Police Scotland launches investigation over missing CCTV footage

The video footage that indicates a link between a retired policeman and serving officer.

Green MSP John Finnie said: “This ‘loss’ will fuel the belief that sinister elements are at work here trying to frustrate any legitimate enquiry.”

The single force previously admitted unlawful use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) to find the mole.

The counter corruption unit (CCU) obtained phone date of four officers, two serving and two retired they thought, wrongly, were involved in the leak.

A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) on the CCU’s actions stated: “As part of investigating connections between serving and retired police officers, we learned that CCTV disc footage was seized by police officers from the CCU Intelligence Section.

“We enquired into the audit trail of this particular CCTV disc footage and established that the data whilst seized had not been lodged as evidence and was lost.”

The HMICS report added: “I also found that confidential information provided by a retired police officer was not sufficiently recorded, risk-assessed and lacked proper evaluation. This information unduly influenced the CCU intelligence development activity.”

A policing source told the newspaper: “It’s unbelievable there was such a casual disregard for evidence handling.”