Officer jailed for tip-off

A former policeman who tried to give a “cryptic tip-off ” to a suspected white supremacist warning him that he was under surveillance was jailed for 18 months yesterday.

Robert David Critchley, 44, was sentenced in the District Court for attempting to pervert the course of justice while he was a senior constable monitoring calls as part of a covert police operation into white supremacist groups in 2010. He was convicted by a jury late last year.

Critchley had been accused of making an anonymous call from a public phone box on January 15, 2010 to Murray Holmes, a friend of the covert operation’s primary target, Jacob Hort, and suggesting Mr Hort get a new SIM card.

Judge Andrew Stavrianou said Critchley would do “hard yards” behind bars but his crime was too serious to suspend the jail term.