An aspiring barrister who reported a data breach at the Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA) was charged with misconduct for accessing confidential information.
A disciplinary panel of the Council of the Inns of Court cleared Bartek Wytrzyszczewski, 32, of misconduct in December, ruling that the charge against him “was not established”.
The student, who is from Poland and won the Peter Taylor Scholarship from Inner Temple, says: “It was three months of my life lost. I literally felt that my legal career was coming to an end.”
Last year the college provided students starting the course in September with access to materials and information via an online student dashboard. After opening a number of files that did not indicate they were confidential, Wytrzyszczewski realised that some were.
He logged in again a couple of days later and then reported the data breach to the college, informing it that students had access to “a large number of documents dealt with by the registry, planning and marketing teams”. The data included all students’ home addresses and emails, and exam results of former students.
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Seven students accessed confidential files, according to documents submitted by the college to the panel, which have been seen by The Times. Some saw only a couple of documents, but the college claimed that Wytrzyszczewski accessed 485 — a figure he disputes.
The college asked the students to provide details of the files they viewed and sought undertakings that they would not pass on any personal or sensitive data. It told the students, including Wytrzyszczewski, that “there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing” and that the questions were “purely designed to help us understand what has occurred”.
But a month later, officials initiated misconduct proceedings against Wytrzyszczewski, stating that he was “aware or should have been aware” that access to some or all of the files was unauthorised.
Wytrzyszczewski prepared written submissions, seen by The Times, and represented himself at the hearing in November in which he denied the charge. He disputed the number of files that the college claimed he had accessed, stating that it was not possible for him to have viewed “as many as 72 files per minute or 33 files per second”, which its data sheet suggested.
Officials accepted that there had been a data breach and said that they had referred the college to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
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Its evidence to the misconduct hearing said that 786 individuals had personal data accessed, but stressed that the breach did not include any bank, credit data or logon passwords, or information relating to under-18s or other vulnerable individuals.
In a statement the college said it had taken “immediate action” to secure the files affected and notified those whose personal data had been accessed. Where students had accessed data, the college said it had “considered each case individually and followed its internal misconduct procedures where necessary”.
It stressed that, following a risk assessment, its system “is secure and the privacy rights of individuals who study with the ICCA are protected”.
Wytrzyszczewski completed the international baccalaureate in Poland and studied language and linguistics at York University, where he also gained a postgraduate certificate in education before completing the law conversion course at the University of Law.
He worked at the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg for 18 months and is a volunteer with the free representation unit, which provides advocates for social security and employment tribunals.
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Wytrzyszczewski has unenrolled from the ICCA and says: “I completely lost my motivation and didn’t know if I still wanted to be a barrister any more for a while.”
He is now studying the Bar course at the University of Law in Leeds and applying for pupillage.