WHEN her bad boy lover tried to end their relationship after learning she was a cop, besotted Lorna Pennycook responded by feeding him highly sensitive information from her force’s files.
Now spending time behind bars for her unspeakable conduct, The Sun can reveal Pennycook isn’t the only rogue police officer willing to risk her freedom for love.
From kissing inmates in uniform to “grassing up” police informants and passing intelligence to drug dealer lovers, there is a dangerous new breed of gangsters’ molls willing to sacrifice their morals to please their men.
Pennycook was working for West Midlands Police when she provided her criminal other half with a burner phone and details from his own criminal file, as well as info on warrants and arrests.
She would even try to claim that her gangster lover had coerced her before a crackteam of corruption officers uncovered the truth.
While a constable for Greater Manchester Police, Choni Kenny, was caught on camera kissing her drug dealer lover, Josh Whelan, at Salford‘s Forest Bank prison, while in uniform.
The brazen 27-year-old fed Whelan highly sensitive information during the course of their relationship, and when they split, she embarked on a fling with criminal Rahim Mottley and tipped him off about a planned police firearms raid.
In West Yorkshire, an unnamed female police officer was found to have shared intimate photos with her drug dealer beau.
The cases of all three women were deemed so serious that they were referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, or IOPC, when they came to light.
The IOPC has a ten-strong team of investigators working in their dedicated Anti-Corruption Unit – and they told The Sun that cases like these are becoming more and more prevalent.
Nicola Marfleet, the IOPC Director of Investigations, stresses the vast majority of cops work to protect the public and uphold the law, but added: “Disclosure of police information without a valid reason for doing so, often to those involved in criminality, is the most common form of corruption the ACU deals with.
“Only the most serious cases of corruption are referred to the IOPC, so we do not have the full picture, but while undisclosed criminal connections – whether formed before or after joining the police – are a small proportion of the cases we see, they do appear to have become more prevalent lately.
“Police information and intelligence is an extremely valuable commodity to criminals who will actively seek it out.”
Gangster lover
Pennycook, 38, had been an upstanding police officer for seven years when she began to feed hundreds of pieces of information from West Midlands Police’s files to her new lover, Anthony Kennedy.
The cop from Walsall accessed highly sensitive intelligence from the force, supplying her boyfriend with details that were on file about the professional crook and his criminal associates, plus info on warrants and wanted suspects.
Pennycook, who fed Kennedy information for four years between 2017 and 2021, had met the 44-year-old career criminal on a dating site and wasn’t put off by the fact he had been part of an evil gang who robbed a vehicle and left its driver lying dead by the side of a bridge like ‘discarded roadkill’.
The theft of LG televisions from lorry driver Bogdan Bartczak’s vehicle back in 2010 saw his body dumped near a canal bridge.
A post-mortem failed to determine the cause of the lorry driver’s death, but he had been known to suffer from a serious heart condition, with police suspecting he had suffered a heart attack during the terrifying late-night raid.
Kennedy wasn’t held criminally liable for Bogdan’s death, nor were his fellow gang members, but he was jailed for eight years for robbery and handling stolen goods.
Judge Michael Callum told Birmingham Crown Court: “He did not deserve to die afraid and in distress.
“He did not deserve to have his body disposed of as if it were a worthless piece of roadkill.”
The dodgy PC and her career criminal other half were both jailed for four years last year for sharing sensitive police information – he smirked in court while she sobbed.
So just what makes a seemingly upstanding police officer turn rogue after falling for a bad boy?
Choosing to pass information can feel like the least dangerous option available, even though the long term risk is severe
Alex Iszatt, a behavioural criminologist
Pennycook would claim in a police interview that Kennedy had ruined her life, and she was afraid of him, but damning phone data revealed she called him significantly more times than he did her, with 81 calls in one single day.
“The relationship dynamic matters,” says Alex Iszatt, a behavioural criminologist and former crime scene investigator or CSI.
“These are not always equal partnerships.
“The woman may be in a dominant or coercive relationship with a man who has more power, more criminal exposure or fewer exit routes.
“Going above and beyond is not about loyalty or romance but about maintaining safety, stability or position within that relationship.
“Choosing to pass information can feel like the least dangerous option available, even though the long-term risk is severe.”
PC Kenny kept in communication with her drug dealer lover, Whelan, on illegal phones when he was behind bars, slipping him sensitive information from Greater Manchester Police’s files that included a victim impact statement by his ex-girlfriend he was accused of assaulting.
Upon the release of her lover from jail, the couple were spotted driving around in her BMW and enjoying a Nando’s, and after they split, she embarked on a fling with Mottley, passing on confidential information to her new criminal lover after he was extradited from Spain to the UK by the National Crime Agency.
Kenny was jailed for three years and nine months in April, after pleading guilty to four offences of misconduct in public office and one of conspiracy to commit misconduct.
These women aren’t acting impulsively but practically, thinking about how to work around the system and policing offers access, legitimacy and cover
Alex Iszatt
Unable to be named due to an anonymity order, the female West Yorkshire Police officer was dismissed with immediate effect last October following an investigation into her relationship with a drug dealer.
The woman was found to have had an inappropriate relationship with the man, lying to colleagues about their relationship and ignoring instructions not to have any further contact with him.
While the bent cop’s career lies in tatters, her lover is serving an eight-year jail sentence after being convicted on multiple drug-related charges.
Shocking rise
Former Metropolitan Police officer Katarzyna Komor, 43, who made her first appearance at Westminster magistrates’ court in October, was charged in connection with an allegation she misused police computer systems to find information about an organised crime network and their associates.
While Kate Miller, a 29-year-old financial investigator based in Lancashire Constabulary’s Economic Crime Unit or ECU, pleaded not guilty to misconduct in public office at Burnley Crown Court in November.
In a statement, the IPOC said: “The charge relates to December 2023, when Ms Miller allegedly shared police information with a member of the public, without a policing purpose for doing so.”
More cases are upcoming, The Sun can reveal, with the case of an officer accused of forming relationships with criminals and sharing information awaiting a CPS charging decision.
Criminologist Alex explained: “These women aren’t acting impulsively but practically, thinking about how to work around the system and policing offers access, legitimacy and cover.
“Even small pieces of knowledge can be valuable and the act of sharing them can quickly become normalised.
“Some women may have been encouraged to do it, explicitly or implicitly but if they see others passing information with no or little immediate risk then it seems like an easy option – why not do the same?”
