TORONTO -- Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne distanced herself Thursday from her predecessor Dalton McGuinty amid explosive police allegations that his chief of staff may have committed breach of trust in the ongoing gas plants scandal.

Police allege in newly unsealed court documents that they believe David Livingston gave an outside tech expert access to 24 computers in the premier's office.

According to the documents, Livingston sought special high-level access to the computers to "wipe clean the hard drives" after McGuinty resigned amid controversy over the costly cancellation of two gas plants.

It's alleged that during the transition period to Wynne's administration, he arranged for his executive assistant, Wendy Wai, to have special access to desktops in the premier's office, even though she had little knowledge of computers.

The special administrator's rights were valid from Feb. 4 to March 20 last year, police allege.

Wynne was sworn in on Feb. 11, at which point Livingston and other members of McGuinty's staff would no longer have access to the premier's office, her staff said.

Police allege Peter Faist, a man introduced as the boyfriend of senior communications staffer Laura Miller, was the one who actually accessed the computers using her administrative privileges.

Faist was never officially hired by the government and did not undergo the required security screening, the documents allege.

According to two staffers in the premier's office, Faist accessed their computers a few days before Wynne was sworn in, saying they were getting them ready for the next government, police say.

The staffers said they couldn't log into their computers after Faist left and called IT staff, who said it was clear that system files had been deleted, police allege.

None of the allegations have been proven in court. Livingston's lawyer, Brian Gover, could not be reached for comment.

If the latest allegations are true, they are "very disturbing," a grim-faced Wynne said Thursday.

"This is not the way a government should operate, this is not the way a premier's office should conduct itself and it is not the way my office operates," she said.

"I want to be clear: this individual does not work in my office, nor in my government, nor has he ever worked in my government."

Wynne would not take any questions after her brief statement.

The search warrant was obtained by the Ontario Provincial Police to seize hard drives from government computers at ReCall, a data storage facility in Mississauga, Ont., in February.

It was part of their ongoing investigation of the unlawful deletion of government emails concerning unpopular gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga that were cancelled by the Liberals ahead of the 2011 election.

The investigation was launched last June after the Progressive Conservatives complained that gas plant emails were intentionally deleted by McGuinty's senior staff.

Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian found that top Liberals in McGuinty's office broke the law when they deleted emails on the cancelled gas plants.

It's clear that the Liberals don't have the moral authority to govern, the Opposition Conservatives said Thursday.

"We now know that the coverup and criminal destruction of documents and emails took place in Kathleen Wynne's office under her watch as premier," said Tory Leader Tim Hudak.

The latest allegations are a big blow to Wynne, who may be facing an election if her minority government can't pass its spring budget.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she finds it "unbelievable" that Wynne didn't know about what was going on in the premier's office.

But she wouldn't rule out propping up the Liberals by supporting their budget -- as her party has done for the past two years -- despite the new allegations.

The opposition parties said the emails were wiped out to cover up the true costs of killing the gas plants, which the auditor general has estimated are as high as $1.1 billion -- far more than the $230 million the government claimed.

McGuinty has said that he never condoned or directed the deletion of emails or documents which should have been preserved under law.

It was the government's initial refusal to release gas plant documents that led to a rare and often nasty contempt of parliament debate, which prompted McGuinty to prorogue the legislature in the fall of 2012 and resign as premier.

The Liberals eventually turned over hundreds of thousands of documents and emails related to the gas plants in several batches, insisting after each one that all the relevant correspondence had been released.