Jess Phillips Hopes Supreme Court Overturns Ruling on Abuse Survivor's Address

Labour MP Jess Phillips has said she hopes the UK Supreme Court will overturn a Court of Appeal ruling that prevents a domestic abuse survivor from suing Sussex Police and the Crown Prosecution Service over the disclosure of her address to her violent former partner. The survivor is anonymised in court papers as XGY. The Crown Prosecution Service, usually shortened to CPS, is the state body that brings criminal cases to court in England and Wales.

According to the judgment, a CPS lawyer disclosed XGY's address during a magistrates' hearing. The hearing was considering a condition that would have stopped her former partner, who is accused of rape and of threatening to kill her and throw acid on her, from entering the road where she lived. Sussex Police had not marked her address as confidential when it sent the information to the CPS. XGY moved home as a result of the disclosure.

She sought to sue both bodies, but the Court of Appeal ruled last year that she could not. The court held that witness core immunity, a legal protection that generally shields people from being sued over their role as witnesses, applies beyond evidence given in court. In its view, it covers a broad range of police activity, including matters outside the courtroom relating to an investigation.

Phillips, a former minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, described the Court of Appeal ruling as chilling. She has tabled an amendment to a bill with David Davis and Andrew Mitchell. If the ruling is not overturned, the amendment would counteract it. The three MPs argue that the ruling created a precedent Parliament never intended.

The Supreme Court case, numbered UKSC 2025/0194, is listed on the court's website under the title The Chief Constable of Sussex Police and another v XGY. The court's case summary asks whether the CPS advocate is immune from suit. It also records that the police prepared a file for the CPS containing XGY's new address, and that the CPS later raised this during a bail hearing. The Court of Appeal judgment refers in part to the police's domestic abuse checklist being incompatible with the CPS's case file system.

XGY has said that more than six years after the events, she is still living with their impact. She has continued the case, she said, because she believes survivors should be able to trust the justice system.