Bent copper gets five years for car crash data theft

A corrupt police officer, who made an estimated £363,000 by selling details of car crash victims to claims management firms to fund a luxury life with his cop wife, has been jailed for five years.
Chester Crown Court heard how PC Nigel Mungur, of Liverpool, ran the scam for seven years, by logging onto the police computer to obtain details of casualties involved in road accidents.
He then sold the data onto ”no win-no fee” claims management companies so they could cold call the parties and offer to get them compensation.
Prosecutors said Mungur trousered over £50,000 a year by accessing personal and confidential data on 21,802 occasions. He even set up his own firm, called the Personal Injury Company, to sell his leads on.
When the company’s licence was revoked in early 2009, he simply applied to set up another, paying the registration fee with a cheque signed by his wife to avoid the application being rejected.
The court heard how Mungur used the proceeds of his crime to fund a lavish lifestyle with his wife Nicola, who also worked for Lancashire Police.
Using the alter ego ‘Leroy’, he posted photos of himself on social media behind the wheel of Porsches and Alfa Romeos, as well as snaps of himself and his wife in exotic locations.
However, police began unravelling the scam in 2014 after a number of crash victims complained they were getting calls from law firms when they had not given their details to anyone other than the police.
One man involved in a collision complained of being contacted by a claims firm before a police officer had even arrived at his home to take a statement.
Following an investigation both Mungur and his wife were sacked by the force.
Mungur was jailed for five years after he pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office, conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, money laundering and unauthorised access to a computer between March 31, 2007 and April 30, 2014.
His wife admitted obtaining personal data, an offence under The Data Protection Act, and was conditionally discharged for 12 months.
An associate of the couple John Helton, also from Liverpool, who handled much of the stolen data, was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work for his role in the scam.
Helton admitted conspiracy to convert criminal property and conspiracy to commit unauthorised access to a computer.
After the case Richard Riley, a senior prosecutor from the CPS said: “Nigel Mungur’s greed led him to take the leading role in stealing confidential information held on a police database and sell it for profit.
“Nicola Mungur was clearly aware of her husband’s crimes and encouraged, connived and acquiesced in them by turning a blind eye and the pair reaped the financial rewards.
“The public expect a high standard of behaviour from the police but the Mungurs’ conduct fell short of their duty and now they are paying the price.”