Following a prosecution by the ICO, Lesley Severs and Kayleigh Billington pleaded guilty to section 55 Data Protection Act offences before Liverpool Magistrates’ Court, which related to obtaining information about policy holders and the road traffic accidents they had been involved in, from insurance companies. At the time of the offences the defendants worked at a claims management company, UK Claims Organisation Ltd, based in Liverpool. It was the prosecution case that data originally obtained unlawfully from a car hire company was used by the employees of the claims management company as leads, to make blagging calls to insurance companies. In the calls the defendants used various guises and tried to obtain further information from the insurers, in order to be able to sell cases on to solicitors as personal injury claims.
Kayleigh Billington pleaded guilty to 8 offences and asked for 10 other offences to be taken into consideration and was fined £320, ordered to pay a contribution to costs of £250 and a victim surcharge of £20.
Lesley Severs pleaded guilty to 5 offences and was fined £250, ordered to pay a contribution to costs of £400 and a victim surcharge of £20.