A police support staff member is on trial for allegedly breaching the public’s trust by using the police database to access sensitive information, to track down and confront a driver following a bout of early morning ‘road rage’.
The defendant, Veronica Victoria Cole of East End, faces one count of breach of trust by a public officer.
“On the morning of 9 February this year, the defendant was driving when the person in front of her braked suddenly, prompting her to apply her breaks suddenly as well,” prosecutor Greg Walcolm told the court on Monday, 24 Oct., the opening day of the trial.
The second driver, whose identity the Cayman Compass is not releasing, is a mother of four young children. She described Cole’s initial response as being hostile, under questioning from Walcolm.
“After I slammed on my brakes, I looked up and saw that she had slammed on hers as well,” said the woman. “The only way to describe it would be to say that she pretty much flipped me off, and I responded by putting up my hands and shrugged my shoulders as if to apologise.”
When opening the case against Cole, Walcolm told the jury under normal circumstances the average driver might have chosen to move on since “after all, there was no damage done”.
“Instead what the defendant did was to take down the make, model and registration details of the complainant’s car, and when she reached work, she used the police’s RMS (Records Management System),” said Malcolm. “There she had access to the vehicle’s… details including the person who it was registered to, their address and their phone number.”
Walcolm told the court that, at the time, the car was registered to the complainant’s mother and that “Cole called the mother under the guise of being a good Samaritan”.
The court heard that when she called the mother, Cole allegedly told her the car had a broken tail light and that she wanted to pass the message on personally to the driver.
“When she called me she was very confrontational, which caused me to go on the defensive,” said the complainant. “I am a second-year law school student and so I know about data protection law. I told her what she had done was wrong and she should not have done it.”
Following the conversation, she eventually lodged a complaint with the Professional Standards Unit.
In his opening, Walcolm posed the question of why officers would have been able to find evidence of the call and the search made by Cole, if the complainant were lying.
The RCIPS previously confirmed that following the launch of the investigation earlier this year, Cole was suspended from her duties with full pay, in line with the Personnel Regulations attached to the Public Service Management Act.
Cole, who has been on bail throughout the proceedings, denies the allegation. The trial continues.
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