Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Two Police Officers sacked for theft, one demoted for pinning blame on innocents


Two police officers have been sacked after an inquiry which has taken three years and cost taxpayers £1million. A third officer - a sergeant with 20 years of service - was demoted to constable after he was proved to have accepted that a crime was committed by someone he knew could not have done it to improve his department’s detection rate.

The officers - from Macclesfield CID - were accused of stealing cash they had confiscated from criminals.

The Crown Prosecution Service received evidence in November 2004, but six months later it finally decided that no criminal charges should be brought.

Internal disciplinary proceedings then began with the hearing starting on November 13.

At the hearing, 12 of the 39 misconduct charges were either found proved or admitted by the officers. A 31-year-old constable with eight years’ service was sacked after three misconduct charges were proved, including that he failed to act with honesty and integrity by stealing money which he had seized from a suspect. A 38-year-old detective constable, with 18 years in the force, had four charges of misconduct proved against him, including one that he failed to act with honesty and integrity by stealing seized money. He too was sacked.

Cheshire Police bosses have refused to name the officers concerned.

Reforms of the way police are disciplined are due to come into effect next year but, under current rules, the force does not even have to reveal the names of the officers.

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Corrupt Police Officer DC Hywel Jones Jailed For Selling Information From Police National Database To Criminals

DC Hywel Jones, 45 , sold information from the national police database to Barry Wise, the uncle of former England footballer Dennis Wise, and was sentenced to sentenced to four and a half years.

The details included the whereabouts of a drug dealer with several contracts out on his life, updates of a police investigation into a Heathrow Airport robbery, registration numbers of undercover police cars and personal details held on numerous criminal suspects

Jones, a married father of two and serving Met officer of 24 years, met Wise on at least a dozen occasions at pubs, street corners and a swimming pool across West London. Wise acted as a middle man passing the data on to known criminals.

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Probation Chief Vincent Barron Sentenced To Prison For Distributing Child Pornography, While Setting Up Database Of Sex Offenders


A Probation Service expert who distributed child pornography while setting up a £10m Home Office database of sex offenders was sentenced to 14 months in prison yesterday.

Vincent Barron, 49, sent ten pornographic images of children, aged between five and 12, to a Scotsman he met in an internet chatroom.

Barron, of Kirk Rise, Frosterley, County Durham, pleaded guilty to the offences and was sentenced at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.

Twice-married Barron pleaded guilty in December to distributing indecent pictures of children between May and August 2005.

He was then earning £45,000 a year as an assistant chief probation officer seconded to the Home Office to establish the Violent and Sex Offender Register.

During a police interview, Barron admitted he used internet chatrooms to exchange child pornography.

When asked if he had any knowledge of the matter under investigation, he replied: “I have, through chatrooms, exchanged photographs of a sexual and pornographic nature and some of these images will have included children under the age of 13.”

The court heard that a psychiatric report placed Barron at a high risk of re-offending, because internet offending could be a powerful addiction.

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Passport applicants to be interrogated about private and family life


More than 600,000 people a year are going to be forced to attend compulsory interrogations at their nearest Identity and Passport Service interrogation centre.

Once an application has been made on paper, an applicant is 'invited' to telephone a call centre, in order to arrange a face to face interrogation.

James Hall, chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, said that questions would be drawn from a stock of 200 based on the "social footprint" of each applicant, including their family history, current household, including all occupants, past addresses, financial background, including mortgage data and credit references, and even the background of the person countersigning the form.

The questions will be based on information from electoral registers, birth and marriage certificates, bank mortgage rolls and credit reference agencies.

Teenagers are likely to be asked about their parents and their background, and who else lives at home with them.

There would be no pass or fail mark but officials would make a judgment on the basis of the whole interview whether an applicant was telling the truth.

If there are suspicions, in some circumstances, police might be called.

From 2009, fingerprints will also be taken from every applicant.

Police State Britain.

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