Soldier's email hacking appeal allowed

An Australian soldier convicted for accessing other officers' emails has been granted permission to appeal the court martial decision.

The Defence Force Discipline Appeal Tribunal on Tuesday quashed Warrant Officer Peter Allen Randall's nine convictions of unauthorised access to restricted data and two of prejudicial conduct.

It also ordered he be allowed to appeal them.

Randall was in 2016 convicted of accessing the email accounts of five other officers or soldiers without authorisation while deployed in the United Arab Emirates in 2013 and 2014.

He was also found to have transferred another officer's email to his own account.

The soldier had been charged with 28 offences but argued he had the authority to access email accounts.

His roles during the deployment included information system engineer and manager and information security systems officer.

In one instance, Randall said he accessed emails relating to a phone system upgrade after asking for but not receiving them.

The soldier sought leave to appeal outside the fixed time frame, contending the convictions were unreasonable and not supported by evidence.

The tribunal quashed them after finding there was insufficient proof to conclude Randall lacked the authority to access the emails.

He had been reprimanded as punishment, in some cases "severely", and in one matter ordered to be of good behaviour for 12 months.

The tribunal did not go into detail about what the reprimands involved.