Senior police officer supports investigator's Suffolk Strangler case claim

26 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry

A senior police officer has claimed that tabloid journalists picked up a suspect in the serial murder case of the “Suffolk Strangler” to interview away from police surveillance.

Supporting the claim made last week by retired criminal investigator Dave Harrison, Chief Constable Simon Ash from Suffolk Constabulary told the Leveson inquiry he had obtained information to support the claim that a surveillance team was employed to “pick up and interview” the first suspect in the inquiry into the Ipswich murder inquiry of 2006. Despite supporting information in Harrison’s written statement, Ash did not name name the Sunday Mirror.

Ash was not working at the force in 2006, when the “Suffolk strangler” case received intense press coverage, but the police officer told the Leveson Inquiry: “On the assertion that a newspaper picked up a suspect and took them to a hotel and interviewed them while under police surveillance, I have been able to find information to support that.”

In relation to further claims from Harrison that News of the World had spied on the police and jeopardised the case, Ash told the court that he had not been able to find any information to support the assertion that the News of the World were deploying surveillance teams.

Ash explained to the court that relations were “very good” between police and local press. He said that there is a “healthy” relationship between the two parties, and described meeting editors on an “ad-hoc basis – to resolve whatever the current issues are. We work together for the good of our community.”

The Chief Constable also explained that staff in Suffolk Constabulary are encouraged to pro-actively highlight the good work of staff. He added: “Bad news almost writes itself, we have to work hard to promote the good work officers and staff do day in and day out”

When asked by Robert Jay, QC, if he felt that the corporate communications department of the police force only dealt press a “party line”, Ash denied this: “I think we’re all of the view we take the rough with the smooth, but my overall objective is to create confidence in the police. As we all know, things don’t always go to plan, and sometimes we have to give an apology, explain what happened, and I think that is equally as important as promoting the good work we do.”

Also appearing before the court, Terry Hunt, the editor of East Anglian Daily Times stressed the importance of good relationships between the press and local police forces. Hunt described the key relationship between the two in relation to the Ipswich murder case, after the national press descended on the town, and suggested that the local media were more balanced than the national press.

The editor said: “We were very aware of what the national press were reporting at the time. It was part of our responsibility to put this into some kind of context because there was a great deal of concern about what was going on in a very fast moving, and frankly horrifying story.”

But despite describing the relationship between the two parties as “generally supportive,” Hunt labelled the speed of response from the police as an “area of frustration”.

Hunt told the court of an incident in which three potentially dangerous men escaped from a secure mental health unit. The editor explained that at the time, he had hoped and expected that Suffolk Police would have responded in a more timely fashion.

He said: “These three individuals escaped in the early hours of Sunday morning and were at large in Suffolk and were potentially dangerous. I would have hoped and expected that Suffolk police would have put some information on that into the public domain, so that when Suffolk awoke in the morning, members of the public were forewarned. I felt it very unfortunate that that information did not reach us until lunchtime that Sunday.”

Hunt described a “heightened sensitivity” with regard to the relationship between press and police, explaining that there have always been some police officers who have been reluctant to share “legitimate” information. He added that if the recommendation of recording all contact between the press and the police “if enshrined will be a step backwards for a number of people who are concerned that by talking to the press they might get themselves in trouble.”

Anne Campbell, the head of corporate communications for Norfolk and Suffolk Police, and chair of the Association of Police Communicators (APComm) also appeared before the court, and agreed that local media offer a more rounded view of news stories.

Campbell said: “The local and regional media are constantly covering the issues and the stories of the constabulary, so you build up a daily relationship. They’re more keen to build up a rounded view.”

She added: “We expect journalist will be fair, balanced and accurate. That’s what we work with the media to see reflected, even if the stories are not so good news.”

When asked if corporate communications is a way of controlling what is distributed to the press, Campbell disagreed, and said that communications is “a news editing role, not a control role”.

Campbell stressed that any briefing of police officers was also not to put a slant what was released to the press and public, but to ensure that the police officer has “in his or her armoury the most up-to date information”.

She added: “We’re managing a situation of a lot of demand from the media. We either let officers without any assistance deal with that, potentially in an unhelpful way which will potentially take up a lot of their time. Our role is actually to free up the officers so they can spend the time on what the public want them to do primarily.”

Campbell also suggested “overarching guidelines” would be beneficial for police forces, enabling them all to “sing from the same hymn sheet”

Relating to her second statement to the inquiry, described by Lord Leveson as the statement in which she was wearing her APcomm hat, Campbell told the court that she was not too concerned about leaks to the press, as long as the police were given the opportunity to give a balanced picture.

Anne Pickles, associate editor of Carlisle News and Star, and Nick Griffiths a reporter for the paper agreed that the relationship between the press and public was key.

Pickles told the court that her relationships with the police have been built on mutual trust and respect and that the two parties both serve a common purpose and community. She added that as they lived with those they were reporting on, their role and coverage within the region was crucial.

