A serving Dyfed Powys police officer illegally accessed the police national computer to gain information about his next door neighbours, a judge heard on Monday.

Det Constable Bruce Nigel Bartlett hoped to learn something that would help him to win a dispute over the boundary between the two properties.

He appeared before Judge Mark Furness at Swansea crown court and admitted three offences of attempting to illegally obtain personal information and one of actually obtaining personal information.

Bartlett, an officer for 29 years, was conditionally discharged for 12 months and ordered to pay £600 in prosecution costs.

Chris James, prosecuting, said the Bartletts fell out with Vernon Smart and his wife Deborah as soon as the Smarts moved next door to their home at Dwr y Mynydd, Nantyffynnon, Goodwick in April 2005.

Letters were exchanged and the Smarts became suspicious when Bartlett, aged 52, suddenly began writing to "Vernon Lewis Smart."

They made a formal complaint and John Evans, the head of data protection within the force, investigated usage made of the police national computer.

He discovered that in May and June 2006 Bartlett had accessed the computer on four occasions, pretending he had stopped Vernon Smart in his car and wished to run a check on him.

The information gleened, said Mr James, did not help Bartlett in his dispute "but that was entirely fortuitous." Bartlett's intention had been to discover something about the Smarts that would give him an advantage in what was a personal dispute and nothing to do with his duties as a police officer.

Bartlett had originally denied the charges and entered his guilty pleas on the morning of what should have been his trial.

Bartlett's barrister, Tom Crowther, said he had become suspicious of the Smarts. He now accepted that he should have passed his suspicions on to other officers and not investigated himself.

He said Bartlett was a specialised firearms officer and the head of a rapid intervention unit.

Mr Crowther said that, following the guilty pleas, Dyfed Powys police may take action themselves against Bartlett.

Judge Furness said the Smarts were entitled "to feel deeply offended" at Bartlett's misuse of the police national computer in at attempt to learn something about them. But no such information was actually obtained "and so no harm was done."

He discribed Bartlett as having been misguided rather than malicious.