Adultery site ‘for research’ says police chief

ONE of the country’s top police leaders has admitted visiting an adultery website, but has insisted it was for research.

Kenneth Hogg, who begins his role as the Scottish Police Authority’s interim chief officer this week, said he had visited the Ashley Madison website out of an interest in data protection.

Mr Hogg said he had paid a one-off fee to the website after being informed that his personal details had been captured while he was browsing.

The Ashley Madison site boasted 40 million users worldwide, and helped people who were seeking to cheat on their partners. But it hit the headlines in 2015 when hackers stole customer data and posted some of it online.

According to the Sunday Herald an entry featuring Mr Hogg’s email address, postcode and credit card details, were among the information obtained by hackers. It also allegedly showed details of a one-off $15 payment which was made to the website in April 2015.

But Mr Hogg said his visit to the site had been out of interest following the huge publicity that followed the leak.

In a statement he said: “I have never used the service provided by Ashley Madison nor any services provided by any companies akin to it. I had never heard of the company until then [when it became an international news story] and looked at its website out of interest in data protection issues.”