But the editor explained that national media worked in an entirely different way. She said: “It’s always been my experience that national media are able to sweep in and sweep out into some sort of black hole of anonymity.”

Griffiths added that local press an police worked to the same ends. “We’re trying to get certain information across to the public. There’s a trust there, and relationships are generally working quite well.”

During the high-profile news case of the Derrick Bird shootings in Cumbria, Pickles told the court that journalists from the Crime Reporters Association sought preferential treatment and off the record information.

She added: “We didn’t want to spend a lot of time harassing the victims families looking for big headlines. We didn’t want to cause them further distress. We worked very closely with the police liaison team, who were very helpful in gaining photographs, tributes, anything else we might need. For all it was a dreadful incident, it was, perversely I know, an extremely successful police/local media operation.

Both parties from the Carlisle News and Star felt it was unnecessary to “drive a wedge between local press and local police.”

Pickles told the court “The stain from what has happened to trigger this inquiry tends to spread across all sections of the media. It’s quite clear we’re in a bad place in some sections of the media, but I still think a lot of the media has to blame itself for that, and take responsibility for it.”

Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey, former Chief Constable of Cumbria Constabulary and Gillian Shearer, Head of Marketing and Communications also gave evidence.

Shearer described the massive pressure faced by the constabulary’s press office in the wake of the Derrick Bird shootings. She explained that an immense number of calls to the press office meant that they had to hire more staff. Shearer told the court that calls to the press office went from 30-50 a day to 300-500 a day.

She added: “In Cumbria the local media has a really unique role. They do a lot of reporting around crime and the people in Cumbria read and believe the newspapers.”

The pair described to the court instances of harassment by national media towards the families of the victims. Shearer explained that the families were “completely and utterly overwhelmed” by the press coverage, and told the court that some contact from the press was made before the police had informed the families of victims.

Shearer said: “We were in contact with the PCC over grieving families feeling harassed. They asked us to tell people to call them.” She added that print and TV media continued to doorstep the bereaved after a request to pull back.

Mackey added that the families felt anger and dismay at the way they were treated, and described “upsetting behaviour”, as rumours spread that money was available for certain photographs.

Colin Adwent, crime reporter for the East Anglia Daily Times told the court it was important to “be able to talk to police officers of all ranks without fear of favour.”

Adwent reiterated the belief that press and police should have a healthy, professional relationship. “If officers are responsible enough to deal with life and death, they’re responsible to know what they can talk to the press about.”

Times crime editor warns of "chilling effect" of Leveson Inquiry

21 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry

The crime editor of the Times has said the “chilling effect” of the Leveson Inquiry and the Metropolitan police’s “internal clampdown” has led to there being “virtually no social contact with officers”.

“In the current climate, if you arranged to meet an officer you’d be looking over your shoulder the whole time,” Sean O’Neill told the Inquiry this morning.

He expressed his fear that building up a relationship of trust with contacts would be “seriously inhibited” if it were impossible to meet them for coffee, noting that he had “bought officers and staff cups of coffee, pints of beer, lunches and evening meals”.

He emphasised the need for crime correspondents to be able to talk freely and openly with officers. “You’re in this game not just for five minutes; you need to talk to people for years and years and years,” he said.

In his written evidence, O’Neill added that the Met’s institutional instinct was to be “closed, defensive and secretive”, adding that such an attitude “is reflected in a tense relationship with the media.”

He told the Inquiry: “the last time I met an officer we met a very, very long way from Scotland Yard because he was so nervous abut meeting me and that anyone would see him,” adding that the officer in question was “perfectly honourable”.

O’Neill also slammed the Filkin Report into press-police relations as “patronising and ultimately dangerous for future accountability of the police”. He compared a passage of the report to “an East German Ministry of Information manual”, arguing that the document has “already created a climate of fear in which police officers —who may want to pass on information that is in the public but not the corporate interest — are afraid to talk to the press.”

He added that report was insulting to female reporters, saying that it implied crime correspondents were “a bunch of women in short skirts flirting”.

“An aggressive and inquisitive press is one of the mechanisms society has for holding the police to account and contact between journalists and officers is just one of the ways we do that,” O’Neill wrote in his witness statement.

“Allowing chief officers to clamp down in a draconian manner on the flow of information, as Filkin recommends, would be a retrograde step.”

O’Neill said he felt now was the time for more information and scrutiny around policing and more open channels of communication.

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Crime reporters express fear over limited police contact

20 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry

Crime reporters across the regional and national press have expressed fears that contact between press and police will be restricted further in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry.

Highlighting the current climate, Tim Gordon of the South Wales Echo revealed that one of his reporters was told that Gwent police were “tightening up” rules in place for dealing with the media due to the Inquiry and the recent Filkin Report into press-police relations.

