Council loses pig farm spygate case at tribunal

A council made a right pig’s ear of spying on a family running a pig farm in South Warnborough, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has ruled.

The case concerned the Woodland Pig Co, a small family business run by Matthew Silvester and Helen Freeman at Hares Farm in Pickaxe Lane.

They reared pigs, had them butchered locally, and sold the pork to local families, at more than 100 farmers’ markets a year and through hog roasts at around 28 events a year.

In 2022 Hart District Council took enforcement action over the family’s use of the land, including a log cabin they lived in on the site, and obtained a High Court injunction.

While the family were challenging the council through the planning appeal system, two council enforcement officers carried out covert surveillance of their home.

On June 8, 2023, from 10.45pm until around 12.45am, the officers watched the family’s log cabin from a neighbour’s paddock, through a gap in a fence, through hedging facing the rear window, and from another neighbour’s ensuite bathroom window. They recorded the lights changing, a television flickering and a man coughing.

On July 4, 2023, they returned at 5.45am, crossed neighbouring land to photograph the back of the farm, and noted a child’s pushchair beside the log cabin.

Emails disclosed by the council showed officers asking a neighbour to text them that night if the site was occupied at 10pm. Another neighbour logged the family’s movements on an official council Diary Sheet for Planning Enforcement Complaints bearing an officer’s name.

On November 5, 2026, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal - a judicial body that hears complaints about covert surveillance by public bodies - ruled that the surveillance was covert directed surveillance carried out without the authorisation required by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

The tribunal said it was “not in accordance with the law” and ordered the council to destroy everything the surveillance produced.

The council told the tribunal: “Hart District Council has already acknowledged that it did not have the appropriate consent to carry out the surveillance that it did at the time.” The tribunal criticised the council after body-worn camera footage of the night-time visit was lost.

The council said the footage had been held only on a senior director’s account which was deleted after he left the authority while the tribunal case was under way. The tribunal called this “an obviously unsatisfactory position”.

Matthew Silvester said: “We were a small family farm selling pork to our local community. The council put an injunction on our land, and then, for months, it watched us.

“Officers stood in the dark in a neighbour’s field and a neighbour’s bathroom. Neighbours were asked to text them when we were home. A council form was used to log our movements.

“The council used what it gathered to build its case against us, in the High Court and in the enforcement notice we then had to fight at a planning appeal.

“Those cases are over. We can’t undo them. But all along, the council told the courts it was acting in the public interest. A tribunal has now ruled its surveillance unlawful, and the information commissioner has upheld our complaint that it broke data protection rules.

“So here is the question. If it was in the public interest to pursue a small family farm, it is surely in the public interest to hold the council to account for breaking the law to do it.”

Hart District Council said: “The council accepts that the surveillance in this instance was not properly authorised.

“The case relates to events of three years ago. We have since updated our internal policy in the light of this and will ensure that any covert surveillance is undertaken with the appropriate authority in future.

“The officers concerned believed that they were acting within the rules at the time and had not intended to gather evidence inappropriately.”

The council added: “We are pleased to note that there was no award of damages against the council. The complainant in this case had breached an injunction and was unlawfully occupying the cabin on the site. He was found guilty, given a suspended prison sentence and costs had been awarded against him.

“In the tribunal's decision it states that ‘The costs he claims do not arise from the respondent's unlawful surveillance but his own conduct’.

“Furthermore, it is noted in the decision that the product of the council's unlawful surveillance was not relied upon in either set of proceedings against the complainant. It did not therefore make any difference to the outcome of those proceedings in which he was convicted.”