Two people from Rochdale fined following conspiracy to leak criminal records

Date published: 04/05/2006

A 25-year-old woman from Rochdale has been fined £750, after she pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court on 3 May 2006, to five data protection offences committed while employed as a member of staff at Greater Manchester Police.

Victoria Blair (DOB 20/11/80) of Marland Fold, Rochdale was charged with the offences on Wednesday 18 January 2006, following an investigation by Greater Manchester Police's Internal Investigation Unit relating to allegations of a conspiracy to leak confidential records to criminals.

20-year-old Lewis Pickles (DOB 16/12/85) of Kildare Crescent, Kirkholt was also charged with a data protection offence in connection with the investigation. He also pleaded guilty yesterday and was fined £100.

Blair was originally employed by GMP on two short-term contracts, working at Manchester Airport division in summer 2004 and on the north Manchester division between December 2004 and June 2005. Her contract was terminated in June 2005 after it emerged that she had been misusing the email system, contrary to force policy around the Computer Misuse Act.

In September 2005, a drugs warrant was executed at a house in the Rochdale area, as part of an unrelated investigation. During the search of the address confidential print-outs from GMP's intelligence system were recovered.

Investigations carried out as a result of the recovery of the documents revealed that Blair had been responsible for printing them. As a result of this, officers from GMP's Internal Investigation Unit carried out a full audit of all records accessed by Blair during her employment at GMP. The enquiries revealed that some of the records she accessed were in no way related to her duties and there was no legitimate reason for her accessing them.

Blair was arrested on 27 October 2005, and, under interview, stated that she had received the required amount of training in Data Protection, and was aware of her responsibilities under the Act. She stated that she had accessed the documents in order to familiarise herself with the system.

Officers carrying out enquiries at a Health Club in Rochdale, Lancashire, where Blair was a member revealed that she had handed over a number of documents to a member of staff there, Lewis Pickles. These documents were recovered and analysis revealed both Blair and Pickles' fingerprints on them.

Pickles was arrested on 23 November 2005 on suspicion of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office. Officers analysing the audit of all intelligence accessed by Blair were for people known either to herself or Pickles.