The Police Ombudsman has found no evidence to support concerns raised during a court case that a police officer had unlawfully disclosed information following a car crash.
The Director of Public Prosecutions asked the Police Ombudsman to investigate after evidence was presented during a court case which seemed to suggest that a police officer may have passed information to a man accused of leaving the scene of a traffic accident.
The hearing at Belfast Magistrate's Court in February 2009 was told that the accused had received help from a police officer in tracing the owner of the other vehicle. He had then compensated that person for the damage.
When Police Ombudsman investigators checked police computer records, they found that information relating to the damaged vehicle, a company car, had not been accessed by any officer.
The person who had crashed into the vehicle stated that he had made every reasonable effort to trace its owner. He said he had spoken to a number of officers about the collision, and during one of those conversations a police officer had told him that the vehicle was a company car and named the company in question.
He then contacted the owners of the car to identify himself, accept responsibility for the collision and make payment of compensation for the damage caused.
The man was unable to identify the officer who had disclosed the information, but stated that he did not obtain details of the vehicle's ownership through dishonest means.
Having considered the evidence, the Police Ombudsman concluded that although an officer had disclosed a level of information about the car's ownership, there was no evidence that ay officer had committed a criminal offence or breached the PSNI's Code of Ethics.