In a ruling that has ignited fierce criticism, a UK tribunal last month sided with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and refused to order the release of fully anonymised record-level data linking COVID-19 vaccination dates to dates of death.

Dr Clare Craig, a medical doctor, diagnostic pathologist and co-chair of the HART Group (Health Advisory & Recovery Team), has spent nearly three years attempting to obtain the data through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. In an exclusive interview, she laid bare the extraordinary lengths to which government bodies went to prevent public scrutiny.

What data was requested?

Dr Craig asked for nothing that could identify any individual:

* Only adults aged 20 and over

* 10-year age bands (the same used in official publications)

* Vaccination dates and death dates randomly shifted by a few days (a standard anonymisation technique)

* No names, no exact dates of birth, no postcodes, no causes of death

“This is about a population-level problem,” Dr Craig emphasised. “There is literally no way any individual could be identified from this dataset.”

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The shifting excuses

The UKHSA initially refused on the grounds that randomising dates constituted “creating new data” – an argument demolished by existing case law. When that failed, the agency pivoted repeatedly:

* First: privacy concerns and risk of “jigsaw identification”

* Then: public safety – claiming release could cause “mental distress” to bereaved families or incite violence against doctors and scientists

* Finally: the surreal assertion that checking the data for re-identification risks would take one person 76 years to complete (a figure eerily identical to the FDA’s excuse for delaying Pfizer trial documents)

The tribunal ultimately accepted the “health and safety” argument – that the spreadsheet, if released, could somehow be misused by “anti-vaxxers” to harass relatives or fuel threats – despite no evidence being presented that this has ever happened anywhere in the world where similar data is public.

Secret hearings and cherry-picked evidence

Some parts of the case were heard in closed sessions from which Dr Craig was excluded. She were given only “gists” of the secret evidence presented to the judge. Most controversially, a witness statement from eminent psychotherapist Dr Christian Buckland – arguing that truth and transparency are psychologically protective and that openness prevents, rather than causes, distress – was ruled inadmissible and excluded from the official bundle. Astonishingly, the judge later quoted from the excluded statement in his written decision, selectively stitching together phrases to suggest the exact opposite of Dr Buckland’s professional opinion.

International comparisons expose the absurdity

While British authorities claim the data is too “dangerous” to release, other countries have published far more detailed record-level information without incident:

* The Czech Republic has had fully public, highly granular vaccination–death data available for years. Independent analyses have been conducted; no harassment, no violence, no mental-health crisis among the bereaved has ensued.

* A brand-new Royal Society Open Science paper (November 2025) on German regional data – where vaccination rates varied dramatically – clearly demonstrates higher all-cause mortality in highly vaccinated areas after 2021, using districts as their own historical controls.

Excess deaths and the disappearing statistics

Dr Craig highlighted the suspicious timing:

* In 2023 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) abruptly stopped publishing deaths by vaccination status – data that had started to show concerning trends.

* At almost exactly the same moment, the ONS introduced a new, highly complex excess-death baseline model that double-counts upward trends in age and region, artificially inflating “expected” deaths. The result: weeks that would previously have been flagged as clear excess now appear normal or even below expectation.

* Identical baseline hikes occurred simultaneously in Australia, the Netherlands, and elsewhere.

“By 2022 the virus was behaving like a common cold, lockdowns were over, and we should have seen a mortality deficit as the frail had sadly already passed away in 2020–21,” Dr Craig explained. “Instead we saw persistent excess deaths – highest in the most heavily vaccinated countries and regions.”

A dam of public suspicion

The Telegraph’s coverage of the tribunal ruling attracted more than 1,500 reader comments – almost unanimously expressing alarm and demanding transparency. The handful defending the official line were drowned out. Dr Craig believes the case may ultimately achieve more through publicity than the data itself would have done:

“I wanted the spreadsheet, but the fact that the government fought this hard, using secret courts and ever-more outlandish excuses, tells its own story. Lack of transparency breeds suspicion. They have made a massive strategic error.”

She remains resolute: “The conversation has to be had now. People are no longer paralysed by fear. They are ready to listen.”

Whether the UK government can continue to suppress basic mortality data in the face of mounting public anger remains to be seen. For now, the door has been slammed shut – but the noise on the other side is growing louder.

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