Bungling town hall officials were condemned today after the locations of domestic violence safe houses were made publicly available on an official council website - for eight years.
Full addresses, complete with street numbers and postcodes were listed under the helpful heading 'safe houses'.
Safe house locations are supposed to be a kept a strict secret to protect victims from their abusive partners, as well as to safeguard police witnesses from reprisals during trials.
But today it emerged that the whereabouts of five shelters were accidentally published on the website of Northamptonshire's Corby Borough Council, alongside the addresses of sports venues, lock-ups and community centres.
The bungle meant the list of addresses has been easily accessible for eight years - and even came out top of a simple search using Google.
They were discovered within seconds by private investigators who were tracking a single mother and her children. Investigators also found proposed safe house locations in council minutes posted online - marked 'not for publication'.
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