Tribunal rules serial stalker Kerryn Mitchell’s privacy was partially breached by Corrections

Kerryn Mitchell attempted to send her ex 61 letters from prison, five of which got through. Photo / 123rf

A serial stalker who harassed her ex-boyfriend for more than a decade - even from behind bars - has partially won her claim that the Department of Corrections breached her privacy.

Kerryn Mitchell was jailed in 2012 after she visited the man’s home one night armed with a tyre iron and smashed most of his windows.

She had a further 27 months added to her sentence in 2015 after she tried to send him 61 letters from prison.

Corrections intercepted most of them but five slipped through, including a stick figure drawing deemed so “pernicious” by Wellington District Court Judge Jan Kelly that it constituted a death threat.

While Mitchell was remanded in custody in 2014, she tried to secure electronically monitored bail to an address in Auckland, which was ultimately denied.

Police requested a psychologist’s report written by a Corrections employee about Mitchell so they could prepare their own report about her risk to the community if she was bailed.

Corrections did not give police the entire document but provided sections the psychologist deemed relevant.

It was this shared information that formed the basis of Mitchell’s complaint to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

The authority heard her claim in a three-day hearing earlier this year.

Mitchell argued Corrections breached her privacy by releasing the report. She also claimed it breached her privacy by releasing 47 pages of prisoner complaint forms written by her ahead of one of her court hearings in 2015.

This week, the tribunal ruled Corrections breached Mitchell’s privacy when it released the prisoner complaint forms to police, who in turn gave them to a Crown prosecutor.

The information requested by the Crown was about what access to information Mitchell had behind bars, specifically the prison mail system which she used to harass her ex.

Corrections submitted the staff who released those forms believed it was necessary for the court proceedings, even though releasing the information was a breach of the Privacy Act.

The tribunal found releasing that information was in fact a breach of Mitchell’s privacy and there were no reasonable grounds to disclose it.

However, it didn’t agree with Mitchell’s claim Corrections had breached her privacy when it disclosed her psychologist’s report to police.

Health information about patients can be shared between agencies as part of the Health Information Privacy Code, but personal information comes under more stringent rules.

Mitchell claimed the report was not health information, but rather her personal information and did not fall under the provision of the code.

Corrections argued it was also a health agency because it provides health and disability services to prisoners and is required by law to have a medical officer and other medical staff on-site at its various premises.

The tribunal agreed with Corrections, finding it was a health agency and the psychologist’s report constituted health information.

Mitchell claimed the medical assessment being released was the reason she missed out on bail and therefore was unable to return to Wellington where she had family, friends and pets.

Despite acknowledging a privacy breach had occurred in relation to the prisoner complaint forms, the tribunal declined to award Mitchell any compensation.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.