The security of magistrates across Norfolk has been compromised after their personal contact details were mistakenly sent to a prison.
The BBC has learned the magistrates' year book, containing names and phone numbers, was accidentally sent for printing to HMP Standford Hill in Kent.
Her Majesty's Courts Service's area director has written to all magistrates to say he is "desperately sorry".
Hard copies of the document at the prison have now been destroyed.
Security procedures have been tightened to ensure the mistake did not happen again, a spokesman for HMCS said.
The details in the book do not include addresses.
The Category D prison, in Sheerness, has had the books since the beginning of January, but the mistake has only just been discovered.
Which screw tipped off the BBC?
Related (in its way) and funny:
ReplyDeleteFrom Private Eye 6-19th April 2001, p6:
Managers at the Public Records Office in Kew have devised a clever
money-saving idea: they are using prisoners in British jails to input on
to computer the information from the 1901 census. The prisoners' work has
been checked, however, and they have been found to be rewriting history.
All references to prison wardens in 1901 have been changed to "bastards".
Officials are now using cheap labour in India to correct the errors.