Neil Wilby Media

When an inspector’s words become evidence in the High Court

Earlier this year, a striking email written by a Lancashire police inspector found its way into the High Court in London and, as a consequence, raised serious public confidence issues. It featured in a recent Neil Wilby Media article headlined ‘When is a Task Force Not a Task Force?’ (read in full here).

The email emerged, not because of a disclosure exercise by the force, but because it was voluntarily exhibited by a claimant in civil proceedings accompanying a witness statement filed with the King’s Bench Division in April 2025.

Now in the public domain, it was addressed to that claimant and contained a telling line: “Please use this email as something you can use with any legal advisor.”

It went further, asserting that “there is no task force set out to get you,” while conceding that “due to the volume of complaints from and against you there are multiple people involved”. A redacted version of the email can be read in full here.

For most independent observers, this will raise an obvious concern: Should a serving police inspector be supplying written assurances to a lay litigant, expressly for use with legal advisers, in circumstances where civil litigation was live, the opposing litigant was a protected party and a court hearing imminent?

From reassurance to evidence

The context matters. At the time, questions were being asked – including through Freedom of Information requests – about the scale of Lancashire Constabulary’s resources devoted to managing a single complainant. Crime logs disclosed in separate, long-running civil litigation, in which Lancashire Constabulary is defendant, had already run to more than 5,000 pages by 2023. Estimates of the cost of dedicated staffing stand at around £250,000 per year.

In that climate, Inspector Daniel Clough’s email was more than just a reassurance. By putting in writing that there was “no task force,” whilst admitting that significant resources were committed, he provided a neat exhibit for one side in civil litigation. And that is exactly what happened: the email was filed by the claimant to support their case.

The civil claim, was ultimately struck out in July 2025, and the accompanying injunction application dismissed, with costs awarded against the claimants. But the damage to confidence in police impartiality may prove longer lasting.

The Professional Standards framework

The College of Policing’s Code of Ethics is clear: Officers must act with fairness, objectivity, and integrity. They are also expected to avoid conflicts of interest and maintain public confidence in their impartiality.

Providing a written assurance, using a police email domain and plainly intended to be deployed in civil litigation against another party sits uneasily with those obligations. It is not simply a matter of poor judgment. It risks undermining the principle that police officers must remain neutral actors, not participants in civil disputes favouring one side against another.

Clough’s intervention becomes even more pronounced when the fact that the party to whom he was keen to provide assistance is actually on bail over criminal allegations made by the opposing litigation party.

Those bail conditions were crystal clear: No direct or indirect contact for any reason. Yet the errant inspector, who had himself overseen the imposition of those terms, chose to assist one party in a way that appears to have enabled a blatant breach.

The tone of the inspector’s email – less like official correspondence, more like a favour between acquaintances – raises its own questions. Why did one party on strict conditional bail feel entitled to seek such an intervention? And why did a serving officer feel comfortable in so readily obliging?

Conduct matter, not complaint

There is an important technical point here. Where potential misconduct arises in the course of civil proceedings, it is properly treated as what is known as a Conduct Matter, not a public complaint. That distinction is important because it ensures the issue is assessed on its merits without being mischaracterised as a grievance from one side.

The fact that the email is now in the public domain, by way of filing in the High Court, makes it doubly important that Lancashire Constabulary addresses it robustly. To do otherwise risks suggesting that officers’ correspondence with civil litigants, even when exhibited in court, can escape scrutiny altogether.

A wider pattern

This incident does not stand alone. It comes at a time when Lancashire Constabulary’s Legal Services and Professional Standards Department are under sustained criticism: Disclosure failures in civil claims, unanswered Letters Before Claim, and a controversial “delete first” email from a senior solicitor have already attracted press attention.

Together, these incidents point not to isolated lapses but to a culture of evasion and procedural failure.

Against that backdrop, an inspector’s words being carried into the High Court to support one party in litigation against another adds another strand to a rope of serious concern.

Conclusion

Policing depends on trust. When an officer’s email finds its way into the High Court as litigation evidence, that trust is tested.

The question is not whether the inspector intended to intervene. It is whether Lancashire Constabulary is willing to confront what his words represent: A blurring of the line between enforcement of bail conditions, impartial policing and enthusiastic advocacy for one side in civil proceedings.

It is, at the very least, a matter requiring a thorough and proportionate Professional Standards investigation — one that Lancashire Constabulary can ill afford to ignore. With Inspector Clough’s own words already scrutinised in the High Court, and independent stakeholders publicly questioning his conduct, the issue is no longer confined to a single email. It has become a test of whether the force is willing to confront behaviour that undermines impartiality, professional integrity, and public confidence in policing.

Adding to the PSD investigation already in train involving Inspector Clough, reported to the Independent Office for Police Conduct in February 2025 by a female lawyer. The allegations include breaches of Professional Standards relating to Honesty and Integrity; Duties and Responsibilities; Courtesy and Respect.

In the same month, another female lawyer/stakeholder, who has lifetime anonymity as a rape complainant, posted this on her X (formerly Twitter) account. She has over 7,300 followers:

“If anyone has had any encounters with an Inspector 2868 Danny Clough from Lancs Police
please get in touch. He is a corrupt police officer and a threat to vulnerable women.

“He also discloses personal information about victims’ cases to third parties.”

The officer, at all times, maintains that he is ‘honest and transparent’ and denies any and all other allegations against him.

Those allegations, made separately by two lawyers, no less, with direct and very different experiences of the complainant, are reported here not as findings of fact but as further evidence of the perception problem now confronting Lancashire Constabulary. When combined with Inspector Clough’s own written intervention in live civil proceedings, they underscore how questions of impartiality, judgment and public confidence extend well beyond a single email.

Portentous last words

But the last words go to Neil Wilby, the author of this article:

“I have dealt with Danny Clough, directly, just the once. Although I have seen, at close quarters, his interactions with a number of other stakeholders over a lengthy period.

“In February 2025, a few weeks before his civil court intervention, I wrote to him regarding what was viewed as his manifest failings as a member of the ‘Task Force’, invited him to step down and self-report to his Head of Professional Standards – and underlined those requests with this sign-off:

““On a wider view, you might reflect upon whether policing – and its core value of keeping people safe – is one to which you are at all suited. Personally, and for reasons not confined to this or [the female lawyer]’s email, there is every reason to believe you are not.”

Whether or not the two events are connected, Lancs is unwilling to confirm; but the following month, and before his High Court intervention, Inspector Clough was re-assigned to another role within the force.

Via the force press office, Daniel Clough was afforded the standard courtesy of right of reply. A statement was also been requested from the Head of Professional Standards addressing the Conduct Matter and when and how the matter will be investigated.

The email carrying that invitation and request, sent on 26th August 2025, remains unacknowledged.

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Neil Wilby is a journalist, court reporter and transparency campaigner who has reported on police misconduct, regulatory failures, and criminal and civil justice since 2009. He is the founder and editor of Neil Wilby Media, launched in 2015.

Page last updated: Thursday 28th August 2025 at 08h45

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Image Credits: Lancs Constabulary

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