Leveson's Punch and Judy Show by John Pilger

My favourite laugh-out-loud quote of His Lordship is: "I have seen no basis at any stage for challenging the integrity of the police."

Leveson's Punch and Judy show on the press masks 'hacking' on a scale you can barely imagine
John Pilger
6 December 2012


In the week Lord Leveson published almost a million words about his inquiry into the "culture, practice and ethics" of Britain's corporate press, two illuminating books about media and freedom were also published. Their contrast with the Punch and Judy show staged by Leveson is striking.

Sans Caption

For 36 years, Project Censored, based in California, has documented critically important stories unreported or suppressed by the media most Americans watch or read. This year's report is Censored 2013: Dispatches from the media revolution by Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth (Seven Stories Press). They describe the omissions of "mainstream" journalism as "history in the un-making". Unlike Leveson, their investigation demonstrates the sham of a system claiming to be free. Among their top 25 censored stories are these:


Since 2001, the United States has erected a police state apparatus including a presidential order that allows the US military to detain anyone indefinitely without trial. FBI agents are now responsible for the majority of terrorist plots, with a network of 15,000 spies "encouraging and assisting people to commit crimes". Informants receive cash rewards of up to $100,000.


The bombing of civilian targets in Libya in 2011 was often deliberate and included the main water supply facility that provided water to 70 per cent of the population. In Afghanistan, the murder of 16 unarmed civilians, including children, attributed to one rogue US soldier, was actually committed by "multiple" soldiers, and covered up. In Syria, the US, Britain and France are funding and arming the icon of terrorism, al-Qaida. In Latin America, one US bank has laundered $378bn. in drug money.


In Britain, this world of subjugated news and information is concealed behind a similar façade of a "free" media, which promotes the extremisms of state corruption and war, consumerism and an impoverishment known as "austerity". Leveson devoted his "inquiry" to the preservation of this system. My favourite laugh-out-loud quote of His Lordship is: "I have seen no basis at any stage for challenging the integrity of the police."

Captioned

Those who have long tired of deconstructing the clichés and deceptions of "news" say: "At least there is the internet now." More John Pilger

Integrity: Such a Funny Word. Leveson Yates

I'm at a loss for who has the lesser, Justice Leveson or the fellow he is trying to whitewash, the disgraced, recently resigned, fled to Bahrain, Murdoch lackey, John Yates?

Met Police ignored "vociferous" phone hacking warnings from own detectives 

Senior detectives have questioned the Metropolitan Police's version of events over phone hacking after claiming that "vociferous" warnings were ignored and that official records are "inaccurate 

By Steven Swinford
02 Dec 2012 

Keith Surtees, an investigating officer with the Metropolitan police's original hacking inquiry, said that in 2009 he repeatedly told John Yates, the then Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, that the phone hacking investigation should be re-opened. 

He said his officers had found evidence that "criminality extended further" than a single journalist and private investigator, but that his warnings were not recorded in official minutes of meetings between senior officers. 

The claims come amid growing concerns that police were let off "far too lightly" by Lord Justice Leveson, who concluded that police conducted themselves with "integrity at all times". 

He said that while poor decisions had been taken, there was no evidence of corruption or that the closeness of senior officers to News International had hampered investigations. 

Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, a former Conservative security adviser, said: "One of the things I find most surprising about the Leveson review is that angle, that part of the story was not tackled in a great deal more depth than it was and I think that the police have been let off far too lightly." 

In a late submission to the Leveson Inquiry, Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Surtees provided detailed information which appears to contradict the Metropolitan police's official account. 

DCS Surtees was one of the lead investigators in the original phone hacking inquiry in 2006, which led to the arrest of a Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator, and Clive Goodman, a News of the World journalist, for hacking voicemails of members of the royal household. 

According to an assessment from May 2006, DCS Surtees was concerned that phone hacking extended significantly further and urged senior officers to consider "wider investigation".
In handwritten notes, he later added: "In many [cases] there is simply the name of a celebrity or well known public figure and these develop into sheets detailing home addresses, business addresses, telephone humbers, DDNS, account numbers, passwords, pin numbers and scribblings of private information." 

The Metropolitan Police, however, decided not to investigate further amid fears it would detract from terrorist investigations. 

In July 2009, Assistant Commissioner John Yates spent less than a day reviewing the earlier investigation into phone hacking, before deciding there were no grounds for re-opening the inquiry. 

DCS Surtees said that he repeatedly raised concerns about the decision: "On more than one occasion .. I voiced my concern that the original investigation could and should be re-opened or re-examined and suggested either HMIC [Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary] or another Force should undertake such a task. 

"I explained that the reasons for ending all activity in 2006, including the victim notification strategy, no longer existed in 2009." His claims were corroborated by the statement of another senior officer. 

He said that minutes of the "Gold" group meeting of senior officers, which was attended by Assistant Commissioner Yates, were did not reflect his concerns. "My view is that they are not a wholly complete or accurate reflection of what was discussed," he said. 

A spokesman from the Metropolitan Police declined to comment. 

A friend of Mr Yates said: "He and everyone else all thought it [phone hacking] went wider but there was no evidence that they could use for prosecution. The News of the World were not co-operating and the phone companies no longer held the records. So yes, Keith may have said this but the context is vital." 

Tom Watson, the deputy chairman of the Labour Party, said: "This is a remarkable submission. It shows that there was very strong disagreement over whether there was a case to be answered in 2009. He directly contradicts the account of John Yates and the official record." Telegraph

Original

Previous: John Prescott: ''I just didn't believe him'' - John Yates

Lots more in the sidebar under the John Yates tag.

Police Let Off 'far too lightly' by Leveson Inquiry

Police let off 'far too lightly' by Leveson inquiry

Police were let off "far too lightly" during the Leveson inquiry after failing to re-open the phone hacking inquiry four years ago, a former Home Office minister has said.
By Steven Swinford and Christopher Hope
02 Dec 2012

Lord Justice Leveson insisted in his report that the police conducted themselves with "integrity at all times" during the original phone hacking investigation.

He said that while poor decisions had been taken, there was no evidence of corruption or that the closeness of senior officers to News International had hampered investigations.

Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones told Radio Four’s Any Questions: "One of the things I find most surprising about the Leveson review is that angle, that part of the story was not tackled in a great deal more depth than it was and I think that the police have been let off far too lightly.”

She also said she was opposed to new press laws. She said: "I am concerned by the proposal that was put foward. We don't need the law."

Lord Justice Leveson did criticise John Yates, the former assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard, over his friendship with a News of the World executive.

He said he should have declined to review the original phone-hacking investigation and that it was a matter of "regret" that he did not.

Mr Yates spent less than a day reviewing a 2006 Metropolitan Police investigation into phone hacking, deciding there were no grounds for re-opening the inquiry into material seized from the private detective Glenn Mulcaire.

A subsequent review by another officer in 2010 led to Operation Weeting, the ongoing investigation into phone-hacking which has so far led to more than 20 arrests, with charges against eight people including the former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson.

The Leveson Inquiry heard that Mr Yates attended football matches with Mr Wallis, went to dinners with him and regarded him as “a good friend”.

