The chief constable of Northamptonshire Police said he was ‘let down’ by his solicitor, as the Court of Appeal imposed a fine of £50,000 for contempt of court.
Ivan Balhatchet was last week found to be in contempt over his force’s failure to comply with a court order to supply body-worn camera footage. Giving judgment following a half-day hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday, Lord Justice Fraser said that ‘the extent of the breaches of two orders of the court, firstly the county court and also the Court of Appeal, do require sanction in addition to the mere finding of contempt’.
At Thursday’s hearing, the chief constable stood and apologised to businesswoman Nadine Buzzard-Quashie, whose complaint prompted the cases at the county court and the Court of Appeal.
The judgment noted that in the chief constable’s statement ‘he considered that he had been let down by the solicitor acting for him in terms of compliance with the deadline for service of his statement on 5 November 2025’.
Particular aggravating features included that the breaches ‘continued over such a very long period, both before and after the first hearing in the Court of Appeal; and also, directly inaccurate and incorrect statements have been made repeatedly by a number of personnel over that long period’, said Lord Justice Fraser, with whom Lord Justice Coulson and Lady Justice Asplin agreed. A fine of £50,000 ‘properly reflects the gravity of the situation, whilst taking account of the fact that the funds for it will have to be provided out of the existing budget of the Northamptonshire Police Force’.’
