The men were sentenced along with three former police officers following one of the biggest corruption investigations ever conducted by the Metropolitan Police.
Former Met PCs Jeremy Young and Scott Gelsthorpe were sentenced to a total of 51 months behind bars for illegally modifying records on the Police National Computer (PNC) and aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office.
The two ex-officers established Active Investigation Services (AIS) in 1999, which used sophisticated bugging technology to hack into computers and landline telephones. The court heard they had used espionage techniques to invade the privacy of members of the public.
AIS offered customers access to medical records, bank details and phone bills, and would fit bugs to people’s cars. The company charged between GB pound 5,000 and GB pound 7,000 to hack into computers and GB pound 6,000 to bug telephone lines.
Police were alerted by BT, after it discovered devices attached to junction boxes that were being used to listen in to phone calls.
Young was arrested in September 2004, and a search of his address led police to believe that AIS was illegally obtaining information from the PNC.
Further inquiries linked the agency to private detective Gordon Bucher, who charged AIS GB pound 100 to access the information.
Subsequent audits of the PNC use found they had all been checked by John Matthews, a former Detective Sergeant at Staffordshire Police.
Matthews’ arrest in April 2005 found he was also carrying out checks on vehicles and people for two other private investigators, Gary Flanagan and Anthony Wood – sentenced to three and ten months respectively.
Phone records showed Matthews had spoken to the investigators 128 times while using the PNC.
During the investigation the Met’s Anti Corruption Command arrested a total of 27 people and seized more than 60 computers – containing over a million emails.
Bucher received two months, while Matthews was sentenced to 14 months in jail.
