UK: Private investigators sentenced for unlawfully obtaining personal data

From the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Six men who were part of a company that tricked organisations into revealing personal details about customers has today been sentenced for conspiring to breach the Data Protection Act.

Adrian Stanton, 40, ran ICU Investigations Limited in Feltham, Middlesex with Barry Spencer, 41. The pair were convicted at an earlier hearing on Isleworth Crown Court on 20 November 2013. Today Mr Stanton was fined a total of £7500 and £6107 prosecution costs. The ICO awaits the sentencing of Mr Spencer and ICU Investigations  Ltd – which will be sentenced as a separate defendant – at a confiscation hearing on 4 April 2014.

Five employees of the company who had previously pleaded guilty to the same offence were also sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court today. Their sentences were:

• Robert Sparling (38): £4000 fine and £3000 prosecution costs
• Joel Jones (43): £3000 fine and £2500 prosecution costs
• Michael Sparling (41) £2000 fine and £2000 prosecution costs
• Neil Sturton (43) £1000 fine and £1000 prosecution costs
• Lee Humphreys (41) £1000 fine and £1000 prosecution costs

Further details about the case, including the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham’s call for more effective deterrent sentences for this type of offence, can be found in a previous ICO news release on this case.