Subject: RE: FOI 1264/26 - non-personal operational records concerning Great House Farm / Tŷ Mawr, Llandough, November–December 1988 From: Sion Buckler Direction: sent Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2026 16:05 UTC Institution: South Wales Police Refs: 1264/26, FOI1264 Archive id: gm-1a13602f78dfa3d1 ------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Mr Byrne, Thank you for your email of 13 October 2026 concerning Freedom of Information request 1264/26. I provide the clarification and additional search identifiers below. The purpose is to help South Wales Police identify and locate existing recorded information responsive to my original request. I am not seeking to extend the period covered, require the creation of new information, or ask the Force to investigate or determine the underlying property dispute. For clarity, the requested period remains 1 November to 31 December 1988 inclusive. My request remains for existing, non-personal recorded information only. Personal data is excluded from this FOI request and is being pursued separately through the appropriate subject-access route. 1. Location and alternative site names The property concerned is Great House Farm, also referred to as Great House and Tŷ Mawr / Ty Mawr, at Llandough-juxta-Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan, adjoining St Dochdwy’s Church. The following identifiers may assist searches of occurrence, incident, control-room, deployment or other operational records: - Site: Great House Farm / Great House / Tŷ Mawr / Ty Mawr. - Locality: Llandough-juxta-Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, near Penarth. - Approximate National Grid Reference: ST 1681 7331; the less precise reference ST 168 733 may also appear. - Distinctive context: the family farmhouse and associated buildings that were the subject of the possession dispute and were demolished in December 1988. The locality description is intentional: I refer to Llandough-juxta-Penarth, not the separate Llandough near Cowbridge. 2. Names and organisational identifiers The principal individual identifier is: William Beverly Buckler, also referred to in contemporary reporting as William Buckler, Bill Buckler or Billy Buckler. Relevant corporate or property-related search terms include: - B.P. Properties Ltd / BP Properties Ltd, the company identified in the property litigation and associated with the demolition. - BP Pension Trust Ltd and Western Ground Rents Ltd, which appear in the wider historical property context. I include these names only as supplementary indexing terms; I do not assert that either organisation was involved in, or communicated with police about, an event during the requested period. - Vale of Glamorgan Borough Council and South Glamorgan County Council, the relevant local-government names for the period. - Court enforcement personnel, bailiffs and any public authority or official recorded as contacting, corresponding with, or requesting assistance from the police in relation to the property. The following case identifiers may also be useful if records were indexed by litigation or proceedings rather than by address: - B.P. Properties Ltd v Buckler [1987] EWCA Civ 2. - Buckler v United Kingdom, European Commission of Human Rights application 14464/88, registered on 12 December 1988. These case identifiers are offered to assist retrieval, not as an assertion that the Force necessarily held records under either reference. I am supplying names and case references as historical search identifiers. I am not asking for personal data about living individuals. Where a responsive record contains personal data, please consider whether non-personal information can be disclosed separately or after appropriate redaction. 3. Chronology and specific search leads The following events provide context for identifying any corresponding police records. They are search leads drawn from historical reporting, the heritage record and the family archive; they should not be treated as proof of police involvement. 29–30 November 1988 — possession and eviction The historical chronology records possession on 29 November 1988. A contemporaneous South Wales Echo report dated 30 November, titled “Angry scenes as farmer evicted” and attributed to Peter Bibby, describes the eviction sequence and reports that bailiffs entered the property and that the roof of an outbuilding had already been partly removed. The chronology also associates demolition of outbuildings with 30 November. There is therefore a date distinction between the recorded possession date and the newspaper’s account of the eviction. I cannot presently reconcile the dates. Please search across both 29 and 30 November, rather than treating either as an exclusive date for the relevant incident. 2–5 December 1988 — court proceedings and proposed access to belongings Contemporary reporting describes further court proceedings in the days before the farmhouse was demolished, including an arrangement under which access to collect belongings was reportedly permitted subject to conditions and pending a further hearing. The precise terms and procedural details should be verified from the original records rather than inferred from press summaries. This chronology may nevertheless help identify any police liaison, requests for assistance, public-order concerns or communications concerning access to the premises. 6 December 1988 — demolition The heritage record identifies 6 December 1988 as the demolition date. The archived historical chronology reports that a demolition team arrived in the early hours and that the farmhouse was demolished that morning. I emphasise that the reported arrival time is not evidence that police were present at that time. I am asking whether responsive police records exist, not inviting an assumption that an attendance or deployment took place. 