Healthcare worker pays price for snooping on ex's medical records and his new girlfriend

A healthcare worker who accessed a health agency database, snooping on the medical records of her ex-partner and his new girlfriend, knew the importance of safeguarding patient information yet deliberately and dishonestly accessed it.

Judge Lance Rowe told the woman, whose name is suppressed, that there was no evidence to support her claim that the new girlfriend was a former IV drug user, which she insisted was her motivation for accessing the records.

“There is no evidence that there was any foundation to that allegation. It has surfaced in the context of some of the communications that I have reviewed, and it seems to have been part of the line of abuse that you directed towards [the woman].

“Really, what you were doing was looking for ammunition that you could use in the context of the dispute that you had with [your ex-partner] about the care of the children.”

In February, following a judge-alone trial, the woman was found guilty of accessing a computer system to obtain a benefit against her ex-partner and accessing a computer system with the intent of obtaining a benefit against his new girlfriend.

The woman accessed the girlfriend’s medical records for 12 seconds to look at her lab results.

She spent 21 seconds looking at her former partner’s file, searching his lab results and his next-of-kin information.

The woman told the court she had accessed the records in a moment of impulsivity, against the background of “a hostile and difficult” relationship breakdown.

But at Friday’s sentencing in the Wellington District Court, Judge Rowe said the woman’s actions represented a significant breach of trust, which was evident from the victim impact statements.

He said her actions were designed to harm the pair and undermine their relationship.

The judge said it was clear from a reference provided by the woman’s current employer that she understood the importance of safeguarding patient information.

“Yet you deliberately and dishonestly accessed it.”

The woman was also sentenced on two admitted representative charges of breaching a protection order, which the court heard she did multiple times over six months.

The court heard on one occasion she had messaged her ex-partner almost 40 times in one day, well beyond what she was permitted by the court to send him.

Judge Rowe said that while some of the messages she sent her ex, which gave rise to the charges of breaching the protection order, involved child-related matters, others did not but many represented a clear pattern of psychological abuse.

“Some of them appear innocuous, and discuss in part childcare and childcare arrangements,” the judge said.

In others, she attempted to belittle her ex-partner, with the judge reading out several examples.

“I suspect with her history of co-dependence, it will be all on for a while anyway, and I don’t want the kids to have to deal with the stress of having her there all the time, then inevitably the breakup,” the judge read.

Judge Rowe said that message was a not-so-subtle attempt to undermine her ex-partner’s new relationship under the guise of talking about childcare.

He said the messages to the new girlfriend were more abusive, again reading out examples.

“I will make them [the children] fully aware of why I am moving in town; your actions have led to this,” the judge said, referencing the messages.

“I’d like to say I wish you good luck with this, but I don’t, and I also realised what a crappy partner [the ex] was.

“So I figured you will get what’s coming to you in due course anyway. Lastly, f*** you, desperado bitch.”

The judge continued to read out the messages the woman had sent to the new girlfriend.

“Did you realise that accessing someone’s record means very little? That there is minimal information gleaned, apart from medical tests, of which there were none.

“I was wanting to see if you were still an IV drug user who was caring for my children, and the information gave me no insight,” the message said.

Judge Rowe said it was clear from the number and nature of the messages that the woman intended to belittle and humiliate her ex-partner and his new girlfriend. And she knew it was harmful, he said, having already appeared in court for breaching a protection order.

Previous protection order breaches

During the hearing, it emerged that the woman had already been discharged without conviction on two earlier charges of breaching a protection order.

One involved an incident where she had broken her ex-partner’s car mirror, and the other a single communication she had sent to her ex-partner.

As part of that matter, the woman had attended a restorative justice meeting, where her ex-partner had explained that her offending caused him anxiety and made him hyper-vigilant.

But the judge also said that the previous discharge without conviction meant the woman knew the risks and was prepared to take them.

“The point is you were told face to face of the effect of your conduct in relation to the two breaches of a protection order, and yet you continued to offend in this way,” the judge said.

‘You completely lost perspective’

The judge also referred to a psychologist’s report, which described the woman’s background of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.

The woman’s lawyer, Letitia Smith, sought a discharge without conviction on the recent offending, saying her client had a history of being overwhelmed and PTSD.

She said the psychologist’s report confirmed that her client was fragile.

“If she were convicted of these charges, her mental health would suffer, most likely from the loss of her job.”

Smith said there was a “real risk” she could lose her current health job, which was already a “huge step down” from the former healthcare role she lost as a result of the offending.

Meanwhile, police prosecutor Acting Sergeant Julia Hall submitted that the woman should be convicted, telling the court that medical professionals, who were entrusted with personal information, were held to a higher standard.

She also pointed out that the charges of breaching a protection order involved multiple breaches.

Judge Rowe agreed a conviction wasn’t out of all proportion to the gravity of the offending.

The judge accepted the woman’s mental health was fragile but said, looking at the conduct overall, the effect on her victims and the seriousness of her offending, he wouldn’t be holding her accountable, denouncing her conduct and deterring others if he discharged her without conviction.

“This was an instance where you completely lost perspective and caused harm by doing so.”

Accordingly, the woman was convicted of the four charges and sentenced to 250 hours of community work and 12 months of supervision.

He also ordered her to pay the new girlfriend $500 in emotional harm reparation, noting this didn’t put a price on her suffering and harm.

“It is important that her harm in this case, in particular her suffering, is recognised by you making an emotional harm payment.”

After hearing arguments, he agreed to permanently suppress the woman’s name, citing the impact on her children.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently, she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.