Chief inspector is jailed for 14 months after utilizing police laptop to search for confidential particulars

A shamed police chief was jailed for 14 months for misusing his pressure’s laptop to look confidential particulars for a girl he was having an affair with.

Chief Inspector Joseph Jones, 48, from Swansea, used the South Wales Police laptop system to get confidential particulars of a pair who had been tenants of the lady.

A court docket heard cleaner Kelly Roberts had advised Chief Inspector Jones that she was in dispute with the couple and wished data on them.

Jones had been concerned in a ‘transient sexual relationship’ with Miss Roberts earlier than committing the database crime.

Newport Crown Court docket heard Jones appeared up information concerning the couple and their youngsters and illegally handed the knowledge on to her.

However his crime was uncovered when she later turned concerned within the provide of Class A medicine.

Throughout interviews by the South Wales Police Anti-Corruption Unit, Jones, who was based mostly at Fairwater police station in Cardiff, insisted he solely accessed the database for official policing functions.

He denied a cost of securing unauthorised entry to laptop materials and in addition charged with mendacity to cowl his tracks.

Jones accused these investigating him as being motivated by ‘an underlying unexplained grievance’ in opposition to him.

On the primary day of the trial he claimed to have discovered his ‘daybook’ from 2015 which contained notes proving that he did have a official goal for accessing the knowledge.

The jury was discharged and a retrial was ordered to permit for forensic checks to be carried out on the pocket book after doubts had been expressed concerning the color of the ink used within the related entries.

The daybook was by no means handed over and Jones has refused to elucidate what occurred to it.

However he was convicted after a trial with a second jury.

Choose Daniel Williams mentioned: ‘The very fact that you’re a police officer and a senior police officer is a severely aggravating characteristic.

‘You had waited to declare this miracle discovery till the jury had been sworn, hoping that as a chief inspector your phrase could be accepted and you could possibly go away court docket along with your good character, job and pension intact.

‘It was an act borne of conceitedness in your half which was an insult to the court docket and to the justice system which you may have served so a few years.’

Jones was sentenced to 2 months custody for the offence beneath the Pc Misuse Act 1990. He was sentenced to 14 months for perverting the course of justice.

South Wales Police held a misconduct listening to on December 14, the place it was discovered the allegations in opposition to Jones had been confirmed and that they amounted to gross misconduct.

He was dismissed with out discover and a referral was made to the Faculty of Policing barring him from returning to the occupation.

After the listening to Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan mentioned: ‘It’s totally unacceptable for cops, who’re accountable for imposing the legislation, to interrupt the legislation themselves.

‘Cops ought to be trusted to the ends of the earth, they maintain a lot authority and entry to non-public data, the general public rightly count on our officers to uphold the best skilled requirements.

‘Misusing private personal data in such circumstances signifies that dismissal is the one final result on this matter.’