CPS: Officer who gave material to criminals sentenced

Rachel Simpson was sentenced to six years at Cardiff Crown Court on Friday

A former Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) employee who passed on highly sensitive material to organised crime groups has been jailed.

Rachel Simpson from Newport admitted 29 counts of unauthorised access of a computer system and two counts of misconduct in a public office during an earlier hearing at Cardiff Crown Court.

The 39-year-old was a CPS Wales paralegal officer when she accessed the files between 2016 and 2020.

Sentencing was held at the same court.

During Friday's hearing Mrs Justice Nerys Jefford said Simpson had created a "gross breach of trust" in "the ability of the CPS to properly prosecute defendants".

• Paralegal gave material to organised crime groups

Simpson was arrested in June 2020 after the regional organised crime unit Tarian discovered evidence against her during an investigation into the use of encrypted phones by criminals.

The unit is a joint force with officers from the three forces - Gwent, South Wales Police and Dyfed Powys Police.

Her "inexplicable" actions were believed to be an attempt to keep the attention of an ex-boyfriend rather than for financial gain, the court heard.

The court was told that most of the information related to complex police operations into high-level conspiracy to supply drugs and money laundering cases across south Wales.

Rachel Simpson previously admitted to the charges in January at Cardiff Crown Court

Searches entered by Simpson on the CPS and Crown Court computer systems were often the names of well-known drug dealers - some of whom she was said to be acquainted with.

Documents from those systems were later found to have been downloaded by Simpson and she is known to have passed hard copies of some of these files onto a third party.

One bundle of documents printed off by Simpson in April 2019 were anonymously handed in to a solicitors firm in Birmingham that was representing Jerome Nunes, of Newport.

Nunes had been jailed for his role in flooding the city's streets with over £10m of class A drugs.

In May 2020, Simpson downloaded an eight-page document detailing a surveillance operation being carried out on a drug gang in Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

A picture of the document was shared a day later between criminals on an encrypted messaging platform.

'Inexplicable' actions

Edward Hetherington KC, defending Simpson, told the court his client had a "matrix of vulnerabilities" due to her long-term depression and diagnosis of probable autism and that she was susceptible to "influence and exploitation".

Sentencing Simpson to six years in prison, the judge said: "Your offending was not a one-off error of judgment.

"When interviewed by the police, you never offered an explanation or motivation for what you have done.

"Investigations have been carried out to see whether you've benefited financially and there is no evidence at all that you did. In one sense, your actions are inexplicable.

"You said that you had had a relationship with a man for a few months in 2012 to 2013. About a year later, and out of the blue, he asked you to look up someone at work for him.

"You did, and you kept doing this when he asked you to. You wanted his attention, and you would do anything that he asked. You have not identified him.

"What you did, fundamentally undermines public confidence in that integrity, and in the ability of the CPS properly to prosecute defendants."

'Fell well below' CPS standards

After sentencing, chief crown prosecutor Andrew Penhale said: "As a CPS employee, Rachel Simpson was in a position of trust and was only expected to access sensitive and confidential information when necessary for her job.

"She regularly accessed material when there was no business need and, on two occasions, the sensitive material she obtained was passed on to organised criminals.

"The CPS expects all staff to act with integrity in handling data held in its systems and Simpson fell well below these standards.

"We will not hesitate to prosecute individuals who engage in unlawful conduct."

The CPS added that action was under way to ensure such breaches did not happen again.

Det Insp Matt Houghton of Tarian Police said: "Our investigation has resulted in two offences of misconduct in a public office and 30 offences related to the computer misuse act and such was the weight of evidence against her that she had little option but to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity."