A SOLICITOR has appeared in front of a judge charged with stalking and accessing data without authority.

Scott Ainge, who formerly worked as a prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in Lancashire, appeared in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court accused of carrying out the stalking between September 2016 and January 2018.

The incidents of accessing data without authority are said to have taken place on five separate occasions between October 2016 and January 2017.

Ainge appeared before Judge Andrew Menary QC, the

Recorder of Liverpool, yesterday and announced his intention to file an application to dismiss the charges against him.

The 47-year-old, of Camellia Drive, Clayton-le-Woods, pleaded not guilty to one count of stalking and five counts of unauthorised access to a program or data held on a computer under the Computer Misuse Act 1980, at a hearing at Liverpool Magistrates at the end of January.

A further pre-trial hearing, which will include an application to dismiss, has been set for May 22.

A provisional trial date has been listed at the crown court on October 5.