A BURGLAR who preyed on the elderly has been brought to justice after The Argus readers identified him from CCTV footage the authorities refused to publish.

Scott Thompson, 29, has now pleaded guilty to stealing a TV and other electronics from a sheltered housing block after readers recognised him from the images and phoned police.

The council had refused to publish the CCTV footage despite police confirming it showed a suspect, saying doing so might break data protection rules and create a witch-hunt.

But they were published by The Argus and another local website after a local councillor stepped in and passed on images in an effort to secure justice for his residents.

Thompson, unemployed, of Sheridan Terrace, Hove, has pleaded guilty to stealing a TV, DVD and gaming console from the block, Sanders House, in Ingram Crescent West, Hove, on the weekend of November 21 last year.

He also admitted three further counts of burglary at different addresses since then.

After admitting the third count on Monday at Hove Crown Court, he was remanded in custody to be sentenced later this month.

Brighton and Hove City Council owns and runs Sanders House and its officers retrieved the CCTV footage following the burglary.

It then took two months for the images to be handed over to police due to a broken disc drive.

Police did not publish the images and when councillor Robert Nemeth and Garry Pelzer Dunn pressed council officers to release them, they were warned that passing them on to the media might be a breach of data protection.

A council officer added she had been advised this was “because this person has not been convicted and it is not impossible that we would be distributing images of a person who is innocent”.

The council’s information team said “it would not necessarily be ‘fair and lawful’ to make this public, for “a relatively low impact crime” adding they needed to “be mindful of creating any kind of witch hunt or social media frenzy”.

Cllr Nemeth then passed the images on to The Argus - ignoring that advice.

Yesterday he said: "Although it has been a slow process, it is heartening that justice has now been done. What it does go to show is that it was right of me to release the CCTV footage of the burglary at Sanders House against the advice of the council. Not only did it lead to identifying the thief, it helped build a case that has now seen him plead guilty."

A Sussex Police spokesman said this week that Scott Thompson was identified through a number of sources including confirmation following publication of the CCTV image by The Argus and another website - both of which were specifically mentioned by callers.

A city council spokesman said: "We're looking into it but generally the council would release anything the law requires us to release."

CONFUSION OVER PURPOSE AND USE OF DATE PROTECTION

THE DATA Protection Act was brought in back in 1998 to govern how data about individuals could be held and shared.

Yet it is frequently cited by local authorities, not always correctly, as a reason for withholding information or photographs.

Following the burglary at Sanders House in November last year, residents and councillors asked the council to publish the CCTV footage showing a suspect in the building to help catch him.

According to emails seen by The Argus, the council’s information team advised against doing so, saying: “We are both of the opinion that it would not necessarily be ‘fair and lawful’ to make this public, for a relatively low impact crime and one that the Police are not prepared to investigated”. [Police were investigating and had advised the council they had no problem with the council sharing the images.”

The council’s information team went on: “Whilst Sec 29 (3) of the Data Protection Act may be relied upon to share this information, if it is likely to prejudice the detection of a crime, we still need to demonstrate that it is in accordance with one of the conditions from Schedule 3 of the act. We do not see that one of these conditions are particularly relevant, as the information, whilst only a CCTV still, is likely to be sensitive ... as it is relating to the commission of an offence. Therefore we would be making it public on precarious grounds.”

They suggested showing it to a group of Sanders House residents instead.