Police officer 'stole thousands of accident victims’ details from a computer and sold them with her lover and his wife in £1 million conspiracy'

• Sugra Hanif, 27, 'downloaded 2,456 unique reference numbers from Thames Valley Police computers and sold them to injury lawyers for £800 fee each'
• She and lover Raza Khan deny obtaining personal details and conspiracy
• Khan's wife, Paramjeet Kaur, 26, also accused of conspiracy, denies charge
  
• Winchester Crown Court heard trio used 'pressure techniques' on victims

By Mia De Graaf

Published: 13:22 EST, 7 January 2014 | Updated: 14:03 EST, 7 January 2014

A police officer, her lover and his wife stole thousands of road crash victims' details from her force computer and sold them to injury lawyers in a conspiracy that could have been worth £1million, a court heard.

Former constable Sugra Hanif, 27, allegedly downloaded the personal files of people involved in accidents before pressurising them into claiming compensation so she could claim £800 referral fees from solicitors.

Hanif was having an affair with co-accused Raza Khan, also 27, for eight months of the 11-month scheme - but ended it when they were arrested after an anonymous tip-off, prosecutors claim.

Accused: Sugra Hanif, 27, (left) allegedly downloaded unique reference numbers from Thames Valley Police computers. Raza Khan, 27, and his wife Paramjeet Kaur, 26, are also accused of conspiring to get up to £1million in solicitor referral fees.

The jury at Winchester Crown Court heard the lovers, with Khan's wife, Paramjeet Kaur, 26, set up three companies in April 2011 before selling a total of 2,456 unique reference numbers for £26,400 to various firms.

Peter Asteris, prosecuting, said: 'If all of the data stolen had been converted into referral fees, if they had kept going, the value of those referral fees would have been worth over £1 million.

'Every day, tens of thousands of police officers go out there and perform their duties sometimes at not inconsiderable risk to themselves, and they do so as we would expect them to, with duty, responsibility and integrity.

'Integrity, honesty and duty are really what this case is all about. One of these defendants, Sugra Hanif, was a serving police officer with Thames Valley Police.

Crime: The former couple (pictured) would pressure road crash victims into making compensation claims

'The Crown's case against her is that she doesn't have integrity, she didn't fulfil her duties to us, the public, in the way she ought and she abused her position and she abused it with the assistance of the other two defendants in the dock.

'All three of them have been involved in a conspiracy to obtain confidential police information.'

He continued: 'She had accessed, I am going to suggest, a staggering 2,456 URNs, different incidents, on the computer and almost all of them had no connection with her duties, no connection with her responsibilities as an investigating officer.

'The Crown says she was abusing that system and stealing 2,500 people's details from that computer system. She had on almost every case no valid reason for doing so whatsoever.

'We say it was nothing short of a deliberate and cynical abuse of the privilege she had been given by having access to that system in the first place.'

All three defendants deny the charges.

Mr Asteris said that on March 2011, Khan registered a company called SR Auto Repairs Limited and the following month Hanif began to steal the police data.

And Hanif told police that the S and the R in the company referred to the initials of her first name and Khan's, he added. Khan denies this.

Mr Asteris said that the group went on to set up a second company in May 2011, registered under Kaur's name, to handle the growing number of cases.

He said a third company was then set up, again under Kaur, who claims ignorance of the illegal source of the data.

The jury heard Hanif claims Khan threatened and blackmailed her to steal the data, while Khan insists he did not know the source was illegal.

Mr Asteris said: 'That defence is an absolute nonsense and doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.

'It is more than a coincidence that these two people, who are lovers, set up a company with the initials of their first two names.

'They became lovers and it seems that relationship has continued on for most of time we are dealing with in this case.

Threat: Hanif (right) claimed she had been having an affair with married Khan and said she was pressured into obtaining the data after he threatened to tell her devout Muslim father about their relationship

'The Crown says this conspiracy was planned out in advance, particularly by Mr Khan and Miss Hanif.

'Miss Hanif appears to suggest to police in her interview that her involvement in taking this data illegally was that she had been forced to by Mr Khan.

'She says that in fact she was being blackmailed and threatened and he threatened to disclose things to her family and employer.'

He said Khan sent her an email which included the lines 'I will never stop loving you' and 'Thanks for the great sex' and 'At least you blew out my candle on my birthday'.

He explained that of the 500 calls from Hanif's mobile phone to Khan during the period of the conspiracy, many were just before and after she accessed information on the police computer.

The prosecutor added that Hanif would also contact the accident victims and use 'pressure sales' techniques.

He also said that £1,600 in cash was found by police at Khan's house.

The trial, which is expected to last a month, continues.