New boss of police quango admits visiting ‘adultery’ site

A ToP civil servant parachuted in to take charge of Scotland’s troubled police quango has admitted he visited an adultery website – out of an interest in data protection issues.

Kenneth Hogg, who started work as the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) interim chief officer yesterday, also said he paid a single fee to the Ashley Madison site after his contact details had been ‘captured’ during his online browsing.

He added: ‘I have never used the service provided by Ashley Madison, nor any services provided by any companies akin to it.’

Married Mr Hogg joins the watchdog after it was plunged into controversy by chairman Andrew Flanagan, who announced he would quit in June amid claims he was a bully who ran the quango like the Kremlin

Last night, Scottish Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘I think Mr Hogg deserves the benefit of the doubt in this case. However, this is a high-profile job and he should expect a great deal of public scrutiny, particularly given the recent catalogue of problems that have hit the SPA and Police Scotland.’

Ashley Madison was a dating site for married people. It claimed to have nearly 40million users worldwide, but collapsed after an attack by hackers in 2015.

The stolen data was then dumped online and Mr Hogg’s details – including his postcode, email and four digits from his credit card – were apparently included in the leak.

one payment of around £11 was made with the card in 2015.

In a statement, Mr Hogg explained: ‘I looked at the company’s website when it became an international news story. I had never heard of the company until that time and looked at its website out of interest in data protection issues.

‘The website told me that my contact details had been captured by my visit, and it offered me the option to have that data deleted from the website for the payment of a small one-off fee. I paid that fee at that time.

‘That is the only reason that any financial details pertaining to me could be held by the website and I have never made any other payments to [it] for any other purpose, nor to any other site of a similar nature. This was my only interaction with that website and that company.’

Two weeks before his transaction, Ashley Madison received publicity over its plans to raise £135million from investors.

Mr Hogg will be joining the SPA on a 12-month secondment, for which he will be paid up to £110,000.

The career civil servant has been the Scottish Government’s director of local government and communities since 2013, prior to which he was director for safer communities.

Graeme Pearson, former head of the Scottish Crime and drug Enforcement Agency, said of Mr Hogg’s statement: ‘I accept his explanation.

‘It’s a great example of folk in positions of power having to be very careful about their access to websites, even for research purposes.’

Earlier this year, SPA chief executive John Foley took early retirement following a critical report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.

‘A great deal of public scrutiny’