07 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Former commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Lord Blair, told the Leveson Inquiry this morning that he felt staff at the force spent too much time worrying about the press and that policing had become politicised.
“My determination was to spend less time on press matters than we were spending under my predecessor [Lord Stevens],” Blair told the Inquiry, citing processes of dealing with the media as being “exhausting” at times, and adding later that newspapers were “very difficult animals” to grapple with.
In his witness statement, Lord Blair, who was commissioner of the force from 2005 to 2008, wrote that there was a “significant problem” of a “very small number of relatively senior officers” being “too close to journalists”.
Rather than financial gain, Blair said he believed this was “for the enhancement of their reputation and for the sheer enjoyment of being in a position to share and divulge confidences”.
“It is a siren song,” he continued. “I also believe that they based their behaviour on how they saw politicians behave, and that they lost sight of their professional obligations.”
“I don’t know how the political genie can be put back in the bottle,” he said of press coverage of the police becoming too politicised, noting that political correspondents, rather than crime reporters, had covered both his and his successor Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignations.
He endorsed recommendations made by Elizabeth Filkin in her report on relations between the press and police, arguing that her comment that “contact is permissible but not unconditional should be nailed to the front door of the police station”. Yet he took issue with “a whole series of injunctions and sub-clauses” about dealing with the press.
Blair wrote in his evidence to the Inquiry that his relationship with journalists had “always been perfectly proper”. He told the Inquiry he had not had dinner with editors, with the exception of one who had been a friend before his commisionership.
His written evidence also revealed that he was told “certainly after 2006” that his official and personal telephone numbers appeared in files belonging to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, and that they had been obtained in the spring of the same year. Yet Blair stressed, “I had no evidence that I had ever been hacked.”
He also echoed former Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke’s “perfectly reasonable” view that countering terrorism was a greater priority than investigating phone hacking. “We had closed Heathrow airport in the middle of the holiday season, there was enormous pressure,” Blair said.
“It really was the only show in town. Any conversation about this would have been way back on the agenda and relatively short.”
Yet he added that the 2009 decision of former Assistant Commissioner John Yates not to re-open the investigation in light of reports by the Guardian was “just too quick”.
“I don’t quite understand why John took that decision with the speed which he did,” he said, but stressed he did not believe Yates took the decision in order to placate News International.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
06 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Lord Stevens, former commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has told the Leveson Inquiry that he “had to get out” of a contract involving writing columns for the News of the World.
“The whole thing just didn’t seem right to me,” Stevens said. He noted that he decided to terminate his contract with the paper — which involved his writing several pieces over a two-year period following his autobiography being serialised in the tabloid — some months after the convictions of royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire of phone hacking.
He said he was paid £5,000 for the two articles he penned for the paper.
He told Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC he had also heard further information about “unethical behaviour” at the now-defunct tabloid, which he later clarified as “general behaviour”.
Elsewhere in his testimony, he said that as commissioner he would have been “quite ruthless” in pursuing issues related to phone hacking later raised by the Guardian. “I’d have gone on and done it,” he said. “That’s what police officers are paid to do, to enforce the law.”
Also appearing today was chief constable of Surrey police and former Met office Lynne Owens. Quizzed over whether her approach of only meeting journalists at New Scotland Yard rather than in a social setting was “austere”, Owens said she felt it was “entirely appropriate”.
She also told the Inquiry she found it “abhorrent” that a police officer could leak information about celebrities when they appear at police stations. “I don’t think people who behave like that should be in the police service,” she said.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with further evidence from former Metropolitan police staff, including former commissioner Lord Blair.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
06 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The former commissioner of the Metropolitan told the Leveson Inquiry today that too much closeness between the police and the media can lead to unethical behaviour, but warned against an “overreaction” to links between the two.
“Hospitality is the start of a grooming process that can lead to inappropriate or unethical behaviour,” Lord Condon said in his witness statement.
Condon said that every meeting with the press that involves hospitality should be able to pass the “blush test”, asking “Does this meeting feel right?” He added that a commissioner’s life would be “made difficult” if professional relationships crossed over into friendships. “It is not intrinsically wrong to be friendly,” Condon said, “but I knew where my comfort zone was.”
Yet Condon urged against turning the media into a “pariah”, warning Lord Justice Leveson of a “massive bureaucratic overreaction” if meetings between the press and police were restricted, or if a police officer who “was within 50 yards” of a journalist had to record it.
The Leveson Inquiry is currently in its second module, examining relations between the press and the police.
Condon, who was commissioner of the Met from 1993-2000, said at times his professional relationship with the media would “completely dominate” his life. He said there would be an “insatiable demand” for the commissioner to be communicating with the public and the media. He added later that the growth of officers blogging and using Twitter meant that the service nationwide needed to “re-calibrate” how it delivers information to the public.
He told the Inquiry he had also turned down offers of writing a newspaper column, stressing that he had spent his career “majoring on integrity, independence [and] being apolitical.”
He told the Inquiry held about eight to 12 meetings a year with editors, stressing that a commissioner should be without favourites in the press, and that he did not think he had invited anyone from the media to his home address.
Condon told Lord Justice Leveson that police discipline goes in a “cyclical” pattern of “scandal, inquiry, remedial action, relaxation, complacency, scandal.” He reiterated that the Inquiry’s challenge is to make changes that are “enduring”.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
05 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The author of a report into press-police relations has said police officers were “shocked” and “amazed” at the level of hospitality enjoyed by senior members of the Metropolitan police.
“Most of the people that I spoke to within the Met felt that people had been receiving excessive hospitality,” Elizabeth Filkin told the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon.
The former parliamentary commissioner for standards, whose report into the ethical issues arising from the relationship between the media and police was published at the start of this year, also told the Inquiry that information about senior officers’ private lives was kept out of the media by journalists who received exclusive stories “as a trade”.
Filkin had spoken to Metropolitan police staff, politicians and journalists as part of her inquiry.
She said that officers told her they would not use the Met’s internal whistleblower service because they did not trust it. “There were concerns or fears about their future if they were regarded, in their terms that they used to me, as a troublemaker,” she added.
Filkin also said that almost all police officers who spoke to her told her the force was harmed by leaks to the press and that Met staff were “loath” to tell staff they were carrying out inquiries into leaks.
Reiterating her report’s recommendations, Filkin called for contact between the police and media to be more transparent, suggesting it be recorded.
Agreeing with Filkin’s suggestions, Roger Baker, of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) told the Inquiry that officers should keep a record of discussions with the media “so that there can be a record of it to safeguard the public”.
“There needs to be a real clarity on what is appropriate and what isn’t,” Baker added later. “If no clarity on rules, you can’t regulate.”
The HMIC published a report last December entitled Without Fear or Favour, which looked into police relations and integrity. It recommended a more consistent approach country-wide on sending out a clearer message to staff on what is acceptable in terms of hospitality, relationships and information disclosure.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with evidence from former Metropolitan police staff.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
