Eileen Arthurs was a PC at North Kent police station in Northfleet

by Julia Roberts

A Kent police officer carried out improper computer checks on a man who was once suspected of involvement in the £53million Securitas robbery, a court heard today.

Eileen Arthurs was a police constable based at Bluewater and North Kent police station in Northfleet when she accessed database records for what were described as "purely personal and not policing" reasons.

A jury at Maidstone Crown Court heard the 52-year-old officer lied to colleagues and made false entries in her pocket and day notebooks when she made one of the Police National Computer checks last year, as well as lying on an official document about having no association with anyone who had a criminal background.

Arthurs, of Wansunt Road, Bexley, denies five charges of misconduct in a public office dating back to 2004. It is alleged she misused Kent Police's computer system to view information relating to Lee May, his former partner Michelle Stevenson and an "associate", Ian Tucker.

She is also accused of completing and submitting a vetting form that was false and misleading in that it failed to disclose her association with Mr May.

In March last year, while serving in the community safety unit, Arthurs is alleged to have viewed and printed records in relation to an Audi Q7 just a day after Mr May had told police he believed the same vehicle was involved in a threat to his life.

She told colleagues she had seen the vehicle acting suspiciously in Bexley Park, near Dartford, but made no reference to Mr May.

Prosecutor Matthew Jewell told the court Mr May has been "involved with the police" as either a suspect or a defendant, and that Arthurs was "at least" friends with him, having regular and general contact.

She later described him as a neighbour, having sold her former home in Wansunt Road to him.

But Mr Jewell said she should have been in "no doubt" that she had to be both "honest and careful" about her friendship with Mr May.

Arthurs is alleged to have first accessed his files on the Genesis computer system in July 2004 and then twice more in 2005 while posted at Bluewater.

Mr Jewell said that by March 2006 Arthurs knew Mr May was "of interest" to the police team investigating the largest cash robbery in British history at the Securitas depot in Tonbridge a month earlier.

Police had wanted to establish an observation post on his home address in Wansunt Road and discovered that Arthurs was the former householder.

Arthurs was contacted to see if she knew anyone trustworthy in the road from whose house such a post could be set up.

PC Eileen Arthurs was also based at Bluewater shopping centre

She replied that she did not know anyone suitable but, when asked, provided an internal plan of the house.

By December 2007, her earlier use of the computer system in relation to Mr May, Ms Stevenson and Mr Tucker, had come to light and was investigated by Kent Police's Professional Standards Department.

Mr Jewell said that as a result she was given "informal advice" to ensure any database checks were made in relation to her work, and to display "a higher degree of honesty and integrity" to her colleagues.

However, in November 2011 she was required to complete a form in order to renew her vetting status.

When asked if she knew or associated with anyone who had, or she had reason to believe had, received a caution or conviction, engaged in criminal activities or associated with such persons, Arthurs wrote 'No'.

Mr Jewell told the court Mr May fell into "at least one and maybe more" of those categories.

He added: "She (later) denied her negative answer was in order to conceal her relationship with Lee May. We suggest that's precisely why she did do it."

Arthurs was arrested on March 20 last year as she drove home from work. That day she had asked several colleagues at North Kent police station to carry out a PNC check on the Audi car before being given a print out of the registered keeper's details including his name and address.

The trial is being heard at Maidstone Crown Court

At the bottom of the document the details had been written out by hand but Arthurs claimed she was taking it home to shred.

Mr Jewell said, however, that section of the print-out could have been easily torn off and passed on.

"It is not alleged that any information was passed on to Mr May but there is no doubt that PC Arthurs had accessed information in which Mr May would have no doubt have been interested in.

"It is clear that she was anxious to conceal her relationship with Mr May from the police. Her enquiries in relation to the Audi were plainly made on any view as a result of information given to her by Mr May.

"It may matter not whether he told her his life was in danger nor about whether his report to the police about a threat to his life was true or false.

"The fact is she made an enquiry about ownership of a vehicle in which Mr May was plainly interested... Whatever she intended to do with it was prevented from happening (by her arrest).

"She had done, you may think, everything she could to hide the connection between her PNC check and Mr May by lying to her colleagues and making false entries in her pocket and day notebooks."

The trial continues.