A SERVING POLICE officer is to go on trial accused of breaching data protection laws to obtain information about several people – including his future wife.
A preliminary hearing at Elgin Sheriff Court this week heard that Constable Crawford Reay, 47, will face nine charges that he obtained personal data through police crime files and viewed that information without a “policing purpose”.
Constable Reay was reported to be on duty and did not attend the preliminary hearing that related to his activities while based at Elgin and Rothes. He will now face trial on March 22 in relation to nine separate charges for offences dating between January 2012 and June 2013.
The charges he faces includes an allegation that he accessed the police crime recording database in January, 2013 to view protected information relating to Phillip and Jacqueline Reay, alongside several charges relating to information from the system on Anna Crawford.
All the charges are alleged breaches of section 55(1)a of the 1998 Data Protection Act, which forbids anyone knowingly or recklessly obtaining personal data with the permission of the person controlling it.