Former Police Officer Dismissed for Unlawful Access to Confidential Crime Logs
A former West Midlands Police officer has been found to have committed gross misconduct after unlawfully accessing confidential crime reports about herself and her family members over an extended period. The officer, PC Pakhairzan, would have been dismissed from the force had she still been serving at the time of the hearing.
Systematic Breaches of Data Confidentiality
The accelerated misconduct hearing revealed that Pakhairzan conducted what were described as "unlawful system checks" spanning more than a year, between March 2021 and August 2022. These searches involved accessing crime reports relating to herself, relatives, and associates without any legitimate policing purpose.
According to the hearing panel, the former officer "foolishly" accessed this sensitive information out of curiosity, deliberately disregarding her training and legal obligations. The report from then-Chief Constable Craig Guildford stated that her actions demonstrated "a recently trained individual who made conscious choices to disregard her training and legal obligations repeatedly over a considerable period of time."
Pattern of Inappropriate Searches
The panel heard detailed evidence about the nature and frequency of the unauthorized searches:
- On one particular day, Pakhairzan made 11 separate searches for information about herself and her home address
- She accessed a crime report where she was listed as a witness to harassment against a police constable
- She conducted multiple searches relating to a road traffic collision involving family members
- All searches were conducted outside the proper course of her duties
In her defence, Pakhairzan claimed she could not recall why she undertook some of the checks, attributing them to curiosity. She maintained that she did not share any of the confidential information she unlawfully accessed and stated that checks related to the road traffic collision were intended to establish when investigating officers would contact her family members again.
Breach of Professional Standards
The former officer was found to have breached multiple standards of professional behaviour, specifically those relating to confidentiality and discreditable conduct. The panel determined that her actions constituted an abuse of the privileged position she held as a police officer and represented a fundamental failure to respect data confidentiality.
The report emphasised that "she knew what the rules were and deliberately broke them," adding that her conduct was "thoroughly discreditable" and demonstrated a lack of integrity. The deliberate nature of the breaches was highlighted, with the report noting this was "a case which includes a large number of repetitive unlawful access."
Career and Consequences
Pakhairzan joined West Midlands Police in 2021 and resigned in November 2025, just one month before the misconduct hearing took place on December 30. Despite character references from two sergeants describing her as a "diligent and hard-working junior officer" and "well-respected member of the team," the panel determined that dismissal would have been the appropriate outcome had she still been serving.
The former officer fully admitted the breaches during the hearing and offered what was described as a genuine apology for her actions. However, the panel concluded that the systematic nature of the unauthorized access and the extended period over which it occurred represented a serious breach of public trust that warranted the most severe disciplinary outcome available to the force.