Lord Justice Leveson said that when Mr Yates was asked to review Operation Caryatid, the original phone hacking inquiry: “I regret that Assistant Commissioner Yates did not reflect on whether he should be involved in an investigation into the newspaper at which he had friends…he would have been better advised to arrange for a different officer to conduct it.”

He said the “incredibly swift” dismissal in 2009 of a Guardian article suggesting there were 3,000 victims of phone hacking and a “continued defensive mindset” over re-opening the investigation contributed to concerns that the police were “reluctant” to do so because officers had “become too close to News International and its staff”.

Such a perception had been “extremely damaging” to the standing of Scotland Yard.
Other officers also come in for criticism.

Andy Hayman, who was in overall charge of Operation Caryatid during his time as assistant commissioner, was “extremely unwise” to accept hospitality from the News of the World at a time when it was coming under investigation.

Mr Hayman went to dinner with Andy Coulson, then editor of the News of the World, and Neil Wallis the day before Operation Caryatid was formally launched, and this had “fuelled the perception” that a decision to arrest only one News of the World journalist and one private detective was “a specific consequence of that relationship”.

The Inquiry had heard that Dick Fedorcio, the Met’s former head of communications, put Mrs Brooks in touch with an officer at the Met’s stables when she asked for the loan of a retired police horse in 2007.

Lord Justice Leveson said Mr Fedorcio’s help “went beyond what a member of the public could expect in similar circumstances” but did not result in anything “irregular”.

Sir Paul Stephenson, who resigned as commissioner after it emerged he had accepted a free stay at the Champneys health resort while he was recovering from an operation, was portrayed as a victim of circumstance.

Sir Paul came under fire when it emerged that Champneys had been represented by Neil Wallis’s public relations company, Chamy Media, but Lord Justice Leveson accepted that Sir Paul was unaware of any connection between Champneys and Mr Wallis at the time.

Mr Wallis had been employed by the Met as an external PR consultant, but any suggestion that the stay at Champneys was “a reward in kind from Mr Wallis for previous favours” was “simply not borne out” by the facts.

Overall, said Lord Justice Leveson: “There is no evidence to suggest that anyone was influenced either directly or indirectly in the conduct of the [hacking] investigation by any fear or wish for favour from News International.”

In a wider context, “the Inquiry has not unearthed extensive evidence of police corruption nor is there evidence…that significant numbers of police officers lack integrity”. Telegraph

Leveson Credibility Zero

John Yates should have handed phone hacking investigation to other officer because of News of the World links, says LevesonMartin Hickman
29 Nov 2012

Police blunders meant that the inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World was not reopened for years, the Leveson Inquiry found.

Between 2006 and 2010 Scotland Yard adopted a “defensive mindset” when it should have been taking accusations of criminal wrongdoing seriously, it said.

In particular Lord Leveson found that Assistant Commissioner John Yates should have stood aside and asked another officer to review the original inquiry because of his friendship with the News of the World's deputy editor, Neil Wallis.

However the report said there was no evidence of corruption among senior officers and ruled out a fear of the News of the World's owners as a factor in the inadequacy of its investigations.

It also said the Met had been right to limit its original investigation in 2006, Operation Caryatid, because of the importance of tackling an upsurge in terrorism The report ruled that the Crown Prosecution Service acted properly in 2006 and later, on the basis of the incomplete evidence supplied to it by the police.

Lord Leveson acknowledged that there was “a concern” that senior police officers had become too close to News International.

However he concluded: "In reality, I am satisfied that I have seen no basis at any stage [to question] the integrity of the police, or that of the senior officers concerned. What is, however, equally clear is that a series of poor decisions, poorly executed, all came together to contribute to the perception that I have recognised.“ Independent

Leveson: Cameron Tops The I don't Remember Chart

File under: Whodathunkit?

For more than 100 days during the past 11 months, many of the UK's most powerful people have appeared before Lord Justice Leveson to offer their thoughts on the future of the British press, following allegations newspaper employees had been illicitly hacking people's mobile-phone voicemail messages.

Now the oral hearings have come to an end at the Leveson Inquiry - expected to cost £5.6m - here is a look at its scale, how many words were spoken, who appeared, and which of the key witnesses struggled to remember. More BBC

Mind you, I don't think Camerface is in any danger of knocking Alberto Gonzales off his perch.

Alberto Gonzales Total Recall. And after watching this, you might well understand Alberto's membership to The Gor Blimey Hall of Fame. Right hand sidebar.

Historical update: 'I don't recall' - David Cameron and his foggy memory at the Leveson Inquiry more

Dark Dealings of News International, The Prime Minister and the McCanns

In light of the recent revelations aired at the Leveson inquiry and the production of an excellent short video compilation by campaigner Hi De Ho, I have decided to break my silence on the subject Rebecca Brooks/News Int, David Cameron and the sham review of the case of Doctors McCann.

But first, a little background.



The date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010 post title: You Just Could Not Make It Up

(Gerry McCann) He said: "It's not right that an innocent, vulnerable British citizen is essentially given up on.

"And I don't think it's right that as parents, that we have to drive the search.

Priceless, absolutely priceless.

And how he loves to take the piss.

"I mean logically I can't say, I mean none of us can say for definite other than the people involved.......

And the "Comprehensive Review" I think that's a euphemism for his muckers (friends) doing a snow job.

I can see it now, on the notepaper of some dodgy police authority, co-signed at the bottom by McCann's new best best friend Jim Gamble, "This boy really did loose his homework"

Only he didn't, and it wasn't his homework.

Oh to be in England now that Spring is here. Blah blah article.

~ ~ ~

I am re-upping this earlier post because it highlights the more odious goings on of the UK media.

The date: Saturday, 22 October 2011: Post title: Imagine

Imagine

I am posting the few lines below, just as I found them.

If it was the writers intention, and I'm pretty sure it was, it is the last sentence of the article that is the essence of the post.

It screams, well to me it does. Just who, and how many, were involved in directing the judge to grant an injunction prohibiting the sale of Goncalo Amaral's book, A Verdade de Mentira?

Books simply do not get banned in a European democracy in the twenty first century.

They simply don't. And they don't get banned for the unbelievably pathetic reasons that were proffered by the McCanns.

As equally, the government of a country, does not treat, or allow to be treated, by itself or by the scum of Europe, one of its Nationals in a manner described in the article, and that can only be described as appalling, Not if it has an ounce of pride it doesn't.

And not when they (the establishment) know in their heart of hearts, that the fellow was right all along.

Let us forget now for a moment, all that has preceded a quite recent event, the 'Review' by the Metropolitan Police. Because it is from a British perspective that the whole thing reads like a bad play. The governing power of the United Kingdom has undertaken to review the files at the behest of the two people who are to this day, the only persons of interest regarding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

You simply just could not make it up, no matter how hard you tried.

And if anyone is expecting something positive out of this review, don't, it isn't going to happen.


Via Joana Morais

by Aníbal Ferreira
22nd Jan 2010.

Imagine you had been a police officer for 30 years and that you were investigating the disappearance of a little English girl named Maddie McCann.

Imagine that all the police officers, including you, concluded that the little girl had died and that the parents were suspects of being involved in concealing the body.

