John Stenhouse

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

John Stenhouse, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, faced four charges of professional misconduct. Charges 1-3 (breaches of CD5, CD10 and rC87) alleged he refused over a roughly 5-year period (Aug 2018 to date) to delete personal data of a prospective public access client, DK, despite requests from DK, the ICO and the BSB. Charge 4 (CD9) alleged he failed to be open and co-operative with the ICO by not providing information requested in emails of Dec 2021/Jan 2022. The BSB conceded it could not prove misconduct over the 2018-2023 period and applied to amend charges 1-3 to a shorter period from 10 Jan 2023; the Tribunal refused the amendment as causing substantial prejudice to S at a very late stage, contrary to rE161. The BSB then offered no evidence on charges 1-3, which were found not proved. On charge 4, the Tribunal found S had responded in good faith with explanations and the BSB had not established a failure to be open and co-operative; it was also not sufficiently serious to amount to professional misconduct (per Khan v BSB). All four charges were found not proved. The Tribunal awarded S, who acted in person (Chorley principle), costs of £9,500 against the BSB, payable within 21 days.