VicPol staffer used confidential database to snoop on friends, family

A Victoria Police employee who used a confidential intelligence database to access sensitive information about family and former schoolmates has sobbed in court as her “frightening” breach of trust was revealed.

A Victoria Police employee used a confidential intelligence database to access sensitive information about friends and family.

A Victoria Police employee who used a confidential intelligence database to access sensitive information about former school peers and extended family members has been lashed by a magistrate who said her conduct undermined public trust in the force’s handling of personal information.

Cristal Micallef, 36, was arrested last July over multiple unauthorised information checks she made in 2022 and 2023 while working within the highly classified counter terrorism command.

Micallef sobbed in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday as details of her “significant dishonesty” were made public.

The court heard Micallef, then working as a project officer, used the force’s LEAP database to access sensitive information, including family violence and mental health records, of people from her past including those she went to school with and kept tabs on via TikTok.

More than a dozen victims were subjected to the confidentiality abuse which magistrate Carolyn Howe said breached the trust of every single person in Victoria.

“Not only did you breach the trust of your employer, you breached the trust of every person within this community,” Her Honour said.

“You make them question how safe is the information that’s sitting with Victoria Police and then you make them question what they do when they encounter Victoria Police because they know there are people who are out there who will access their information when they are not supposed to.”

Magistrate Howe said the worst of Micallef’s offending related to family violence searches.

“What’s really frightening is that you accessed information linked to family violence situations,” Her Honour said.

“In terms of family violence, we have so many people out there engaging with police when they are in a fatality zone and if their location is disclosed, we raise their risk of fatality.”

“You placed them at risk of danger and fatality.”

Micallef, initially charged with 18 offences, pleaded guilty to a single charge of unauthorised access to the LEAP database.

Her lawyer said Micallef, now a new mother, was in a depressive spiral when she became “overcome with curiosity” about the lives of those in her past.

“What’s occurred here is access to information of which she is not entitled on a continual basis over a period of time out of a sense of curiosity and unhappiness in her own life,” her lawyer said.

The court heard there was no evidence that Micallef ever used or disclosed the personal information she obtained from LEAP.

Micallef was handed a two-year adjourned undertaking with conviction which requires her to be of good behaviour, engage with a psychiatrist and donate $100 to the court fund.

Victoria Police will terminate her employment.