Police Officer accused of theft from Northumbria Police

A Police Constable has denied stealing £12,888.22 belonging to the Northumbria Police Authority, while in their employ between 1 September 2022 and 1 October 2023.

At Newcastle Crown Court on 24 July, PC Nicola Owen was told that she must go to trial in January 2026.

Prosecutors argued that the allegation was so serious it would not be suitable for the case to be heard by the Magistrates’ Court, a contention with which the District Judge agreed, saying that the trial would take place in the Crown Court next year.

According to a spokesperson for Northumbria Police, concerns about the possible theft instigated an investigation and a file was subsequently submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which resulted in the accused being charged with theft by an employee.

PC Owen has also been suspended pending the court proceedings and has been released on bail. The spokesperson added that “as there are ongoing court proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment any further.”

Roger Isaacs, National Technical Director of NIFA, said: “Allegations of theft should always be taken seriously especially when the accused is a serving police officer.

“However, the lessons of the Horizon Post Office Scandal in which thousands of innocent subpostmasters and subpostmistresses were wrongly accused of stealing money should teach prosecutors that it is vitally important for the evidence to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

“It is difficult to understand how so many innocent people were successfully prosecuted by the Post Office in circumstances in which there was a staggering lack of evidence that those accused had ever had the benefit of the money that they were accused of stealing.

“It ought not to be enough for the prosecution to show that money was missing (although in the Post Office cases even that allegation proved to have been based on faulty software) but also that the accused took it and benefitted from it.

“In most such cases there is evidence of gambling or other debts or lavish lifestyles that ought not to have been affordable but the fact that this was never a feature of the Post Office prosecutions ought to have been another red flag.”

Sources: Evening Chronicle

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