Cop accessed DV victim details and sent photos to alleged offender

A former police officer exchanged information with an alleged domestic violence offender, including photos of official reports, during hundreds of illegal searches of the NSW Police system over several months which involved looking up victim details.

Mohamad Jamal Soueid, who joined the NSW police force at age 21 in 2018, also looked up details about a drug supply ring.

While working in general duties at Bankstown Police Station between November 2022 and March 2023, the 28-year-old illegally conducted about 700 unauthorised searches, an agreed statement of facts tendered to Downing Centre Local Court showed.

On May 11, 2022, a man charged with several domestic violence (DV) offences sent Soueid details of his charges, including his bail acknowledgement, apprehended violence order and photographs, the fact sheet revealed.

Soueid had “been advised [the sender] had been charged with DV offences” before he repeatedly searched the man’s name, as well as details of a DV incident, including victim details, the police facts and evidence.

When police searched Soueid’s phone, they found photos of him with that man.

They also found a photo Soueid had of himself captioned “when I got kicked out of hotel lmao”. This photo, accompanied by a video, related to an incident at Meriton Suites in Sydney’s CBD on August 7, 2022, when Soueid was at the Liverpool Street hotel and police attended due to “multiple noise complaints”.

Soueid sent some of these photographs to the accused DV offender. He searched the same incident on the system several more times in the following months.

Over the offending period, Soueid repeatedly searched the man’s name and details, including those of “some of his associates”. He looked up a report about young people in a car outside his home and “view[ed] photos for” the DV offender.

In a bizarre turn of events, Soueid later looked up an incident where he was allegedly assaulted by the accused DV offender.

The fact sheet reads that on January 7, 2023, Soueid “accessed an event in relation to an incident at 528 Kent St regarding an assault by [the accused offender] on [Souied]” and details of the man’s bail breaches.

Saved on Soueid’s phone were two photos from CCTV regarding the Kent St incident, including one photo of him talking to police with the caption “me snitching on you”.

Separately to those searches, Soueid was caught repeatedly looking up the details of several other people, named “Person 1,” “Person 2″, “Person 3” and “Person 4″.

On January 6, 2023, he looked up information about a person who was involved in a drug supply ring, the fact sheet stated. He made 314 searches in one day about related people and cars, event details and multimedia files.

During one search, he saved two body-worn videos on his phone of a police event and added a caption reading: “He likes Great Northern like me”. He accessed information including contact details, associates, alias, bail information and charge photos.

Regarding “Person 2”, Soueid carried out 258 searches within an hour and a half on January 7, 2023.

Police audits first alerted officers to Soueid’s crimes. Investigators searched his Regents Park home on 18 April 2023 and seized two iPhones.

Comparing the audits with the seized iPhones revealed “numerous unauthorised searches by the offender, and dissemination of the material obtained as a result of these unauthorised access”, the fact sheet read.

Police confirmed Soueid was suspended with pay on May 2, 2023, until he was fired in November 2023, four months after he was charged.

Soueid initially faced 69 charges relating to the unauthorised access, but many were withdrawn. He pleaded guilty to 10 counts of accessing restricted data held in a computer and was sentenced to 18 months’ prison to be served in the community via an intensive correction order.

Under the order, he must not commit any offence, be supervised by community corrections and undergo rehabilitation treatment.

Court records show the alleged domestic violence offender’s charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault and destroying or damaging property – all DV-related – were ultimately dismissed. He was separately convicted of high range drink-driving and a non-DV common assault.

If you or anyone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 131 114, beyondblue on 1800 512 348, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

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