Heselton v Information Commissioner: tribunal upholds vexatious request finding and section 17(6) refusal

The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) has dismissed an appeal against an Information Commissioner decision that a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request to the Ministry of Justice was vexatious, and that the department could decline to issue a further refusal notice. In Heselton v Information Commissioner [2026] UKFTT 1336 (GRC), Judge Harris and members Foster and Murphy held that the Commissioner's June 2024 decision was in accordance with the law.

The request, made in January 2024, sought the policy and legislative basis for withholding information gained in Office of the Public Guardian investigations in 2015 from the person investigated in subject access requests. The MOJ, of which the OPG is an executive agency, declined to process it. It relied on a May 2021 notice which treated the appellant's earlier requests as vexatious under section 14(1) and said further requests on the subject would receive no response, citing section 17(6).

The appellant, who represented herself, argued that her requests had genuine and serious purposes, that new information had emerged, and that she had been told she could make requests outside the topics deemed vexatious. The Commissioner did not attend.

The tribunal applied Dransfield, noting the high hurdle for vexatiousness and the need for a holistic approach guided by four non-exhaustive themes: burden, motive, value or serious purpose, and harassment or distress. It stressed that section 14 must not operate as a public interest threshold or a catch-all exemption, referring to the balance described in Kennedy v Charity Commission.

On burden, the MOJ produced a spreadsheet of 25 requests between July 2020 and January 2024. It said that between July 2020 and May 2021 the appellant submitted 17 items of correspondence containing 173 questions, including one request of 5,786 words. The tribunal found that many requests overlapped and arose from the same facts. A period without requests did not change that, and the volume up to the request would have imposed an unreasonable burden, although the panel expressed sympathy for the appellant's frustration.

On motive, the tribunal accepted that the appellant was sincere. However, she was in substance using FOIA as another route to information she had not obtained elsewhere, having repeatedly asked very similar questions. That weighed towards vexatiousness. Other mechanisms, such as civil proceedings, were available and some were being pursued.

On value, the information mattered greatly to the appellant personally, but the tribunal found no wider public benefit. It distinguished public benefit from public curiosity and saw limited benefit in disclosing the policies sought without their wider context. Evidence of harassment or distress to staff was insufficient, though that factor is not required. Several Dransfield limbs were met, so section 14(1) applied.

Section 17(6) required reliance on a section 14 claim, a previous notice saying so, and that it would be unreasonable to expect a further notice. The tribunal found the first two established. On the third, almost three years had passed since the last refusal notice, but the request concerned the same matter and correspondence had continued afterwards. Earlier refusals had not ended it. The Commissioner had drawn on Scranage, which cautions against assuming that the passage of time alone alters the position. The appellant pointed to an April 2022 letter she said reinstated her right to make requests, but that document was not before the tribunal. The panel concluded that it was not unreasonable for the MOJ to decline to issue another notice.

The appeal was dismissed. The decision was given on 23 September 2026 after a hearing on 17 September.