A former NSW Police officer accused of giving a convicted drug dealer restricted information in exchange for free cocaine has been found guilty of misconduct.
Michael Emmanuel Hoogvelt, 52, has been on trial in Lismore District Court for wilful misconduct while he was a police officer stationed at Wagga Wagga and Tweed Heads between 2022 and 2024.
Hoogvelt accessed restricted data on the computer operational policing system (COPS) nine times to assist the criminal activities of a convicted drug dealer with whom he had become friends.
Hoogvelt had pleaded not guilty, telling the court he got cocaine from the man "four or five" times but there was never any arrangement to exchange information for the drug.
He said he accessed the COPS profile of the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in a "policing context".
Hoogvelt told the court he accessed the man's profile on the COPS system in early 2024 while with his supervisor at Wagga Wagga, Detective Sergeant Timothy Briggs.
Detective Sergeant Briggs gave evidence that he was on leave in Sydney on the day in question.
He told the court he never spoke with Hoogvelt about the man, nor was he aware of a connection between them until after Hoogvelt was charged.
The court heard Hoogvelt shared information from the COPS system with the man in October 2022 about a 17-year-old person of interest who had allegedly broken into the man's house.
He also accessed the man's profile in June 2024 at Tweed Heads police station and advised the man to change his car registration plates to avoid being targeted by police.
Defence lawyer William Hill said Hoogvelt first encountered the man in the line of duty about 2016.
He said Hoogvelt's policing style went "from hardline to humane" after he attended a road accident in 2016.
The court heard he was awarded a bravery medal for that incident, and was also affected by the suicide of a colleague in 2018.
Mr Hill said his client started to help young addicts, including the man, in a bid to keep them out of trouble.
The court heard over the years the police officer and the convicted drug dealer exchanged thousands of phone messages, went to each other's homes and on a trip together.
The defence said Hoogvelt went on leave in March 2024, and without the distraction of work, he became "overwhelmed" by post traumatic stress disorder and other pressures and turned to the man to obtain cocaine.
Hoogvelt told the court his drug use did not spiral out of control until he moved to Palm Beach in Queensland in the weeks before taking up a position in the Tweed-Byron Police District in May 2024.
He told the court he was "far from being the world's best bloke", but described the case against him as "pathetic".
"Yes, I had PTSD, yes, I took drugs and I am angry and frustrated but I am not going to sit here and own what I didn't do."
Hoogvelt will be sentenced on October 22 in Sydney District Court.
