Detective jailed over checks

A Staffordshire detective has been jailed for using the Police National Computer to pass on details to two former colleagues running a private detective agency.

Det Sgt John Matthews, who was based at Cannock, made more than 100 illicit checks for private investigators who were being paid to snoop in industrial disputes, family fall-outs and warring couples.

It emerged the officer was passing information to two former colleagues at Stoke-on-Trent-based Brian Harrison Investigations.

Matthews, 59, tried to distance himself from Gary Flanagan, 43, and Anthony Wood, 64, but they were regularly seen together enjoying a box at Stoke City FC.

Their activities were only discovered when officers from the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into a corrupt Essex-based private eye and traced back the release of covert details to the Staffordshire-based officer.

Wood, of Aldershaw Close, Stafford, Flanagan, of Clayton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and Matthews, of Kentish Close, Stafford, all admitted conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.

The three had decades of policing between them, Southwark Crown Court heard yesterday.

The court was told the officers would have been under "no illusion" about the consequences of using the PNC to make money for themselves.

Matthews had been a serving officer since 1975 and was instrumental in his force's use of the PNC.

Matthews was eventually caught out when detectives from Operation Barbatus, which was investigating scandal-ridden Active Investigation Services in Essex, found it was paying a Hereford-based private eye for information, who was in turn giving Matthews a £100 per computer check.

Matthews was sentenced to 14 months jail, Wood for 10 months and Flanagan, said to have become involved at a late stage was jailed for three months.