Jail For Ex-Police Officer Who Hacked Emails In Stalking Campaign Against Couple

6 October 2017, 14:28

A former police officer who carried out a campaign of harassment against a man and his wife has been jailed for 11 months.

Ashley Boyd, 26, admitted a charge of stalking and pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice by using a friend to try and evade a police investigation into her actions.

She targeted a former colleague, a man she had worked with before joining Police Scotland.

Boyd hacked his email and social media accounts, posting an offensive message from his Twitter account, the Crown Office said.

She accessed his Facebook account and, while imitating him, held conversations with his friends and pretended that he was unhappy in his marriage.

Boyd, who was a serving police officer in Glasgow at the time, also cancelled a hospital appointment for the man's wife.

In order to try and evade the police investigation into her behaviour, Boyd convinced a friend to confess to hacking the Twitter account and posting the offensive message.

She was sentenced to 11 months in prison and given a five year non-harassment order at Glasgow Sheriff Court, the Crown Office said.

Les Brown, head of the criminal allegations against the police division, said: "Ashley Boyd placed an innocent couple in a state of fear and alarm through her criminal behaviour.

"There was no justification for the abusive messages and the invasion of their personal lives.

"Boyd's decision to exploit a friend to evade investigation and prosecution exacerbated the tremendously difficult situation she had created."

The offences happened between March 2015 and October 2016, prosecutors said.

It is understood Boyd resigned from the police force during the investigation.