Imagine that the little girl’s parents were made official suspects and that the English press started to call you “bungling cop”, “amateur”, “corrupted”, “inept”, “incompetent” and “failure”.

Imagine that the English press started to announce on a daily basis that you had “manufactured the case”, “made stuff up”, “”ditched vital evidence”, “hampered the investigation”, that you were “biased”, “cruel” and “lying”.

Imagine that for month after month, the English press called you “fat”, “drunk”, “torturer”, “stupid”, “imbecile” and “infamous”, repeating 418 times that you were a “disgraced” man and that the mother of your children was a “prostitute”.

Imagine that the police’s political directory did not defend you and that, quite to the contrary, it took the case investigation away from you, allowing for the English press to print the headline “Sacked!” and to renew all previous attacks with increased violence.

Imagine that the Public Ministry declared that the process would wait for the production of better evidence and that said statement was understood in England as an “acquittal” of the little girl’s parents, prompting even more attacks from the press against the “bungling cop”, “amateur” and “corrupt”, who “manufactured the case”, “made stuff up” and “ditched vital evidence”.

Have you imagined all of this? Well, then answer this question: IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK TO DEFEND YOUR REPUTATION, WOULD YOU WRITE IT?

Now imagine that the book was taken off the market because it damaged the little girl’s parents’ reputation. Imagine

~ ~ ~

The same few words that I employed above, the introduction for the Imagine article, I also went on to make use of to introduce a post: Date: Wednesday, 26 October 2011 Post title: Home Secretary Perhaps You Might Care To Review This: Re-Up

It is far too large to import here, but it deals primarily with previous Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, Jim Gamble and the CEOP's, "Behavioural Analysis Unit" and not least the body language of the Doctors McCann.

It is as I say, a large post, but if you haven't read it, you may find it quite enlightening.

~

Moving towards the crux of the matter, the recent revelations of La Brooks at the Leveson inquiry. It might be an opportune moment to offer our current Home Secretary, Theresa May, a small apology for any previous stick that I may have given her. Because due to the same Rebecca Brooks revelations, it becomes increasingly apparent that Theresa May doesn't run the Home Office, rather it's La Brooks and the Devil incarnate Rupert Murdoch.

Much the same I suppose, can be said for Number 10. But then we knew that already, prior to the recent disclosure of the Brooks/Murdoch edict, via the front page of The Sun.

But what we didn't know prior to Brook's appearance at the Leveson inquiry, were the far from subtle techniques employed by Brooks when meeting the Champion of Chipping Norton, our own dear Prime Minister, David Cameron. 'Do as I say or else!' or words to that effect.

It was for no reason that Robert Jay reiterated his question to Brooks, and I quote:

Robert Jay: Unless the Prime Minister ordered the review by the Metropolitan Police, the Sun would put the Home Secretary, Theresa May, on the front page until the Sun's demands were met?

Denied by Brooks of course, but her obvious use of semantics, "I did not say blah blah' was immediately picked up by Leveson who went on to ask her to define how she would describe the situation. I will say no more of this exchange, it can all be found in this excellent little video compilation, courtesy of Hi De Ho

All in all, not one of La Brooks more polished performances, the cynical amongst you might even think she was being economical with the actuality.

Of John Redwood, the Met, and the review itself, I have already made my thoughts clear on that little pantomime. Preferring as I do, unlike the Met, to hang on to any credibility that I may have, rather than start to argue about 'leads' from psychics and soothsayers. No matter how many they are purported to be.

A little more on Cameron, May and the review below the video, and a little something that sheds further light on the relationship between Murdoch, the police and the McCanns.




Update: Joana Morais has much on this.

Call Me Dave but Watch Your Back (Theresa) May 22, 2011

If I were Home Secretary and had been stabbed in the back by Cameron for cheap political gain, I think I might be issuing an edict to a few senior plod, bring me the truth not a whitewash.

That's assuming I still had any credibility left of course.

Overruled at the behest of a couple of chavs, this politicking, it's not all beer and skittles is it Therasa? more

~ ~ ~

The McCann Connection: Now I See July 20, 2011

At the very end of the article below, the writer, Peter Burden, asks:

If the MPs had asked Yates if he knew who sponsored the Annual Police Bravery awards, I wonder if they would have been surprised to hear that it is in fact the Screws stable-mate, the Sun,

Well, I can't speak for the MPs, but I'm most certainly surprised to be made aware of this little nugget. And having been made aware of it; my, how things do drop into place.

What am I talking about? Probably the most singular bizarre incident in the whole of the Madeleine McCann affair, even more bizarre than Jim Gamble's unequivocal support of Kate and Gerry McCann, the appearance of Gerry McCann as guest of honour at the NPIA's Annual Police Bravery awards; sponsors, as we now know, News International.




Before the article in question, two brief histories.

Madeleine's father hails UK police Friday, 13 Jul 2007

The father of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann has praised the "sterling work" of police officers and detectives in the UK.

Speaking at the National Police Federation annual bravery awards last night, Gerry McCann said the role of police forces was "often not appreciated until you really need their help".

Leaving his wife Kate and two young twins behind in Portugal, Mr McCann has flown to Britain to talk to police involved in the search for his daughter. She remains missing after being abducted from her bed while she slept at a holiday resort in Praia da Luz, the Algarve, on May 3rd.

He will also visit the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre later today to discuss their role in aiding Portuguese police find Madeleine.
At last night's award ceremony, attended by Prince Charles, Mr McCann received a standing ovation from police officers, which he described as a "humbling" experience.

"The vast majority of [police officers] that I managed to speak to are, like us, very optimistic that we will find Madeleine safe and well," he wrote later on his online blog. more

- - -

And this from the inimitable Blackwatch.

Grooming the McCanns: Amber Alert, the Prüm Treaty and Government Interference in the McCann Case
Author Blackwatch 12/08/2009

How The Madeleine Case Supported the Extension of Amber Alert System and the EU's Prüm Treaty To The Remaining 27 Member States - And How Downing Street Obliged

In response to the question, how will the McCanns be remembered, one Mirror Forum member wrote:

“they will become a leading force in the world to get rid of the hidden evil in our society, and to out those who try to cover up for the tragedies these criminals can cause”.

For a couple who were at this time suspects in their daughter's disappearance, the statement brokered something of a paradox; just how could these two ordinary individuals who had been openly pilloried for their routine negligence transform themselves into credible figureheads for law-enforcement overnight? Within the time it took to finish one glass of wine and discover one of your children missing, the McCanns exchanged their prison-issue denims for outfits tailored to a more 'practical' design.

And what at first had sounded like a most absurd suggestion by one deluded forum member steadily acquired some semblance of authority.

GERRY IS HONOURED AT POLICE BRAVERY AWARDS FOR A LIFETIME (WELL 6 WEEKS OR SO) OF SERVICES TO … MISSING KIDS AND STUFF ... JULY 2007

Retracing our steps to mid-July 2007 and we find ourselves standing alongside hundreds of dumbfounded uniformed officers at the Dorchester Hotel, invited from our seats by senior personnel to applaud one Gerald P McCann at the Police Bravery Awards. First we’d had the poignant video of his daughter, then the speech praising both UK Officers and the Polícia Judiciária, now we had the standing ovation. And for what? Just what were we honouring? Gerry’s contribution to ‘what’ exactly? One of the serving South Yorkshire officers receiving an award there that night described it as one of the most surreal events of his life. Sitting at his table was none other than Gerry McCann, 1500 metre junior running medallist and celebrated kidnap personality. And he wasn’t just down on the guest-list; Gerry was guest of honour. It was like having Mark Stanley - the man responsible for shutting the doors on the Herald of Free Enterprise as it left Zeebrugge - guest-of honour at the annual Maritime and Coastguard awards.

