By Jeremy Wilkinson, Open Justice multimedia journalist, Palmerston North of 
(file image) Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
An NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) employee supplied her gang member partner with confidential information from the agency's database in exchange for methamphetamine.
In some cases, her now ex-partner would allegedly use the information to find and then assault motorists he perceived had wronged him on the road.
Nadine Ericsson also passed the information on to other members of the King Cobras gang over a period of roughly two years before police intercepted cellphone messages from her.
"This is a serious and profound breach of trust," Judge Bruce Northwood said on Thursday afternoon at the Palmerston North District Court as he sentenced Ericsson to 11 months' home detention for three counts of accessing a computer system dishonestly.
"The very fact that people's personal information has fallen into the hands of criminals is a significant aggravating factor."
According to the summary of facts, Ericsson had worked for NZTA for roughly eight years before she began dating a member of the King Cobras.
From mid-2021 through to March 2023, she accessed the motor vehicle register and driver licensing register, which is a secure database housed at NZTA and requires employees to sign a code of conduct before they are allowed to use it.
The registers contain information about motorists and their vehicles, such as their contact details and addresses.
Ericsson would look up drivers or vehicles in the databases and pass the information to her then partner and other members of the gang. She was given meth as payment.
She came up with a set of rules for herself about when she would access the information as well as a cover story that she was simply making sure a vehicle she wanted to buy had a clean record.
It is unclear precisely how many times she accessed the databases nor how many people's personal information she passed on.
Judge Northwood said that Ericsson had sent several messages to friends expressing concern that her partner was using the information she was giving him to confront and assault people.
However, she continued to give him information and said she felt compelled to do so, following threats from one of the other gang members.
"You were placed in a privileged position, which clearly you abused," Judge Northwood said on Thursday.
"It was a significant breach of confidentiality obligations."
Judge Northwood said Ericsson, who has no prior convictions, used her good character to get what she wanted.
"It was easy for you," he said.
"It was very effective. You got what you wanted and passed it on."
Police were seeking a starting point of three and a half years in prison for Ericsson, with prosecutor Tom Bagnell noting that her offending was an egregious breach of trust from a government employee and said she had an obligation to keep the information safe.
"Although this may not be the most sophisticated offending, it is more than coming up with a spur-of-the-moment idea," Bagnell told the court.
"This was calculated.
"It is important that people in the community feel that the information they provide to government agencies is protected."
Ericsson, who had a large number of friends and family appear in support of her on Thursday, had written a letter of remorse for what she had done and told the court that the loss of her work friendships was particularly hard on her.
"She recognises the significance in the breach of trust, not only that which was breached in relation to her workmates at the NZTA but also the wider community in terms of the information," her lawyer Kila Pedder said.
Pedder said his client's offending was not motivated by financial greed, which made it less serious than other workplace-related breaches of trust that have been before the courts.
He said Ericsson had sought counselling, was doing volunteering work and was motivated to step away from a life of alcohol and drugs.
In a victim impact statement provided to the court, NZTA said Ericsson's offending had a significant impact on the staff who were left unsettled and had to pick up the workload left by her privacy breach.
Ericsson's case is the second in Manawatū in as many years regarding an NZTA employee accessing secure information in exchange for drugs.
David Davies was a contractor working for the agency in 2018 when he accessed the drivers' licence register to change driver licence statuses, alter warrant of fitness records and change ownership records.
Davies did this for at least five people to fund his methamphetamine habit and even changed his own record, after being caught driving without a licence.
He also stole people's identities and drained their credit cards, stealing thousands of dollars from his victims.
Davies was imprisoned for two years and five months in 2022 after also being sentenced by Judge Northwood.
- This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.
