Leicestershire Police officer 'deliberately' accessed confidential information on force computers

A Leicestershire Police officer “intentionally” and “deliberately” accessed confidential information on the force’s records. PC Hiron Miah claimed “poor training” had led to the multiple searches, which followed incidents in Loughborough.

A misconduct hearing found that PC Miah had made multiple searches on the force’s Niche and STORM computer systems without authority between October and November 2022. The majority were linked to reports from the Charnwood policing area.

The breaches only came to light when PC Miah questioned whether a restriction preventing him from working in and around Loughborough still applied. An audit of PC Miah’s actions on Niche and STORM soon uncovered a series of confidential searches, all of which had “no policing purpose”, according to investigators.

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One search even saw him copy and paste details from a STORM log relating to a breach of bail conditions - but he later claimed to not know why he copied the information. Another saw him use Google to better gain understanding of a reported violent incident in Loughborough, while further searches of police systems related to other serious offences including ABH, robberies and drug offences.

The custody log details of a person he knew were also searched on police systems. Auditors found that the search, relating to someone at Leicester’s Keyham Lane police station on a drug supply/production offence, was done out of “curiosity” rather than for policing reasons.

In interviews with the force’s Police Standards Department, PC Miah claimed he was unaware the searches were wrong due to the “poor training” he had received, but acknowledged they were done without authority. He also told investigators that many of the searches were due to “idle browsing” of the police systems or to find reports to which he could later help.

The admissions saw PC Miah subject to a police misconduct hearing at Leicestershire Police’s headquarters in Enderby earlier this month. The officer faced charges of breaching the standards of professional behaviour, including confidentiality, honesty and integrity.

The hearing, led by an independent and legally qualified chairman, accepted that PC Miah might have had “limited training” due to Covid-19. However, the panel said that that did not justify the searches which they found were both “intentional and deliberate”, but conceded that no details from any of the searches had been shared with anyone else.

The panel also found that no harm had been caused by the searches, but said there was “potential” harm to the force’s reputation. It also found that PC Miah had shown “genuine remorse” for his actions and that no attempts to conceal his actions had ever been made.

In its findings, the misconduct panel found that PC Miah had breached professional standards and the officer was handed a three-year final written warning. Detective Superintendent Alison Tompkins, head of the force’s Professional Standards Department, said: “Officers and staff in force are trusted to treat information obtained during the course of policing duties in the correct way. Information should only be accessed for legitimate policing purposes and should be held in the strictest confidence and properly protected.

“Officers and staff are provided with initial training in relation to the correct use of information and we continue to share messages in force about the importance of this. When information has been obtained without a policing purpose, we will investigate and take the appropriate action required.”