Naturally, not even this prepared us for what was to come. But just how did we get to this stage?

I HAVE A DREAM – GERRY’S EPIPHANY – FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN THEN WE TAKE BERLIN

In mid-June, in an interview given to the Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, Gerry McCann told of an "extraordinary experience" inside the church in Praia da Luz just days after Madeleine's disappearance:

"I had this mental image of being in a tunnel and instead of the light at the end of the tunnel being extremely narrow and a distant spot, the light opened up and the tunnel got wider and wider and went in many different directions .... I can't say it was a vision because I am not clear what a vision is but I had a mental image and it certainly helped me decide. I became a man possessed that night. The next day I was up at dawn, making phone calls."

At this point in time Madeleine has been missing, presumed abducted, for little more than 3 weeks. But in what can only be described as an epiphany or profound breakthrough, Gerry McCann is sufficiently inspired and transformed enough to pursue a totally new direction. At a time when most people in his position are coming round from the effects of a mild sedative Gerry decides to resign his position at Glenfield Hospital and spearhead a campaign on behalf of missing and exploited children everywhere. His mission starts modestly enough; a meeting with SOS Crianca, the main child welfare non-governmental organisation in Portugal and then to London for a meeting at the Headquarters of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. And then things start getting a little giddy. Gerry visits the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children in Washington, bonds with the US attorney general Gonzales at the justice department, grapples at the White House with the First Lady's deputy chief of staff, Sarah Armstrong and follows it up with a mid-afternoon jog up Capitol Hill for meetings with Democrat congressman Nick Lampson and Republican Senator Robert Shelby.

And then, of course, we have that ill-timed appointment in Edinburgh with Kirsty Wark who interviews Gerry at the Edinburgh International TV festival, shortly before he and his wife are declared formal suspects.

Not bad for a couple from Leicester who were presumed reckless enough to leave their daughter unattended for several nights of the week on a jolly old Summer Holiday with their mates in Portugal. There is a great deal more to this article which can be found here.

- - -

The article in question, from 2009 no less. And only discovered in researching an article to come, on Yates of the Yard misuse of public funds in hiring Carter-Ruck in an attempt to gag solicitor Mark Lewis. But more of that later.

MET ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER JOHN YATES DENIES THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS
September 7th, 2009

A curious, alarming anomaly was revealed last Wednesday during a session of the Commons Culture, Media, Sport Committee. A very senior police officer told the committee that while investigating the News of the World phone-tapping incident, an unequivocal piece of evidence had not convinced his officers that it required further investigation.

This evidence was the now infamous email sent from junior screws hack, Ross Hall (AKA Hindley) to contract private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, which said: ‘This is the transcript for Neville,’ with the transcript of a message left on the voicemail of Gordon Taylor, boss of the PFA, intercepted and recorded by Mulcaire.

Mulcaire pleaded guilty to hacking into Taylor’s voicemail after he’d also admitted to hacking into the voicemails of members of the Clarence House staff. He was jailed for these offences (which the News of the World encouraged him to commit by giving him a special contract signed by former Screws news editor, Greg Miskiw), and he served his sentence.

The Metropolitan Police investigation, headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Williams, decided that despite the email’s clear reference to senior Screws hack, Neville Thurlbeck, clearly connecting him to an illegally acquired phone message, there was no basis for questioning Thurlbeck. There was, they said, no evidence to put to him or any other News of the World staff whose names had cropped in connection with this entirely unroyal-related hacking.

If this seems strangely lacking in diligence on their part, it seems even more so after hearing evidence given to the committee, after the police had appeared, by Mark Lewis, the lawyer who successfully sued the News of the World on behalf of Gordon Taylor. We learned from him that after he had acquired a court order requesting documentary evidence of Taylor’s complaint from the Metropolitan Police, Detective Sergeant Mark Maberly told Lewis that he “wasn’t having everything, but we’ll give you enough to hang the News of the World over Gordon Taylor”.

This statement, as reported by Lewis is unequivocal, and it’s out of the question that he would dissemble in front of a Parliamentary Committee. Besides, the Screws offered a £1m to shut Taylor up before the case got to court, so the evidence clearly was damning (for they had denied any knowledge of the offence until Lewis produced the Met’s evidence).

Why on earth didn’t the Met choose to prosecute the paper themselves when they had such a clear case? Lewis’s evidence makes a nonsense of what Asst Com Yates had told the committee only half and hour before. He should be called in again to explain himself.

The police had been asked by one of the MPs about their relationship with the News of the World. Not surprisingly Yates offered some weasel stuff about needing to a have a relationship with such an “important newspaper”.

If the MPs had asked Yates if he knew who sponsored the Annual Police Bravery awards, I wonder if they would have been surprised to hear that it is in fact the Screws stable-mate, the Sun, and the News International top brass all attend this lavish ceremony each year, including of course Rebekah (née Wade) Brooks now CEO of News International, and, no doubt, a good friend of the Met brass-hats. [see: http://www.peterburden.net/archives/280 ] And I’ve long wondered why the Met have so often gone along with some of the absurdly fanciful ‘criminal investigations’ spun out of nowhere by Screws star, Mazher Mahmood. Peter Burden.net

Exclusive Extracts From 'Dial M for Murdoch'

If this is anything to go by, then the book should be a good read.

Exclusive extracts from 'Dial M for Murdoch'
Tom Watson
20 April 2012

Few people have done so much to force the News International phone hacking scandal into the public eye as Tom Watson, the Labour MP. Here, in exclusive extracts from a sensational new book (written with The Independent's Martin Hickman), he reveals how he and other members of the Commons select committee were targeted by a media empire that, he claims, ruthlessly discouraged unwelcome attention




Watson told yesterday's launch of Dial M for Murdoch that the News of the World's former chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, had "targeted" MPs who were investigating News International's activities. The tale begins in July 2009...

