A CORRUPT former policeman, who secretly searched files for Lord of The Manor of Frodsham Djibril Cissé on Cheshire Constabulary computers, was jailed for 12 months.
Mohammed Ahmed, 27, snooped on the French international and former Liverpool striker, becoming addicted to finding out information about people he knew.
Before an audit revealed his corrupt behaviour the IT expert had accessed the system more than 300 times.
Sentencing Ahmed, of Great Sankey, Warrington, Judge Bryn Holloway said: “I have no doubt you regularly sought information from those systems whenever you wanted to do so because you could do so and you felt entitled to do so.
“I can only assume you felt a sense of power and enhancement of your standing in your own eyes.
“The preservation of the integrity of information on the public held on data bases, including police forces, is fundamentally important to the well being of society.”
Ahmed denied seven offences of misconduct in public office but was found guilty after a trial.
Kevin Donnelly, prosecuting, said IT analyst Ahmed had been based in Northwich after joining Cheshire Constabulary as a probationary officer in August 2005 and used the computer systems to access cases in his home town of Warrington.
Among the files he accessed was one relating to footballer Djibril Cissé, whose file Ahmed checked twice without authority.
The jury heard Ahmed used the police computers ‘like his own playground’ and believed he could do what he wanted on them.
When interviewed he said he had just been ‘nosy’ when making the enquiries.
He said on some occasions the information on people was not about criminal cases but he just wanted ‘to check up on them and their activities’.
Trevor Parry-Jones, defending, said Ahmed, who resigned two weeks after his conviction last month, was immature.
