Readers of this blog will recall that the Barbulescu case concerned Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in respect of private life and correspondence at work. The employee had been dismissed for allegedly breaching company regulations in relation to personal messaging at work.

A chamber of the Strasbourg Court held there had been no violation of Article 8, for the reasons explored in the blog below. However, the Grand Chamber of the Court has now reversed that decision and decided, by eleven votes to six, that there had been a violation of Article 8.

The Grand Chamber focused on the question of whether the employee had proper notice that his communications at work would be monitored, whether the employer could have used less invasive monitoring methods, and the court re-struck the balance between the employer and the employee’s rights and interests in the case.

Each year, the Home Office published police use of firearms statistics for England and Wales. This year’s publication on 27 July 2017, relates to the period from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017.

The headline figures show that, in the year to March 2017:

• there were 15,705 police firearms operations;

• 84% of those operations involved Armed Response Vehicles (ARVs);

• there were 10 incidents in which police discharged firearms;

• London accounted for the largest proportion (27%) of all police firearms operations; the North East accounted for the smallest proportion (3%);

• there were 6,278 Authorised Firearms Officer (AFOs), representing 5% of the total number of 125,851 police officers – the highest proportion in last 9 years.