Unbeknown to members of the Culture Committee, the NOTW established a team to investigate their private lives. For several days, as chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck would later tell Tom Watson, reporters searched for any secret lovers or extra-marital affairs that could be used as leverage against the MPs.
Thurlbeck said: "All I know is that, when the DCMS [Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee] was formed or rather when it got onto all the hacking stuff, there was an edict came down from the editor and it was find out every single thing you can about every single member: who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use.
"Each reporter was given two members and there were six reporters that went on for around 10 days. I don't know who looked at you. It fell by the wayside; I think even Ian Edmondson [the news editor] realised there was something quite horrible about doing this."
Separately, a NOTW figure tasked with talking to Watson and other committee members to glean their question plan let them know that Rebekah Brooks believed Watson and [fellow MP Paul Farrelly] were the inquiry's "ringleaders". Watson was privately told by Downing Street insiders that Wapping was using its connections to persuade senior politicians to urge him to hold back.
Gordon Brown called Watson to tell him that Rupert Murdoch had phoned Tony Blair to tell him to call Watson off.
The book claims that Mr Blair has denied this, with Gordon Brown saying he cannot remember the phone call to Watson. Mr Blair's spin doctor Alastair Campbell remembered intimidation, however...
Speaking three years later, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former communications director, recalled the "bullying culture": "I recall Rebekah Wade telling me that so far as she was concerned, with Tom Watson it's personal, and we won't stop till we get him...."
As the committee continued its work, News International had another assignment for a surveillance expert who had worked for the NOTW since 2003, Derek Webb, whose firm was called Silent Shadow.
The former policeman had legally watched dozens of pop stars, footballers and royals. In 2005 he had followed Angelina Jolie, Delia Smith, Gordon Ramsay and the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke (whose responsibilities included the police); in 2006 George Michael and the comedian Rik Mayall; and in 2007, the Duke of Westminster. Typically, his work would involve tailing a target for five days and noting down where they had gone and who they had met.
From 28 September until 2 October 2009, at the last Labour Party conference before the general election, Webb was ordered to follow the every move of Tom Watson. He had difficulty tracking the MP down. Ironically, on the first night, 28 September, Webb would have been more successful had he phoned the NOTW's political editor, Ian Kirby, who had spent the night drinking with Watson, the Sunday Mirror's Vincent Moss and the Mirror columnist Kevin Maguire in the bar of Brighton's Grand Hotel, where they sang songs round the piano until the early hours.
Tight security because of the presence of the Cabinet made following Watson difficult, but Webb billed the paper £1,125 for seven and a half shifts. Before and after following Watson (who was unaware of the surveillance) he tailed Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary.
The MPs had no knowledge of what NI was doing behind their backs. In January 2010 the committee decided that it wanted to hear from Rebekah Brooks, who was by then chief executive of NI...
The MPs decided they should hear from Brooks herself and asked her to give evidence. In a letter to John Whittingdale on 4 January 2010, she contemptuously dismissed the invitation to answer questions about the "supposed incongruity" between the treatment of Clive Goodman and Matt Driscoll, the "For Neville" email and misbehaviour by News International journalists, which, she said, related to the News of the World, not to other News International newspapers "any more than they do to any other national newspapers".
She asked whether the committee intended to call chief executives of other newspaper groups, said that the News of the World's editor had outlined the measures to end improper behaviour and that as chief executive she would "ensure the proper journalistic standards continue to be applied across all our titles"...
Although the committee wanted Brooks to give evidence, its members, whose private lives News International had pored over, capitulated and decided not to summon her. On the day the committee met to discuss the issue, two Labour MPs close to Tony Blair, Janet Anderson and Rosemary McKenna, were absent. The gay Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price – who in September unexpectedly announced that he would leave Parliament at the next general election to take up a Fulbright scholarship in the US – claimed that the committee's members had been warned that if they had called Brooks, their private lives would be raked over.
Mr Price said later: "I was told by a senior Conservative member of the committee, who I knew was in direct contact with executives at News International, that if we went for her, they would go for us – effectively they would delve into our personal lives in order to punish [us]."
The mystery phone call that led to a hidden trove of email evidence
In 2008, Max Mosley, the former head of motorsport's world governing body, and the son of the 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, won a landmark privacy case against the 'News of the World'. A story had been published in the Sunday tabloid, written by Neville Thurlbeck, falsely accused him of taking part in a "sick Nazi orgy" which had been secretly photographed. The story appeared with pictures of Mr Mosley indulging in what was claimed to be a five-hour sadomasochistic sex session with prostitutes.
'Dial M for Murdoch' explains how Max Mosley's extraordinary next move – and a phone call from a stranger to Tom Watson – blew open the criminal wrongdoing at News International...
Two years after he had been turned over by the News of the World, Max Mosley was about to strike again. During the summer of 2010, from Monaco, he had been taking an ever closer interest in the phone hacking story and had become determined to ensure the police would not be able to cover up the Screws' seedy past.
He had started talking to Nick Davies at The Guardian and had also acquired a highly confidential source, Mr X, who had told him that Scotland Yard was holding extensive evidence about hacking at the NOTW. Mosley decided the best way to intensify the pressure was through cases in the civil courts which, through disclosure, would unlock the secrets of Mulcaire's files. But there was a problem: money. Under English law, litigants could be liable for costs, which could be crippling, and were often a severe deterrent to potential litigants.
Mosley agreed to underwrite the risk for several claimants, in both the emerging civil privacy cases against the News of the World and in the judicial review against Scotland Yard being coordinated by Tamsin Allen at Bindmans. If the cases were lost, his costs could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, but Mosley was a multimillionaire.
He had decided he would risk half his fortune, if necessary, to fight Rupert Murdoch; ordinarily that half would have gone to one of his two sons, Alexander, but he was a regular drug user and had died of cocaine intoxication in May 2009. By early 2008 Alexander had temporarily managed to come off drugs but the News of the World's exposure of his father's sado-masochism had devastated him and was, his father believed, a contributory factor in his death. On 12 September, five days before Mosley returned to London at the end of his presidency of the FIA, Allen began judicial review against the Met at the High Court on behalf of Chris Bryant, Brian Paddick and Brendan Montague; they were joined a week later by John Prescott.
Sitting in his London mews house in Kensington in 2011, Mosley said: "I saw it as a much bigger thing than giving the News of the World a bit of their own back, or privacy generally, because I feel the Murdoch empire is a really sinister presence undermining the whole of our democracy. They are capable of suborning the police, Parliament and the government." He suspected the police had been reluctant to inform the victims "because they knew damn well there would be writs flying down to the High Court and their friends in Wapping would be upset".
In a memo to the Home Affairs Committee that was sent in October 2010, the lawyer Mark Lewis suggested several reasons why the police might not have properly investigated hacking in 2006, including a lack of resources, high-priority terrorism cases – and the closeness of the relationship between senior officers and News of the World executives. With the benefit of legal privilege over parliamentary affairs, he speculated whether the two officers who had said there were few victims, Andy Hayman and John Yates – both of whose own phones had been hacked – had been fearful of press coverage.
Lewis wrote: at the relevant time, Mr Hayman had reason to fear that he was a target of Glenn Mulcaire and the News of the World. It became public knowledge that throughout the period of the investigation into voicemail hacking, Mr Hayman was involved in a controversial relationship with a woman who worked for the Independent Police Complaints Commission and was claiming expenses which were subsequently regarded as unusually high. The same, of course, is also true of John Yates who, we now know, at the time when he responded to The Guardian's stories about Gordon Taylor's settlement with News Group, was involved in a controversial relationship with a woman who worked for the Met press bureau.
Lewis offered no evidence that the officers' behaviour towards the News of the World had been unduly influenced by fear, and Yates and Hayman both later denied that their conduct had been compromised by their relationships. With pressure building on the Met, News International became ever more determined to marginalise those making its life uncomfortable.
On 27 December [2010], high up in the peaks of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire border, a phone call transformed Watson's mood. Over previous weeks, a new source had been tantalisingly close to revealing important information. The source, who had very detailed knowledge of the information technology architecture of News Corp around the world, contradicted Watson's belief that data had been lost irrevocably.
As they talked for over an hour, Watson frantically wrote notes on small pieces of paper in his pockets, taking the names of the senior IT people and those that had recently left. He probed the contact while trying not to betray his increasing sense of euphoria.
Back in 2005 when Mulcaire and Goodman were conspiring to hack phones, the company bosses felt they were untouchable. They had politicians and police in their pockets, and they had no "predators"; Watson's logic was that with that level of power you would feel invulnerable – and if you thought yourself invulnerable, you would become complacent and make mistakes. He already knew that Brooks was complacent with her digital fingerprints because of the text message about him which she had sent in April 2009 to someone close to the Prime Minister. If others shared her arrogance, there would be a rich source of information on that second server that the police could use to crack the case. He did not know at that point that data had been or was being destroyed. But just as he had been losing hope, this new discovery reinvigorated him.
How lawyer stumbled on Soham scandal
Under conditions of secrecy in a windowless room at Scotland Yard, victims could inspect the notes about them, though they were not allowed to photograph or copy them. As the actress Leslie Ash and her husband Lee Chapman read Glenn Mulcaire's references to them [early in 2011], they accidentally discovered the "News of the World" had targeted Leslie Chapman – who was not Leslie Ash using her husband's surname, but the father of one of the two children killed at Soham in 2002.
The abduction and murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, at the hands of school caretaker Ian Huntley, horrified the public.
Charlotte Harris, the couple's lawyer, recalled: "Leslie Chapman's papers were in front of us and the police were saying of the address: 'Yeah, well it's Fulham,' but it wasn't a Fulham postcode and I was looking at it, and being so familiar with Glenn Mulcaire's handwriting, I said: 'It doesn't say "Fulham", it says "Soham".'" Independent