He added he was “concerned” that Gwent police had announced that their officers could not talk to the media unless they had been given prior permission from their press office. He described the difficulty in getting information from official channels, noting that the force’s press office was closed on weekends.

“I would much prefer that we could move forward trusting each other,” Gordon said, ” that my reporters could build and develop relationships with police officers on a professional basis, so there’s no fear or favour granted on either side, but that the information is free-flowing.”

“I would much prefer if the police were encouraged to give as much information as they possibly could,” he added.

Similar concerns were voiced at the Inquiry last week, with the Guardian’s Sandra Laville lamenting what she called an “over-reaction” by the Metropolitan police in response to the Inquiry, and that “open lines of communication, which have been there for many years, are being closed down”.

Gordon also had reservations about suggestions made by Elizabeth Filkin that contact between reporters and police officers be recorded. “My fear with a written record,” Gordon said, “is that it already suggests something is wrong with talking to a journalist.”

His view was shared by Wolverhampton Express and Star Editor Adrian Faber, who questioned whether or not what he called a “codification” would necessarily make police officers “more open”.

He said recording contact would lead to an officer “slightly looking over your shoulder and saying ‘should I be saying this?'”.

Faber added that such a measure “would lead to extra dimension that isn’t necessary locally”, noting that the regional press operates on a basis of trust with the communities they serve — a theme also raised by Gordon. “If we don’t have their trust we can’t go back to them,” he said.

Sunday Mirror crime correspondent Justin  Penrose added that there was now a “state of paralysis” in police-press relations, noting that police officers are less forthcoming or willing to talk to the media.

Tom Pettifor of the Daily Mirror echoed this, saying there may be “more reticence” among officers to talk to him if he did not go through a force’s press office, and that “informal contact” was now more difficult.

Logging press-police contact, in Pettifor’s view, “is obviously not going to eliminate the problem of corruption”, but would “freeze up” the information flow.

The Inquiry also heard from Metropolitan police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe, who replaced Sir Paul Stephenson last summer following his resignation amid speculation over the Met’s links to News International after the phone hacking scandal. Hogan-Howe conceded that public confidence in the Met had been “damaged” and he accordingly had to “set the boundary high” in terms of press-police relationships.

“I’d rather be criticised for setting the bar too high than too low,” he said, adding later that his aim is to build a “positive” relationship with the press, but accepted there might be “restrictions” when crime was being investigated.

He praised press coverage of the murder of schoolboy Rhys Jones in Liverpool in 2007. While he said the press interest was at times “challenging”, it ultimately led to more witnesses coming forward.

The Inquiry continues tomorrow.

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Guardian Dowler story "chronically and potentially fatally" damaged press-police relations

19 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry

The associate editor (news) of the Sunday Express has said a Guardian story from July 2011 alleging the News of the World had deleted voicemail messages on murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone “chronically and potentially fatally” damaged press-police relations.

James Murray  told the Leveson Inquiry that the article, which alleged the tabloid had deleted messages on the abducted teenager’s phone, giving her family false hope that she was alive and listening to her voicemail, had an “enormous impact” throughout the industry.

“We spent an enormous amount of time building up relations with Surrey police, meeting them for briefings, having coffee, gaining their trust,” he said. “All that trust was blown out of the water.”

He added that normal lines of communication have since been damaged, noting later: “Everyone’s cautious, everyone’s frightened.”

Last December the Metropolitan police announced that the tabloid may not have deleted Dowler’s voicemails, though it remains uncontested that the paper hacked her phone.

In response to this morning’s revelation that the News of the World had employed their own surveillance team to identify suspects and the deployed Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) team in the 2006 Ipswich murders inquiry, Murray warned against journalists acting as detectives. “Playing an amateur detective can get you into all sorts of trouble and that’s not what we’re about,” he said.

He added that the now defunct tabloid was a “lone wolf” in the field of surveillance, saying it had been mentioned the paper had resources to employ ex-detectives, and that he could not think of another mainstream newspaper that had “such a well-organised enterprise.”

On recommendations for press-police relations, Murray argued that issuing written guidelines would be “frankly ridiculous”, though he said a “broad-based framework” might be helpful.

Speaking earlier today, John Twomey, chair of the Crime Reporters Association and crime correspondent at the Daily Express, also warned against what he termed a “freezing effect” if all contact between reporters and journalists were to be recorded.

“Officers would be less likely to talk to you,” he said. “Some officers may just cease contact with you completely.”

Daily Star reporter Jerry Lawton also expressed his concern that the Inquiry may have impacted on the relationship between reporters and police forces, noting that lines of communication had “been shut down all over the place.”

“My concern in the fall-out from phone hacking and this series of inquiries is that a wedge will be driven between the police and press that will restrict the level of trust and guidance, therefore making accurate reporting more difficult,” Lawton wrote in his witness statement.

The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with further evidence from crime reporters, staff from West Midlands Police and Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe of the Metropolitan police.

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