Jail term cut for corrupt former Lancashire police officer

Former Lancashire Police officer Nigel Mungur, who were based in South division which covers Preston, Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire, was locked up for five years at Chester Crown Court on October 6 last year.

The 40-year-old admitted misconduct in public office and conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, Mr Justice Soole told London’s Appeal Court.

He also admitted conspiracy to convert criminal property and to gain unauthorised access to a computer.

His crimes came to light during a police investigation in 2014 after numerous complaints from people about unauthorised disclosure of their personal information following involvement in car accidents.

The former immediate response officer accessed the personal data of people involved in road traffic collisions on 21,802 occasions over a seven-year period, the court heard.

Mungur, of Haigh Road, Liverpool, set up companies and sold information obtained from police accident logs to various claims firms for a total of £363,010.

The firms who were sold the data about crash victims would use it to cold call them and offer to get them compensation.

Mungur’s ‘simple motive had been greed’, said the judge who jailed him.

But, at the Appeal Court, his lawyers argued that his jail term was far too tough and should be reduced.

“This was very serious, prolonged and sophisticated wrongdoing carried out for substantial financial gain by a serving police officer,” said Mr Justice Soole.

But the judge, who was sitting with two others, went on to conclude that the ‘starting point’ taken when calculating Mungur’s sentence was ‘too high’.

Mungur’s jail term was cut from five years to four years.

Mungur and his wife Nicola, also a PC, were sacked in 2016 after they were caught unlawfully accessing accident details from police computers.

The couple were sacked immediately afterwards at a Public Special Case Hearing, for breaching standards of professional behaviour in the areas of honesty and integrity, duties and responsibilities, orders and instructions, confidentiality and discreditable conduct.

The hearing at Leyland police station on March 7 found that between March 31, 2007 and April 30, 2014 while acting as a public officer, namely a police officer with Lancashire Police, Mr Mungur wilfully misconducted himself by unlawfully accessing police computer systems so as to unlawfully obtain road traffic collision logs belonging to Lancashire Police with the intent of selling the personal data thereby obtained and making a financial gain for himself.

After the 2016 hearing, Superintendent Sam Mackenzie, head of professional standards at Lancashire Constabulary, said: “I am always very disappointed to discover conduct such as this within Lancashire Constabulary, it undermines the great work the vast majority of our staff and officers do on a day to day basis.

“There is no place for conduct of this type within the police and we are committed to dealing with such matters whenever and wherever they arise.

“I apologise on behalf of Lancashire Constabulary for this failure to meet the standards that we and the public quite rightly expect from our police officers.”