A sergeant with an exemplary record with the Manx force has been fined for disclosing confidential police data to his father, a former Deputy Chief Constable.

Richard Alan Cretney, 46, pleaded guilty to knowingly or recklessly disclosing personal data without consent, in breach of the force’s GDPR regulations.

He had been due to face a summary trial before High Bailiff James Brooks but changed his plea to guilty at the 11th hour.

Six other charges of disclosing personal data were dismissed.

The court heard the Sergeant Cretney has been suspended since April 2024.

His advocate Stephen Wood said: ‘It’s such a shame that an exemplary officer’s career had effectively come to an end in this manner.’

The High Bailiff said what the officer had done was inexplicable. He likened it to a child ‘giddy with gossip’ wanting to share information with his father.

Prosecutor Kath Johnson told the court that the on April 19, 2024, the officer’s phone had been seized by police and examined.

A number of messages were discovered that had been exchanged between the defendant and his father, former Deputy Chief Constable Alan Cretney.

The information shared concerned an incident which occurred in a car park in which a woman was said to have impersonated a police officer.

‘Hope she gets done. Will she be arrested and interviewed?’ asked Mr Cretney senior.

‘No, she won’t,’ replied his son. ‘I don’t think the informant is bothered.’

The court heard that the defendant had also sent on a screenshot of the i-Net police system.

Ms Johnson said the offence represented a serious breach of trust by a serving police officer.

‘The defendant had no need to access the information and send it to his father,’ she said. She said it breached his duty to deal with sensitive information in a confidential manner.

Defence advocate Mr Wood said the breach was limited in scope and brief in duration.

He acknowledged that a breach of GDPR by a police officer is more serious that one committed by others.

But he said unlike a recent case before the courts in which two police officers admitted a data breach, no information had been changed.

Mr Wood said: ‘This sort of case for obvious reasons will attract significant public interest. But it is important in my submission to differential this from the more recent case which will be fresh in the minds of the public and press.

‘This is an extremely regrettable but relatively straight forward breach of GDPR regulations.’

He described his client as a man of positive character for whom policing very much ran in the family. He saw his father, the former Deputy Chief Constable, as a mentor.

When interviewed by police, Mr Cretney produced a prepared statement in which he claimed the information shared was already known to his father.

But sentencing him, the High Bailiff said he could not accept that was the case. ‘You must have realised what you did was wrong,’ he added.

He said the offence was too serious to deal with by way of conditional discharge.

Mr Brooks fined the defendant £800 but ordered him to pay £600 costs.