THE man arrested for stealing a laptop computer containing the addresses of thousands of people in St Albans has been released by police without charge.

The 35-year-old Stevenage man, employed by a contractor providing computer services to the authority, was arrested in October after it emerged that a computer with the personal details of every postal voter in the district was missing.

Police spokeswoman Laurel Smithson said: "After an extensive and thorough police investigation, it is unknown whether the laptops were stolen or simply went missing, possibly over a much longer time period."