A court has sentenced Lauren Leese, a former worker at a charity that helps survivors of sexual abuse, for sharing confidential information about a child abuse victim.
Lauren Leese, 30, worked at the Savana charity in Stoke-on-Trent, where she supported survivors of sexual violence and abuse. This charity helped people who had been through violence and abuse. While working there, she accessed sensitive information about a child who had suffered serious abuse. The police said she then gave this information to a man named Shane Davis who was in prison for raping someone.
Police said Davis, who is currently in HMP Dovegate prison, used the information to scare and intimidate another prisoner. Know More
The people investigating this found out that over six months in 2024 Leese kept looking at. And sharing details from the charitys records. Police arrested her in September 2024 while she was working as an adviser for people who had experienced sexual violence at Savana. Both Leese and Davis said they were guilty of looking at computer information. Without permission at the Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on Monday.
Leese got a sentence of 12 months in prison. She does not have to go to prison because it is suspended for 18 months. Davis got a sentence of 12 months which he will serve at the time as the prison sentence he is already serving.
Detective Inspector Lewis Haigh said Leese failed to carry out her responsibility to support victims of serious crimes. He explained that she should have accessed confidential information only to help victims, but instead she shared it with Davis. Whom she had developed a relationship with while he was in prison awaiting trial.
Haigh also said that what Leese did was very bad for the people the charity was helping her coworkers and the public in general. The charity Savana, which had been helping survivors of violence and abuse in Stoke-. On-Trent for almost 40 years closed in April because it said it could no longer afford to keep running its services.