9–13 December 1988 — discrepancy requiring verification A South Wales Echo report dated 10 December 1988 appears to state that William Buckler was released on bail the previous day, which would be 9 December. Separately, a notebook attributed to William Buckler and retained in the family archive contains an account referring to police having “locked me up for 2 weeks” and to a search involving family antiques and the taking of documents. The entry is a family-held historical account; it is not, by itself, independently verified proof of detention, a search, seizure or the precise dates involved. If the notebook’s reference to two weeks from 29 November is literal, it would point to a date around 13 December. That does not readily reconcile with the newspaper’s reported release date of 9 December. I do not ask the Force to accept either account in preference to its own records. The discrepancy is a reason to check the relevant dates and any associated records. Accordingly, please include 29 November to 13 December 1988 when checking for any potentially relevant custody, detention, search, property-seizure, operational or cross-referenced occurrence records, while retaining the original overall FOI period of 1 November to 31 December 1988. I seek only information falling within the original request’s non-personal scope, including any separable non-personal operational information. 4. Earlier event offered solely as an indexing lead The archived historical chronology also describes a separate incident at Great House Farm on 29 April 1988, involving bailiffs and a police presence during a stand-off. The account attributes to South Wales Police the position that the officers were there to prevent a breach of the peace, rather than to assist bailiffs. That event is outside the requested period. I am not asking you to disclose records from April 1988 under this request, and I do not suggest that the earlier incident establishes police attendance in November or December. I mention it only in case any occurrence number, location index or related reference appearing in the records from the requested period would be easier to identify against the same property or dispute. 5. Records sought and search categories With those identifiers in mind, the records sought remain the existing records described in my original request, insofar as they fall within the period and are held by South Wales Police. In particular, please search for responsive: 1. Incident and control-room records: incident or occurrence logs, calls for assistance, control-room entries, dispatch records and associated incident references relating to the site or the events described above. 2. Police attendance and operational records: deployment, duty, operational or event logs recording any police attendance, requested attendance, planned response or recorded decision concerning the site, its occupants, bailiffs, enforcement personnel or demolition activity. 3. Communications and liaison: recorded correspondence, messages, telephone notes or other communications between police and local-authority officers, court or enforcement personnel, the landowner or developer, their representatives, or other public bodies concerning the property or events during the requested period. 4. Requests for police assistance and public-order matters: records concerning requests for assistance, access to or removal from the premises, the enforcement of possession, complaints, reported disorder, obstruction, public-order concerns, or action proposed or taken in connection with the eviction or demolition. 5. Custody, search and property-related records: to the extent that responsive non-personal information is held and falls within the original scope, any operational references or separable non-personal information concerning a possible detention, premises search, or taking or retention of documents or other property during the relevant dates. 6. Records-management information: where a responsive record is no longer held, any existing record-transfer, retention, destruction or disposal entry sufficient to establish whether the record existed and, if recorded, what became of it. I am not asserting that each category necessarily generated a record. The purpose of the list is to identify the likely record types and help make the search practicable. If the Force’s systems use different terminology, location codes, occurrence categories or operational record series, please use the equivalent available indexing terms where reasonably possible. 6. Historical reference material For convenience, the relevant historical chronology and case background are available here: - Archived Great House Farm Wiki homepage: https://web.archive.org/web/20260927001835/https://greathousefarmwiki.wordpress.com/ - Archived demolition chronology: https://web.archive.org/web/20261006042123/https://greathousefarmwiki.wordpress.com/demolition-1988/ - B.P. Properties Ltd v Buckler case page: https://greathousefarmwiki.wordpress.com/bp-properties-v-buckler/ These pages are provided as contextual aids and sources of possible search terms, not as substitutes for the Force’s own records or as claims that any particular police record exists. 7. Confirmation of scope and statutory timetable I trust the above supplies the clarification you require to identify and locate the information requested. Please confirm receipt and whether this clarification is sufficient for the Force to proceed with its searches. Please also confirm the date from which you calculate the applicable 20-working-day response period and the resulting response deadline. For the avoidance of doubt: - the date range remains 1 November–31 December 1988 inclusive; - the request remains confined to existing recorded information; - personal data remains excluded from this FOI request and is being pursued separately through the appropriate subject-access route; - the historical accounts and discrepancies above are search leads, not demands that the Force accept disputed facts; and - I am not asking the Force to reach conclusions about ownership, the validity of court orders, the conduct of any party, or the truth of any allegation. Thank you for your assistance. Yours sincerely, Sion Buckler (Ret'd Sergeant) Royal Signals Cyber/Electronic Warfare Professional and Life Member