John Yates Funerals: We Bury Anything

For ease, right click, open in new tab.

James Murdoch: The Rise and Fall of a News Corp Scion

An interesting and unemotional look into the nest of vipers.

James Murdoch: The Rise and Fall of a News Corp Scion

As a story, it has everything: dynastic succession, Oedipal conflict, vaulting ambition, hubris, crisis, catastrophe … read on
Michael Wolff
4 April 2012




On Tuesday, James Murdoch gave up his last claim to BSkyB, the company that most defined him. He had not wanted to leave his job as CEO of the company in 2008, when his father first got the idea that James should instead run the Asian and European operations of News Corp. At BSkyB, only 39% owned by News Corp, James was at a distance from News Corp politics, and, more importantly, from his father's incessant interference.

What's more, BSkyB had made James. At 36, he was running a vast, successful, and rapidly growing media company. The business world had noticed.

But his father had just bought the Wall Street Journal and was moving the long-time head of the company's British subsidiary, News International, and family retainer, Les Hinton, to New York to run it. Rebekah Brooks, the editor of the Sun and herself a family favorite, was scheduled to take over Hinton's job, but Murdoch was not sure she was seasoned enough. He need someone he could trust – not least of all because, at 78, he wanted to travel a lot less and concentrate his attention on his pride and joy, the WSJ.

So why not move James? He absolutely trusted his MBA-talking son (more so, in a sense, because he didn't actually have an MBA, a degree Murdoch scorned). A father could hardly be more proud, almost in awe, of a son. And in truth, it rather rankled him that his son was getting so successful outside the company proper. Murdochs worked for News Corp. Period. Or they should.

And then, the succession: he knew had to maneuver one of his children into the second spot. The last time he had renewed COO Peter Chernin's contract, he'd had to promise Chernin the top job if anything happened to him – a bothersome situation that needed to be corrected.

But James balked. Running the foreign divisions of News Corp, and becoming merely the chairman of BSkyB, was a significantly lesser job than masterminding the growth of the world's most successful satellite broadcaster. So, father and son negotiated: the deal they struck was that if James agreed to come inside News Corp, the company would begin the process of bidding for the rest of the shares of BSkyB that it didn't own – which would, ultimately, put James in charge of the whole megillah.

Initially, Rupert didn't want to tie up all the cash the BSkyB deal would require; nor did he want to have another fight with British regulators. But James was adamant. Most persuasively, he argued that with BskyB, combined with all the other satellite, pay TV assets in Europe and Asia, James would be among the most powerful people in the world television industry – and an obvious and worthy, even inevitable, successor at News Corp. More Guardian

" He Pushedback" Well He Would Wouldn't He? John Yates

John Yates ‘pushed back’ against reopening of phone hacking investigation

Senior Met officer John Yates “pushed back” against suggestions for a new investigation into phone hacking in 2009, the Leveson Inquiry has heard.
Natalie Peck
April 4, 2012

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer, who continued giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon, said he thought there should have been an examination of the “for Neville” email, potentially implicating other News of the World journalists in phone hacking. Yates, then assistant commissioner, conducted a one-day review of the original investigation, in 2009.




Starmer told the inquiry: “There was a degree of pushback against my suggestion that there should be a reinvestigation or further examination of the ‘for Neville’ email. To the best of my recollection, Mr Yates said that it was not new, it had been seen before and thus I took from that he didn’t consider at that stage there was any point for investigation of [the] email.”

Starmer said he was frustrated after the email and other documentation was presented to the Culture Media and Sport select committee, investigating the hacking scandal, by journalist Nick Davies in 2009.

He said he accepted the email did not prove anything alone, but flagged up the need to examine material not used in the 2006 case against royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

He added: “My concern then was that I had been told in July 2009, in confident terms by Mr Yates, that all of this had been looked at: ‘it’s nothing new, Mr Starmer you needn’t concern yourself’.

“When I really focused on the fact that this had all happened in a day I became increasingly concerned about the confidence with which those answers had been given. “

David Perry QC, leading counsel in the Goodman and Mulcaire prosecution, was drafted in by Starmer to review the CPS advice on the case.

By 2011, when further material was revealed during civil action brought against News of the World by actress Sienna Miller, Starmer said he decided a full review of all police material on hacking was needed.

He said: “At that stage I thought nothing less that a root and branch review of all the material that we have and the police have is now going to satisfy me about this case, and that’s why I indicated in fact to Tim Godwin, who I think was then acting commissioner, that I had for my part reached the view that we could no longer approach this on a piecemeal basis – looking at bits of material – and we really had to roll our sleeves up and look at everything.”

The DPP described a 2011 meeting with Yates, saying he had made his mind up that a full review was needed

He said: “To be fair to Mr Yates, he did not seek to block that approach and in the end agreed to it, but I have to say by then I had reached the stage where I really was not in the mood for being dissuaded from my then course of action.”

Starmer said a full CPS review is currently underway, headed by Alison Levitt QC, but that findings would not be published until any charges have been brought under Operation Weeting. Hacked Off

News Corp: I See The Bad Moon Arising

That's if you can see it through all the gloom, because there is an ever increasing cloud of it hanging over Rupert and friends.


I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today.

(CHORUS:)
Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

News Corp shareholders renew call for Rupert Murdoch to step down

Calls for Murdoch to be replaced are reignited following James Murdoch's resignation from British pay-TV giant BSkyB
Dominic Rushe
3 April 2012

Shareholder activists have renewed their call for Rupert Murdoch to quit as chairman of News Corporation, as the company faces fresh turmoil with the resignation of his son James Murdoch as chairman of its British pay-TV giant.

Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), which allied a massive vote against Rupert Murdoch, his sons and several of his appointed directors last year, calls for him to be replaced with an independent director.

In last year's vote, James Murdoch emerged as the least popular director with shareholders: 67% of the votes not controlled by the Murdoch family went against him.

This year's resolution, filed shortly before James Murdoch stepped down at BSkyB, says the phone-hacking scandal has placed News Corp in peril. It reads: "This pervasive and continuing scandal has led to an erosion of public confidence, helped to scuttle a critical business acquisition, and threatened the journalistic reputation and viability of News Corporation's UK publications. It also has made clear the need for independent board leadership to steer the company through a process of reform," says the resolution.

Julie Tanner, assistant director at CBIS, said Rupert Murdoch had to take responsibility for News Corp's continuing woes following the hacking scandal at his UK newspapers that has led to dozens of arrests and the closure of the News of the World.

"This is a situation that has to be dealt with from the top. This company has a long history of corporate governance concerns and it is no surprise that it has been unable to deal with this scandal as it has happened," she said.

Tanner said James Murdoch's resignation at BSkyB, which is controlled by News Corp through its 39.1% stake, was not enough and that it was unacceptable that he was staying on as a nonexecutive director at the broadcaster. "He should be removed," she said.

Rupert Murdoch and News Corp's chief operating officer Chase Carey issued a statement after James Murdoch's resignation in which they praised his work at BSkyB and said they looked forward to "James' continued substantial contributions at News Corporation."

Michael Wolff, author of Murdoch biography The Man Who Owns The News, said there was now immense pressure on James to resign from News Corp. "But he hasn't shown much inclination to go," he said. "James is worried the company will sell him out. What's going on now is that James wants to stay out of jail."

Father Seamus Finn, shareholder activist at Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, said shareholders were concerned by James Murdoch's ongoing problems and his recent resignations from board positions at Sotheby's, GlaxoSmithKline and now BSkyB.

Finn clashed with Rupert Murdoch at last year's AGM. "You're suggesting I'm a very bad person," Murdoch told Finn when the investor quizzed him about the hacking scandal.

"I can see that he wants to protect his son but this goes way beyond anything that shareholders can swallow," said Finn. Gruniad

Champagnegate: It Just Keeps on Giving

Although to listen to John 'Integrity' Yates and now Lucy Panton, Champagne flowed like misers' sweat.

Who was it that said: Never believe anything until it's officially denied, Bismark? or was it Sir Humphrey?

Nevertheless, regarding Panton's 'evidence', if I were a teacher marking homework, I would say: Panton! you've been cribbing off Yates.

Ex-Met police boss John Yates attended News of the World reporter's wedding

Paper's former crime editor tells Leveson inquiry that senior officer who reviewed phone-hacking case was among guests
Lisa O'Carroll
3 April 2012



The Scotland Yard officer who decided against reopening the investigation in 2009 into News of the World phone hacking attended the wedding of the paper's crime editor, the Leveson inquiry heard.

John Yates, then an assistant commissioner, was at the wedding of Lucy Panton, who married Scotland Yard officer Daniel Beck in 2004.

However, Panton told the inquiry into press ethics that she did not classify Yates as a good friend and it was the only time she had socialised with him outside of work.

"There were quite a few people at my wedding who I would class as working friends, who I did not socialise with outside of work and Mr Yates fell into that category," she said adding, "There were a lot of people at my wedding."

The counsel for the inquiry, Robert Jay QC, was pursuing a line of questioning that flowed from evidence to the inquiry last month suggesting that both Yates and another former Met assistant commissioner, Andy Hayman, had enjoyed fine dining and drinks with News of the World figures including Panton and Neil Wallis, the paper's former deputy editor.

The Scotland Yard gifts and hospitality register showed that Hayman had spent £47 on a bottle of champagne at Oriel restaurant from someone he recalls was from the paper, and was possibly female. "I am confident this was not me," Panton told the inquiry, pointing out her preferred drink was a "dry white wine" or a soft drink as she was pregnant during the period in question.

The inquiry had previously heard how James Mellor, one of her bosses at the paper had fired off an email telling her it was "time to call in all those bottles of champagne … really need an exclusive splash line … John Yates could be crucial". However, the reference to champagne was "banter mixed with pressure" to get a story, said Panton today.

She admitted she had drunk champagne with police officers and this would have included Hayman, but only in the company of others. "We used to have champagne at the Crime Reporters' Association Christmas parties – just a bottle at the beginning, or maybe two," she said. "It didn't flow in huge quantities."

Panton was arrested last year in relation to the Met's Operation Elveden investigation into payments to police, but was told by Jay she would not face any questions on this subject.

She said her relationship with the police was a professional one and pointed out that neither Yates and Hayman were a great help in producing stories for the newspaper. "That's why I didn't spend a lot of time with them," she said.

She confirmed that she once wrote a story for the paper from a computer in the office of former Scotland Yard director of public affairs Dick Fedorcio, adding that she did it because it was more convenient that using her BlackBerry.

Panton worked for the News of the World till it closed abruptly last July and is now based at home with her children. guardian

John Yates Champagne Charlie

Leveson grills the 'champagne coppers'

Michael Deacon watches the latest events at the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking and media ethics.
By Michael Deacon
01 Mar 2012




Ever wonder why you hardly ever see bobbies on the beat any more? The reason’s quite simple: they’re all too busy chomping lobster in celebrity restaurants. Or so you might have concluded from listening to the ex-Met policemen who appeared at the Leveson Inquiry today.

John Yates, the former counter-terror chief, seems to have dined out more often than Michael Winner. Robert Jay QC took him through the many glamorous dinners listed in his diary while he was Assistant Commissioner. The Ivy, Scott’s, Scalini, Racine… All with his friends in journalism, most prominently Neil Wallis, then a senior editor at the News of the World. As in, the newspaper that the Met had been investigating – with strikingly little success – over phone hacking. Not that there was anything untoward about these fancy dinners, Mr Yates took pains to make clear: when he was with Wallis they tended just to talk about football. Harmless laddish fun. Work didn't really come up.

Mr Yates wasn’t actually present at the inquiry – he was speaking via video link from Bahrain. He is not there, as you might have assumed, to complete a Michelin Guide to the Persian Gulf’s finest restaurants, but to oversee reform of the country’s police force. Sitting in a black swivel chair, staring out at the courtroom from a giant screen, he looked like a Bond villain about to announce his dastardly plan to destroy us all with a missile launched from his volcano lair.

Mr Yates is not, of course, a cackling villain hell-bent on our annihilation, although even if he were I don’t think we’d need to worry unduly about his chances of succeeding. He spent much of the time squirming clammily, like an Edwardian youth accused of scrumping apples. “I know you’re cross, Mr Jay, but…”

His most embarrassing moment came when it was revealed that the News of the World had ordered a female journalist to get a scoop out of him by “calling in all those bottles of champagne”. Mr Yates defended himself hotly. “That’s just a turn or phrase,” he protested, three times. Had he ever drunk champagne with that journalist? Mr Yates spoke carefully. “There may have been the odd occasion when a bottle was shared between several people…”

Next in for questioning – this time in person – was Andy Hayman, who led the original investigation into hacking in 2006. Last summer, when Mr Hayman appeared before a select committee on hacking, one MP called him “a dodgy geezer”. Perhaps she was alluding to his broad Cockney accent and wideboy jocularity (“OK, beat me up for being upfront and honest!”).

