Dr Robert James Abrahart v The Information Commissioner & Anor

Facts

Dr Robert James Abrahart requested information from the Department for Education on 13 August 2024, seeking copies of email records that had been withheld from an earlier requester on 2 May 2024. That earlier request had sought all emails sent or received by two DfE officials relating to the response to a parliamentary petition, launched by The LEARN Network — a campaign group of bereaved families — calling for a statutory duty of care in higher education; the petition was debated in Parliament on 5 June 2023. On 7 September 2024 the appellant offered to widen the scope to all staff in the two Higher Education Policy Teams. The DfE refused the request on 9 October 2024 relying on section 35, section 40(2) and section 42 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and maintained that position on internal review on 3 December 2024. The appellant complained to the Information Commissioner, who in a Decision Notice of 24 June 2025 found the DfE entitled to rely on section 35 and section 42, that section 40(2) had not been used to withhold senior civil servants' data, and that there had been no breach of section 16. The appellant appealed, complaining chiefly of a failure to consider partial disclosure by redaction. Two other appeals by him were heard alongside but not consolidated.