30 March 2012

New police corruption alleged in secret report

Exclusive: Corrupt police officers are accused of deleting intelligence reports from the national police computer on the orders of criminal gangs in a secret report passed to the Leveson inquiry.

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The confidential report produced by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in 2008, found that private investigators, linked to organised criminals, used corrupt serving and former police officers to delete intelligence records from law enforcement databases and access details of police operations. The report has been seen by Channel 4 News Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies.

The eight-page report, which has been passed to the Leveson inquiry into police corruption and media ethics, warns of "rogue" private investigators "providing organised crime groups with counter-surveillance techniques" and attempting to discover the identities of informants and witnesses under police protection.

The details in the report entitled "Private Investigators: The Rogue Element of the Private Investigation Industry and Others Unlawfully Trading in Personal Data" have never been disclosed publicly before, because the report is labelled "exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000".

Soca analysed five UK Law enforcement operations leading up to 30 September 2007. The report says: "Four of the operations provided examples of corrupt individuals including serving and former police officers, a bank employee, employees in a communications service provider, a public service employee, and a HM Prison Service Employee. All of these were used by private investigators to facilitate access to information."