South Yorkshire Police

The complainant has requested copies of some audio transmissions made during the Hillsborough Disaster. Having initially advised him that the information was already available to him as publicly available transcripts, the public authority subsequently relied on the exemptions in sections 11, 31(1) and 40(2). The Commissioner partly upholds the citing of section 11 to the extent that some of the information is already transcribed and therefore reasonably available to the public, but he does not accept that this applies to all the information that is recorded on the tapes. However, he finds that any remaining information that is not caught by section 11, falls within the exemption at section 31(1) and the public interest favours maintaining the exemption. He does not find section 40(2) to be engaged.