Bohannan, R. v

Unauthorised use or disclosure of confidential police information by an officer is invariably serious. It is a gross breach of public trust and normally requires a deterrent custodial sentence, even where actual harm is limited and personal mitigation is substantial.

Gravity increases where the misconduct is prolonged, repeated or corrupt; serves an incentive; enables criminals to avoid detection or identify suspected informants; or compromises police operations. A former officer’s likely custodial difficulties do not mitigate the offence itself. In a serious case, the sentence must reflect the full breach of duty and its practical assistance to criminal activity.

The offender, a Metropolitan Police constable and Field Intelligence Officer, was convicted after trial at the Crown Court at Southwark of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.

Over almost five years he carried out 471 improper intelligence checks and supplied confidential police information to Ahmed, the principal of a drug-dealing organisation. The information assisted drug dealing, enabled enquiries about suspected informants and debtors, and included advance warning of a drugs search warrant.

The Attorney General referred the sentence as unduly lenient. The central issue was the proper custodial sentence for a police officer’s sustained and corrupt misuse of confidential information in support of serious criminal activity.

1. The Attorney General’s reference was allowed. The court granted leave under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and varied the sentence from three to six years’ imprisonment.

2. Police officers may access confidential and potentially sensitive police records only to perform their public duties. Any misuse is always very serious. Deterrence is necessary both to deter officers and to maintain public confidence that a betrayal of police trust will receive condign punishment.

3. The court treated the earlier sentencing decisions as illustrative rather than binding. They showed that the seriousness increases where there is an incentive, where confidential information assists criminals to avoid detection or identify informants, and especially where misconduct affects a police operation. The court applied the deterrent approach expressed in R v Kassim [2006] 1 Cr App R(S) 12, Attorney General's Reference (No 1 of 2007) [2007] 2 Cr App R(S) 86, and Attorney General's Reference (No 68 of 2009) (R v Turner) [2009] EWCA Crim 2219.

4. The offender’s conduct was substantially more serious than the comparators. It involved hundreds of improper checks over a lengthy period, a corrupt relationship which benefited his wife through drugs, assistance to a major drug enterprise, and the tipping-off of a warrant that compromised a police operation. His previous good character and his wife’s influence did not reduce the gravity sufficiently. The least sentence properly available after trial was six years’ imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The Attorney General’s undue-leniency reference was allowed and the sentence was varied to six years’ imprisonment: [2010] EWCA Crim 2261.
• Crown Court at Southwark: The offender was convicted on 12 February 2010 of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office and sentenced on 12 March 2010 to three years’ imprisonment.