Cornick: Appeal plan
Eight men have been found guilty of a conspiracy to unlawfully obtain data from garages to sell on as potential leads for personal injury (PI) claims.
The prosecution was brought by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and led to a 10-week trial at Bolton Crown Court.
The ICO said: “This case uncovered a vast, murky criminal network where crash details were stolen from garages across England, Scotland and Wales and traded to fuel distressing predatory calls.”
The defendants were found to have conspired together between 2014 and 2017 to access or obtain personal data of people from vehicle repair garages without their consent. The data was then sold onto claims management firms hoping to generate potential leads for PI claims.
The ICO said an ongoing second phase of the investigation was expected to lead to further prosecutions of people embedded into insurance companies and claims management companies with the sole aim of stealing personal data.
Craig Cornick, 40, of Prestbury, was found guilty of conspiracy to unlawfully obtain personal data contrary to the Data Protection Act.
Mr Cornick has been active in the North-West claims market for several years, having been a non-lawyer director of Liverpool firm High Street Solicitors as well as a director of claims management company ME Group. Both businesses collapsed into administration, in 2023 and 2022 respectively. He is now director of litigation and law firm finance business iQuote.
Earlier this month, the jury returned a not guilty verdict for Mr Cornick and Thomas Daly, 35, of Macclesfield, on a charge of conspiracy to access computer systems without authority contrary to the Computer Misuse Act.
Mr Daly had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to unlawfully obtain personal data.
In a statement, Mr Cornick said: “I am relieved to have been cleared of some serious and damaging accusations. The claims of computer hacking were shown to be completely unfounded, with no evidence of criminal intent or harm.
“While I acknowledge the challenging and important role the ICO plays in protecting citizens’ personal data, I reject any notion of wrongdoing.”
He added that he was “never subject to any searches of my personal or business properties, I was never interviewed, and my companies have never failed an audit”.
He said he would appeal the conspiracy charge on which he was convicted, for which the maximum penalty is a fine.
His solicitor, Laura Smith, head of corporate and financial crime at Cartwright King, added: “No evidence was produced throughout the prosecution case that showed Mr Cornick or the company received or processed stolen data.”
Six other men had all previously pleaded guilty: Vincent McCartan, 30, of Failsworth, Ian Flanagan, 40, of Macclesfield, Mark Preece, 44, of Manchester and Kiernan Thorlby, 35, of Macclesfield all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully obtain personal data and to conspiracy to secure unauthorised access to data held on computer systems.
Fahad Moktadir, 32, of Stockport pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to unlawfully obtain personal data, and Adam Crompton, 35, of Northwich to two charges.
The ICO said its investigation began in 2016, when it was contacted by the owner of a car repair garage in County Durham, who was worried his customers blamed him for the nuisance calls they were receiving about PI claims.
It snowballed into one of the largest nuisance call cases the ICO has ever handled; nine warrants in the Manchester and Macclesfield areas led to the seizure of devices containing 241,000 emails, 4.5m documents, 144,000 spreadsheets, 1.5m images and 83,000 multimedia files.
All eight men are due to return to court on 11 July, where Proceeds of Crime Act and costs issues will be discussed, with sentencing to follow at a later date.
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