A loss adjuster company and four men have been convicted of offences involving private detectives being paid to illegally obtain personal data.

The maximum sentence West Malling company Woodgate & Clark Ltd, retired director Michael Woodgate, employee Colum Tudball, and private detectives John Spears, and Daniel Summers, can face is a fine.

The case arose after an insurance claim for fire damage to a nightclub in Lancashire nearly 13 years ago.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the trial was about “privacy, personal information and private investigators”.

Prosecutor Richard Horwell QC said the case centred on whether the company and the four men either knowingly or “at the very least” recklessly disregarded the Data Protection Act 1998 for their own ends.

It concerned the unlawful obtaining and disclosure of personal financial information of nightclub owner Michael Cookson.

Information that was personal, private and confidential was held by Abbey National, now Santander Bank, and Barclays Bank.

“The prosecution case is this information was unlawfully obtained from those two financial institutions by private investigators without the true consent of the banks,” said Mr Horwell.

“For many years it was not known this information had been unlawfully obtained. The information remained hidden in email accounts.

“It was only when the investigating authorities began to focus upon how people were operating within the private investigator industry it was revealed Mr Cookson’s information had been unlawfully obtained.”

Insurers instructed loss adjusters Woodgate and Clark to investigate the fire at the nightclub in December 2004.

Summers was alleged to be the first private investigator to unlawfully obtain information on Mr Cookson from the banks.

He used an illicit technique called “blagging” by calling banks and deceiving staff into believing they were talking to the account holder.

Former police officer Spears was also a private investigator who ran a company called Global Intelligence Services.

It was alleged he used Summers because he could get financial information that could not be obtained lawfully.

Adjourning sentence until January 5, Judge Charles Macdonald QC said the company had a substantial turnover of £12 million a year.

He added they would try to contact Summers so he could ‘engage’ with the court.

The company, of King Street, West Malling, denied two charges of unlawfully obtaining personal data between January and March 2005 and two of unlawfully disclosing personal data in March 2005.

It was convicted of the disclosing personal data offences and acquitted of the obtaining personal data charges.

Michael Woodgate, 67, of The Old Coach House, Willow Wents, Mereworth, denied two charges of unlawfully obtaining personal data and two charges of unlawfully disclosing personal data.

He was convicted of all charges apart from one of obtaining personal data.

Tudball, of Farriers Walk, Kingsnorth, Ashford, denied two charges of unlawfully obtaining personal data, in 2005, but was convicted of both.

Spears, 77, from Lydd-on-Sea, denied two charges of unlawfully obtaining personal data and two offences of unlawfully disclosing personal data between February and March 2005, but was convicted of all four.

Summers, 38, formerly of Cardiff and now living in Cyprus, was tried in his absence and convicted.

The Information Commissioners Office, which brought the case, said trading confidential information threatens people’s privacy and security.