Police staff spied on boyfriends

A major security alert began at an east London police station when two workers used its criminal database to check up on their boyfriends, a court heard.

Covert police operations in Hackney were suspended after the breach was discovered at Stoke Newington station.

On Tuesday, Davina Kirwan and Sunshes Pyke-Williams, both 21, were jailed for two months for misconduct.

The judge at Southwark Crown Court told them: "By your actions...you broke the trust that had been given to you."

The court heard Kirwan, a communications officer, and receptionist Pyke-Williams, carried out unauthorised confidential searches between July 2001 and August 2002.

As well as their boyfriends, who both had criminal records, and their associates, the women also made checks on law-abiding members of their own families.

Other crime units became reluctant to pass on intelligence to Stoke Newington for fear of information going astray.