A former Tayside Police officer who resigned after tipping off a suspect in a criminal investigation has been back in court.
Sentence was further deferred on former police constable Karen Howie (34), Panmure Estate, Carnoustie, when she reappeared at Dundee Sheriff Court on Thursday.
The delay is for co-accused Neil Hand (44), East Row, Westhaven, Carnoustie, to provide financial reports.
Previously, Howie admitted that on August 24, 2009, at Kirriemuir police office, she passed information to a man in respect of a criminal investigation being conducted into passing counterfeit currency within Tayside.
The man was a suspect who officers were trying to trace and interview.
Howie admitted she passed or caused to be passed information that warned him of plans to search his home and therefore compromised the conduct and subsequent outcome of the investigation.
She also admitted that between August 24 and 25, 2009, at Kirriemuir police office, while a serving officer, she obtained personal information and accessed 15 records relating to the suspect and seven crime records relating to the suspect, and that she disclosed part of this to Hand in expectation that he would pass this information to the suspect.
Howie also admitted creating a false record regarding Hand to the effect a valid insurance policy was in force, knowing that no such certificate existed at Kirriemuir police office and other addresses on July 8, 2009.
At a previous appearance, the court was told that Howie had met Hand in 2009 after he worked at her house and that she had been lonely and her marriage was suffering.
He asked to meet her in Broughty Ferry and later in Forfar, and she felt pressured to give him information.
Howie, who worked in the police control room, had enhanced access to information.
The suspect in an Arbroath counterfeit currency case had told police he had information about a police search of his premises and officers’ difficulty in getting a warrant for this search.
He had mentioned a serving female police officer had provided the information and the officer was identified.
The court heard Howie had accessed records on a number of occasions and that shortly afterwards calls and texts had been made to Hand.
Hand had then contacted the suspect.
Hand admitted he recklessly or knowingly disclosed to another person information that he had received from Howie and passed the information to the suspect between August 24 and 25, 2009, at Cotterton Lodge, by Forfar, and other addresses.
Sentence was deferred until yesterday for background reports but, when Hand’s financial position was queried, sentence was further deferred to March 29.