Rape victim's data protection ordeal

A rape victim has joined calls for tougher sentences for data protection offences after she claimed her attacker hired a private detective to obtain her medical records.

The 33-year-old sales rep feared the rapist was seeking revenge on her after she helped to convict him on multiple rape charges.

The woman, who cannot be named, was repeatedly raped from the age of nine over a four-year period. But it was not until her late 20s that she felt strong enough to give a statement to the police.

In 2004 a jury at Aylesbury Crown Court found her attacker guilty and he was sentenced to nine years in jail.

Bogus calls

Within weeks of the hearing, relatives of hers who had given evidence to the rape investigation began receiving calls from someone claiming to be a British Telecom engineer attempting to obtain personal information including addresses and telephone numbers.

"She melted into tears and I saw a sense of anxiety and panic come over her"
Victim's GP

The rape victim herself came home one day to find a card on her door-mat supposedly from a courier company asking her to phone about a parcel they had tried to deliver.

On returning the calls she was asked a series of supposed security questions to lure her to give out her ex-directory phone number, but when she later checked on the company she found it did not exist.

Her nightmarish experience continued when her utility company Powergen told her that they had given out her bank account details to a bogus caller.

'Shocked and shaken'

Her GP was also targeted. He received a call at his surgery from someone claiming to be a psychiatrist at a London hospital who asked for her medical records.

"Some of the information that these callers mentioned could only have come from someone very close to the trial"
Rape victim

The doctor did not send the records, but when he tried to phone the hospital back he was told that no doctor with that name worked there.

When he told her what had happened, this final blow shattered her confidence.

"She was shocked, she was shaken, she melted into tears and I saw a sense of anxiety and panic come over her," said the GP.

Investigators from the Office of the Information Commissioner tracked the phone calls back to the North London offices of a private detective agency called Pearmac Ltd.

One of the company's directors Ray Pearson was fined £750 in October 2005 for his attempt to illegally obtain the woman's medical records.

'Act of revenge'

Mr Pearson told investigators he could not remember who had hired him to gather information on the rape victim. He admitted working on several other cases where he had illegally obtained information from the Inland Revenue and a bank.

The woman, however, is convinced her attacker is behind the calls and she told the BBC's The Five Live Report that he may have been gathering together information to help his appeal.

"Some of the information that these callers mentioned to my brother and my mother could only have come from someone very close to the trial, or to the man who attacked me," she said.

"My worry was what the intention was for gathering the information. I didn't know if somebody was intending some act of revenge."

She asked the BBC not to name the rapist for fear of provoking him. After years of trauma following the attacks, and then the stress of giving evidence, she said the systematic snooping into her private life led her to have fresh breakdowns and seek further medical help.

She says the fine Mr Pearson received for her case was derisory. "It's maddening really, for people that commit this crime to just receive a miniscule fine I do think is wrong."

Full-time blaggers

Mr Pearson did not respond to repeated messages left at his office. Powergen apologised to her for passing over her bank details.

She came forward to tell her story to back a call from the Information Commissioner's Office for tougher sentences for so-called blaggers who breach the Data Protection Act.

There are thought to be hundreds of blaggers operating in the UK who work full-time trying to illegally access databases held by banks, the government and utility companies.

Often their work comes through organisations such as local authorities attempting to track down council tax defaulters and insurance companies investigating claimants.

The Five Live Report: Blaggers will be broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live on Sunday 20 August at 1100 BST.