05 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The former commissioner of the Metropolitan police has said a “closed” and “defensive” mindset were the reasons behind the force not investigating phone hacking further in 2009.
Sir Paul Stephenson told the Leveson Inquiry there was a “flawed assumption” that the original 2006 investigation, Operation Caryatid, which led to the jailing of former News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, had been sufficient.
He added that the force was hookedon a “defensive” strategy that would not expand its resources without new evidence.
In July 2009, then Assistant Commissioner John Yates was asked to review the 2006 investigation, but ruled that there was no fresh material that could lead to convictions.
Asked about re-opening the investigation in 2009, Stephenson said it “was simply not a matter of priority” for him. He added: ” Do I believe that there was a deliberate attempt to back off because it was News International? No I do not, sir.”
Chiming with the evidence given last Thursday by the Met’s former Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Peter Clarke, Sir Paul agreed that priority in 2009 was investigating terrorism.
In his witness statement, Stephenson wrote that following the Met’s launch of hacking investigation Operation Weeting in January 2011, the the Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Kit Malthouse, expressed a view that “we should not be devoting this level of resources to the phone hacking inquiry as a consequence of a largely political and media driven ‘level of hysteria’.”
Sir Paul was also quizzed about the controversial appointment of former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis as a PR consultant for the Met in 2009. In his statement Sir Paul wrote that “with the benefit of hindsight I regret that the MPS entered into a contract” with him.
He said the pair had met in 2006, and that he himself played no part in selecting Wallis’s PR firm, Chamy Media, as a consultant, noting that it was handled by the Met’s public affairs director, Dick Fedorcio.
Sir Paul added that he had no reason to doubt that Wallis was a fit and proper person to be awarded the contract.
He said was made aware in April 2011 that Wallis was a “person of interest” in Operation Weeting, and in July that he had been arrested.
Elsewhere in his testimony, Stephenson told the Inquiry that there was the potential to become “obsessed” by headlines, and having to deal with “negative commentary” was “distracting” for senior officers. He added that there were individuals on the management board who gossiped and leaked to the press, creating a “dialogue of disharmony”.
Discussing his resignation last summer amid speculation over the Met’s links with News International and his relations with Wallis, Sir Paul said he had always held the view that “if the story becomes about a leader — as opposed to what you do — that’s a bad place to be.”
“I didn’t think I had any alternative and out of a sense of duty and honour I decided to resign,” he said.
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02 Mar 12 | Index Index, minipost, United Kingdom
A damages claim by Manchester United and Wales footballer Ryan Giggs against the Sun newspaper was thrown out by the High Court today. Giggs claimed that the tabloid had “misused” private information, and said he was entitled to claim damages for distress and breach of a right to privacy. Giggs was granted an injunction in April 2011 after an article was published in the tabloid about an unnamed player’s alleged affair with model Imogen Thomas. The anonymity part of the injunction was lifted last month, despite the footballer already having been widely identified on Twitter and named in the Commons by Lib Dem MP John Hemming in May 2011. News Group Newspapers, publisher of the Sun, argued at a hearing last month that Giggs’ damages claim was “dead in the water” and should be thrown out.
27 Feb 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The Metropolitan police’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner told the Leveson Inquiry this morning that Operation Elveden has revealed there was “a culture at the Sun of illegal payments while hiding the identity of the officials”.
Discussing the recent arrests of journalists at the tabloid over alleged improper payments, Sue Akers said that payments to sources were openly referred to within the Sun, and that one official has been paid more than £80,000 over a number of years, while another journalist received £150,000 over a period to pay a source.
Akers said Operation Elveden, which investigates payments to police officers, revealed a “network of corrupted officials”, and that payments were made not only to police officers but wide range of public officials across the military, prisons, police and health departments. Akers added that were was a “tradecraft” of hiding cash payments by making them to a source’s friend or relative, a practice that was authorised at a “senior level” at the paper.
The majority of payments she had seen evidence of had led to articles that were “salacious gossip rather than anything that could regarded as remotely in the public interest”, Akers claimed.
The revelations were made as the Leveson Inquiry began its second module, which examines the relationship between the press and the police.
In a dramatic morning, Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC discussed an email from ex-News International legal manager Tom Crone to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, which revealed that Coulson was told in 2006 that there were over £1 million of payments to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, and that Mulcaire had hacked hundreds of phones.
The email, based on a briefing that Crone had been told by then Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, showed that Brooks was aware the police had found evidence of News International’s payments to Mulcaire, and that police had asked her whether she “wanted to take it [the investigation] further”.
It was revealed that after the 2006 arrest of Mulcaire and former News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman, the police realised that there were hundreds of individuals who had been targeted for hacking, yet argued that counter-terrorism was more important than investigating the practice.
In his opening remarks, Jay said the relationship between News International and the Metropolitan police was “at best inappropriately close, and if not actually corrupt, very close to it.”
He added that there was an “obvious risk when two powerful organisations come into contact” arguing that there was scope for “self-interest” and that it “does not take many rotten apples to undermine the whole body politic.” Jay cited that risks might include off the record briefings with an “obvious lack of transparency” and the attribution of stories to police sources who may not in fact be police sources.
Lord Justice Leveson also made a thinly-veiled rebuttal of remarks made by education secretary Michael Gove that the Inquiry had had a chilling effect on the British press.
Leveson argued that criticism of the Inquiry was “troubling”, and that the inquiry itself had “done no more than follow its mandated terms of reference”.
In a speech to journalists at Westminster last week, Gove claimed there was now a “chilling atmosphere towards freedom of expression which emanates from the debate around Leveson”.
“I do not believe the inquiry was or is premature, and I intend to continue to do neither more nor less than was required of me,” Leveson said.
He reiterated his belief in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but said journalism must obey the “rule of law” and act in the public interest. He said he was “not interested” in becoming an arbiter of what a free press should look like.
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21 Feb 12 | Index Index, minipost, United Kingdom
Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs has been named in court for the first time as the Premier League footballer with a high-profile privacy injunction against the Sun. At a hearing at the high court today, Giggs agreed to lift the anonymity part of the injunction that he brought in April 2011 to prevent the tabloid from publishing claims he had an extra-marital affair with model Imogen Thomas. Yet the footballer was widely identified on Twitter and was named in the Commons by Lib Dem MP John Hemming last May. The footballer is trying to claim damages for distress from the Sun — alleging the paper breached his right to privacy — as well as for subsequent re-publication of information in other newspapers and online.
