A former policewoman has been jailed for 22 months after seizing CCTV footage of a street bust-up to be used as a "tool to blackmail" Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, reports Sky Sports. Helen Jones, a former PC with Merseyside Police, obtained the footage by "flashing her warrant card" to the manageress of a bank.
The incident involved friends of Gerrard, the then-England captain, becoming involved in a row with other men at a bar near his home in Formby, Merseyside, which spilled out on to the street and was caught on the CCTV cameras of a nearby bank.
Local businessman Paul Lloyd claimed Gerrard "threw the first punch" but, at an earlier hearing, prosecutors said the Liverpool midfielder was acting as a peacemaker on the evening of August 4 2013.
Jones, formerly of Formby, now living in Chatham, Kent, did not deny improperly using her status as a police officer to get the CCTV and admitted misconduct in a public office but claimed she was doing a favour for a friend.
But during a three day hearing, known as a trial of issue last November, Judge Stuart Baker said he found her account "wholly implausible", ruling Jones acted for "base motives" and described her as a "practised and persistent liar".
He said the CCTV was secured to use it "possibly as a lever to cause Mr Gerrard to pay money to suppress it or, at the very least, to use it in a away which would potentially cause embarrassment, as has in fact occurred". Jailing her today Judge Baker told the defendant: "This was deliberate and calculated misconduct in a public office."
