Police investigator who shared crime record jailed
BBCA police investigator has been jailed for sharing information on people's criminal records.
Barry Cowin was a financial investigator with Cumbria Police when he unlawfully accessed information on internal systems.
The 60-year-old was jailed for four months by Lancaster Magistrates' Court on Friday after previously admitting seven offences.
Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) director Amanda Rowe said: "As a police employee and former officer, Barry Cowin should have been upholding the law but instead he accessed and shared sensitive private information he had no right to."
The IOPC said Cowin had joined Cumbria Police as an officer in 1985 and moved to a civilian role as investigator in 2015.
He retired from the force while the investigation was still taking place.
That investigation found he had looked up the registered keeper of a vehicle involved in a collision with a friend's partner and shared information about people's criminal records, the IOPC said.
The offences took place between August 2022 and June 2024.
Rowe said: "His experience meant he knew perfectly well what was expected of him, which makes this abuse of trust even worse."
