Of all the components that comprise the good administration of the country, it is the police force that needs to engender the highest trust among the population.  When there is no one else to turn to, the public must have faith that they can turn to the police, when politicians and public servants err, the country must turn to the police to investigate.

That is why yesterday’s revelation that the personal file of one of the force’s officers was somehow copied and illegally leaked straight from the police commissioner’s office into the hands of a newspaper editor - who, perhaps quite understandably, has an outstanding grudge against this particular officer - is all the more concerning.

It is concerning on the most fundamental level for, if you cannot trust the police to uphold the law within the very halls of the Floriana headquarters, who can you trust? 

This issue is not about the newspaper editor who received the leaked information.  As fellow purveyors of news, we know all too well that leaked information is not always done above board, and we are well aware that most information leaked to us is hardly ever leaked altruistically – there is usually an axe to grind or a bone to pick behind each and every scrap of leaked information.

This newspaper will stand behind that editor, or any other news editor for that matter, that protects his or her sources.  Having said that, when information about a police officer is leaked from inside not only the force itself, but from inside the office of the police commissioner himself, there is clearly something amiss.

In this particular case, it transpires that the former police commissioner had requested the personal file of an officer from the force’s human resources unit and the file was not returned until after that commissioner had left his post, and at a time when that officer himself was at the centre of a controversy surrounding the wrongful arrest of a hold-up suspect.

The nitty-gritty details of that specific case are superfluous to the current issue.  What does matter is the fact that there was connivance between a newspaper and someone in the police force, both of whom must have had an axe to grind with the officer in question.

After being sued for libel, that newspaper editor, at the clear risk of compromising his own source, then proceeded to present the leaked files in court in the newspaper’s defence, which led the aggrieved officer to lodge a complaint with the data protection commissioner about his personal file being handed over to a newspaper.

What does matter is that a police officer’s personal file was requested by the police commissioner, copied and handed over, undoubtedly by a member of the police force, to a newspaper editor whose publication went on to pen a number of articles about the officer, who had, incidentally, formerly been implicated in an arson attempt on that newspaper editor’s home years back.

The finger of blame is naturally pointed at the former police commissioner himself but the editor himself yesterday categorically stated that it had not been the police chief who had leaked the file.  Moreover, the former commissioner has not as yet, despite this newspaper’s best efforts, defended himself by the time of writing.

From the Paul Sheehan debacle to an officer being boarded in an unheard of matter of days and appointed to a high paying position at a state corporation, from allegations of politically-motivated transfers, promotions and appointments at the police force to similar accusations at the Armed Forces of Malta and the Civil Protection Department, there is clearly a massive and still growing deficit of public trust in the country’s disciplined forces – a deficit that should be addressed even more quickly than the public fiscal deficit.  The deficit that we are speaking of here undermines the very law and order of the country.

This case will almost certainly be subjected to an internal police inquiry, which will also undoubtedly root out the culprit behind the leak.  This, however, will not suffice to fully restore the public’s faith in the force.  The new police commissioner himself must act to contain the damage to the force’s reputation and standing in the community, and he must act quickly.  He must also act to rebuild that trust.

The €500 fine meted out by the data protection commissioner to the current police commissioner is a mere pittance compared with the almost irreparable damage done, once again, to the police force’s reputation.