UK Detective Jailed for Illegally Accessing Police Records for Lover

A senior detective with North Wales Police has been sentenced to eight months in prison for illegally accessing police records to provide information to an acquaintance. Detective Inspector Emma Gardner, 47, admitted to accessing computer logs 47 times over a nine-month period between January and September 2022.

Gardner, who joined North Wales Police in 2000 and had served in roles including the Protecting Vulnerable People Unit, accessed the confidential system for Simon Acton, a man with whom she had a brief relationship. The information accessed concerned a "relatively minor complaint" and "tittle-tattle" related to a male friend and three women, according to prosecutor Andrew Scott.

During her trial at Caernarfon Crown Court, Gardner denied unauthorized access, claiming all her actions were for policing purposes. However, a jury rejected her defense, finding that she had indeed passed information to Acton. The court heard that Gardner and Acton exchanged thousands of messages, some of which were described as flirty or personal, during early 2022.

Judge Timothy Petts stated that Gardner "repeatedly and unlawfully accessed case materials when you had no legitimate policing purpose to do this." He added that she "deliberately chose not to mention your close friendship with him, in case it led to an investigation into what you were doing. You knew you were acting improperly." The judge emphasized that Gardner knew the rules and deliberately broke them on many occasions, thereby letting down herself, her colleagues, and the public. An immediate prison sentence was deemed necessary to underscore that even detective inspectors are not above the law.

Gardner was convicted of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorized access to a program/data under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. She was found to have accessed 13 digital occurrences linked to Acton without a policing purpose on 47 separate occasions.

Following her conviction, Gardner was subject to misconduct procedures. Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman of North Wales Police stated that if Gardner had not already resigned, she would have been dismissed. Gardner has been placed on a barred list, preventing her from ever serving within policing again. Blakeman described Gardner's conduct as "deliberate, repeated and intentional," and noted that it "plainly damages the reputation of the police service."

Leighton Mawer of the Crown Prosecution Service commented that Gardner "abused the trust that was placed in her as a police officer." He stressed that police records contain sensitive information and must only be accessed for policing purposes, adding that Gardner's actions fell "below those standards."