Senior Detective Jailed for Illegally Accessing Police Records for Lover

A senior detective has been sentenced to eight months in prison for illegally accessing police records to provide information to a man she was romantically involved with. Detective Inspector Emma Gardner, 47, admitted to accessing confidential computer logs 47 times over a nine-month period between January and September 2022 to share details with Simon Acton, a man with whom she had a personal relationship.

During her trial at Caernarfon Crown Court, Gardner claimed that all her accesses were for policing purposes. However, a jury rejected her defense, finding her guilty of unauthorized access to computer data under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. The court heard that Gardner and Acton exchanged thousands of messages, many of which were personal and flirty.

Judge Timothy Petts stated that Gardner repeatedly and unlawfully accessed case materials without a legitimate policing purpose, knowing she was acting improperly and deliberately concealed her close friendship with Acton to avoid an investigation. The judge emphasized that an immediate prison sentence was necessary to demonstrate that even senior officers are subject to the law.

Gardner, who joined North Wales Police in 2000 and had served in roles including the Protecting Vulnerable People Unit, was convicted of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorized access to a program or data. She was found to have accessed 13 digital occurrences related to a friend on 47 separate occasions without a policing purpose.

Following her conviction, Gardner faced an accelerated misconduct hearing where an allegation of gross misconduct was proven. Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman determined that if Gardner had not already resigned, she would have been dismissed. Gardner, of Colwyn Bay, Wales, has been placed on a barred list, preventing her from ever serving within policing again. Chief Constable Blakeman described Gardner's conduct as deliberate, repeated, and intentional, stating that it damaged the reputation of the police service and represented a serious abuse of the trust placed in officers.

Leighton Mawer of the Crown Prosecution Service commented that Gardner abused the trust placed in her as a police officer, and that police records contain sensitive information requiring access only for policing purposes. He added that the strong evidence presented by the prosecution led to the guilty verdict.