes the Supreme Court overturns the ruling. Along with David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, she has tabled an amendment to a bill that would counteract the ruling if it is not overturned.
Topics: Jess Phillips, UK Supreme Court, domestic abuse, Sussex Police, Crown Prosecution Service, core immunity, violence against women and girls
Sources: The Guardian UK Crime
https://axynewsglobal.com/article/jess-phillips-hopes-supreme-court-overturns-domestic-abuse-ruling