A woman whose address was given to her abusive former partner is fighting to hold Sussex Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) accountable.
Known as XGY in legal proceedings, the woman gave details of her new address to the police after she fled an abusive relationship. However, they failed to mark the address as confidential when passing the information to the CPS.
A lawyer later read out the address during a magistrates’ court hearing, considering a condition to stop her former partner, who was accused of raping her and threatening to kill her, from entering the road where she lived.
As a result, XGY sued Sussex Police and the CPS, but her case was thrown out by a County Court Judge, who ruled the two organisations were protected by legal immunity.
The High Court overturned the decision in 2024, but the Court of Appeal reinstated the original ruling in 2025.
Now XGY has taken her battle to the Supreme Court, which heard the appeal on 21 and 22 October, though a judgement is yet to be made.
Jess Phillips, former minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, told The Guardian: ‘Hopefully the Supreme Court will see sense. I’ve been part of many different cases, where both the police and the CPS, have been held accountable in civil remedy, regarding their failures.
‘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, like police failures within the grooming cases for example – charging women with crimes rather than helping them as victims.’
- Our sister title, Social Care Today, has reported on victims of domestic abuse being failed by the services that are intended to protect them
Phillips also described the Court of Appeal ruling as ‘chilling’, claiming: ‘Inquiry after inquiry, the Sarah Everard murder, Charing Cross, there are reasons why women don’t have faith in the police and that’s not good for the police and it’s not good for change in the future.’
In similar vein, Kate Ellis, joint head of litigation at Centre for Women’s Justice, described the case as ‘deeply concerning’.
‘We are concerned…that the approach taken by the previous court in this case risks seriously eroding the rights of victims, under the Human Rights Act 1998, to hold public authorities legally accountable when there have been serious failings,’ she said.
‘Those rights have been previously recognised by the Supreme Court itself, including in the landmark claims brought by two victims of the prolific ‘black cab rapist’ John Worboys against the Metropolitan Police – and are a vital means of ensuring that criminal justice bodies are subject to meaningful scrutiny.’
Image: Wesley Tingey/UnSplash
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[…] ‘Chilling’ ruling disputed after abuse victim’s address leaked […]