A police worker claims she repeatedly accessed former schoolmates' and extended family members' files out of sheer curiosity, ultimately costing her a criminal conviction and her career.
Cristal Micallef held multiple roles within Victoria Police over several years, from an administrative position at Werribee Police Station in 2015, to her recent post as a project officer and executive support officer in the counter terrorism command.
She expressly agreed to the force's conditions only to use its database that catalogues people's interactions with Victoria Police with authorisation.
However, she went on to use it to look at the records of former schoolmates, associates, extended family members and people she followed on TikTok, Melbourne Magistrates Court was told on Monday.
Some of the people Micallef looked into were dead.
Other searches were prompted by her concerns about people's safety but she was primarily driven by "a sense of curiosity and unhappiness", her lawyer Sophie Parsons said.
The more Micallef improperly clicked through the system, the more she became desensitised to her behaviour, the lawyer said.
“She has suffered enormously for what she’s done," Ms Parsons said.
"She has learnt that lesson and that’s not going to be quickly overcome by her.”
The police worker was expected to be sacked and faced not being able to afford to have another child, the lawyer said.
She noted Micallef had mental health issues at the time of her offending in 2022 and 2023.
Magistrate Carolyn Howe rejected Micallef's excuse of curiosity and said the woman knew how seriously the force took unauthorised access to its database.
The police worker undermined the community's trust in the force to keep their information safe, and also potentially put family violence victims' lives at risk by accessing and exposing their information, the magistrate said.
“Not only did you just breach the trust of your employer - you breached the trust of every person in the community," Ms Howe told Micallef.
“What’s really frightening is that you also accessed information that was linked to family violence situations.
“They're in a fatality zone. If their location is disclosed, you raise their risk of fatality."
The magistrate described Micallef's unauthorised access to police information as "extremely serious" and convicted her.
Micallef will be on a good behaviour order for two years and will have to pay a $1000 penalty.
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