Blackfriars Crown Court gave four men two-year conditional
discharges last week over charges relating to their sale to the
press of confidential data held by the police national computer on
celebrities, according to reports.
Two private investigators, John Boyall and Stephen Whittamore,
civilian police worker Paul Marshall, and retired police officer
Alan King, were involved in a conspiracy to sell details relating
to actor Ricky Tomlinson, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and
EastEnders actress Jessie Wallace.
According to reports, on 19 occasions, Marshall, who worked at
Wandsworth Police Station, carried out unauthorised Police National
Computer searches and passed the information on through
intermediaries King and sometimes Boyall, to Whittamore, who
peddled the data to the newspapers.
Such actions are in breach of the
UK
's Data
Protection Act.
According to the Guardian newspaper both Marshall and King
pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a
public office, while Whittamore and Boyall pleaded guilty to
breaches of the Data Protection Act.
All four men received a two-year conditional discharge.