Today, though, we met a different Hayman. This one was quiet, earnest, bespectacled, and above all deferential. His evidence was “sir” this, “sir” that, as if he were a humble gamekeeper doffing his cap to the squire. “Thank you, sir… With respect, sir… My instinctive answer, sir… I can’t remember, sir…”

All three of the ex-Met policemen questioned – the other was Peter Clarke, formerly Deputy Assistant Commissioner – agreed that while the original investigation was taking place they’d been so caught up with foiling terrorists that hacking seemed relatively trivial. “I feel terrible for the victims of phone hacking,” piped up ’Umble Andy ’Ayman, “but I’d rather be facing questions about that than about loss of life.”

Terrorists must be kicking themselves. “I told you we should have sent them some champagne!” Telegraph

- - -

Leveson inquiry: John Yates's Michelin guide to counter-terrorism

It seemed that the Met's ex-assistant commissioner would risk his cholesterol count anywhere in the interests of law and order
Michael White
1 March 2012

Almost three hours into his testimony-by-satellite to Lord Justice Leveson's phone-hacking inquiry, the former Scotland Yard troubleshooter John Yates said rather plaintively: "In fairness to me." Quite so, the judge assured him, but there was really no need. From his bolthole in Bahrain, where he is now helping improve local police efficiency, Yates had been very fair to himself all day.

The Met police's ex-assistant commissioner, who resigned over the affair last year, was one of three smart London police chiefs, all prematurely retired through professional mishap, who shared their thoughts with the inquiry.

At issue was why they had all happily embraced News International's "rogue reporter" defence before, during and since the Guardian first alleged that hacking had existed at the News of the World on an industrial scale. What's more, they'd had the evidence since 2006, long before they loaned Rebekah Brooks a Met horse.

Ex-counter-terrorism chief, Peter Clarke, said he wouldn't have done anything different in terms of allocating resources between fighting al-Qaida and protecting celebs' privacy. After all, nobody died and they had foiled 70 murderous plots. Andy Hayman, Clarke's ex-boss, newly-bespectacled and less cocky than when he clashed with the Commons home affairs committee last year, said much the same, though he could see a lot of "perception" problems, now that Leveson or his QC, Robert Jay, pointed them out.

But in the battle for headlines it was Yates who won or rather lost. Unlike one fuddy-duddy colleague who saw the media as the enemy and kept telling him to cool it ("that was his style") there seemed to be no restaurant or wine bar where ex-assistant commissioner Yates would not risk his liver or cholesterol count in the interests of law and order. It read like the Michelin Guide to Counter-Terrorism. How does he survive in Bahrain?

Hayman, who eventually left the force over expense claims, fought him to a close draw. In February 2007 he chalked up a £566 lunch bill (including £181.50 on booze) for nine at Shepherd's, an expense account joint in Westminster lobbyist territory, to mark an admired colleague's promotion. Around 10 the same evening, the amiable Hayman splashed out £47 for a bottle of champagne on his Met credit card.

Did he share it with a contact from the Crime Reporters Association? With Lucy Panton, crime correspondent of the News of the World, perhaps, asked Jay ? Or with her then-boss, Brooks? Hayman couldn't remember, but he was adamant that such contacts, in keeping the public onside and alert to the terrorist threat, had been "worth the investment of time".

Yates was only able to cap that by virtue of a longer list of exotic restaurants visited. Very expensive restaurants, said Jay of the £100-a-head luvvies favourite, the Ivy. "I think they're all expensive in London," replied Yates sorrowfully. Sometimes he dined in company with his old friend Neil "Wolfman" Wallis, then No 2 at the NoW, later a paid Yard adviser, together with a chap called Nick Candy whom he described as "a friend in property." The Candy brothers are in property in the same way that the king of Saudi Arabia is in petrol stations. Nick usually picked up the bill. The trio all insisted that being wined and dined by the hacks (as hacks do everywhere) had no impact on their decision not to widen the 2006 investigation into royal hacking on the basis of what turned out to be 419 names on the private detective's files.

Yet here was Jay digging up an email from one of Panton's NoW colleagues asking her for a line from Yates - "time to call in all those bottles of champagne," the colleague quipped. I may have shared the occasional glass of bubbly, Yates conceded, but only with several other people. You half-expected him to add "deserving widows and asylum seekers". Leveson is clearly taken with the argument that phone hacking was a lesser priority during the scariest years of al-Qaida plotting. But he can't understand why the Guardian's challenge in 2009 ("just an article in a newspaper," said Yates, though it ended his career) was so lightly and quickly dismissed, not in eight hours, it emerged, but in six.

If they lacked the resources to bring a wider case, the least the Yard could have done, Jay suggested at one stage, was call in News International chiefs and give them a bollocking.

Instead they didn't even check that suspected hacking victims like John Prescott were notified. Was it that Prescott, unlike some Labour colleagues, could not have been squared? Perish the thought.

Though no one said so, on cash-for-honours the Met arrested Tony Blair's staff and Tory MP Damian Green (on leaks) on less evidence than they had in their NoW file. Moral? Lunch. Gruniad

Leveson Inquiry: NoW Accused of Colluding With Murder Suspects - Daniel Morgan

This story has been around for a year or two, twenty five of them to be precise, and that which is alluded to in the story, goes far beyond a fleeting acquaintance between the cops, the News of the World and the murder of Daniel Morgan. Good to see the thing getting an airing via Leveson though.

Lots of information on the Morgan Murder here, Daniel Morgan Murder Cover-Up.

Leveson Inquiry: NoW Accused of Colluding With Murder Suspects

Former policewoman and Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames also claims Rebekah Brooks covered up why her family were targeted
John Plunkett
28 February 2012

Jacqui Hames Former Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames broke down in tears as she gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry.

A former policewoman and Crimewatch presenter who was put under surveillance by the News of the World has accused the News International paper of "collusion" with suspects in a high-profile murder case at the Leveson inquiry.

Jacqui Hames, who broke down in tears as she gave evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday, accused the then News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks of covering up the real reason why her family were targeted.

Hames, a detective constable who appeared in uniform on Crimewatch and has since retired from the Metropolitan police, said the explanation Brooks offered was "pathetic" and questioned why the police did not do more to investigate the affair.

She and her then husband, senior police officer David Cook, were placed under surveillance by the paper after he was put in charge of a 2002 appeal for information regarding the murder of Daniel Morgan.

Morgan was found dead in the car park of a pub in south London in 1987. He had been hit in the head with an axe.

Private investigator Jonathan Rees, who allegedly earned £150,000 a year from the News of the World for supplying illegally obtained information, was cleared of Morgan's murder last March.

According to the witness statements Hames submitted to the inquiry, shortly after the new 2002 appeal, which was broadcast on Crimewatch, the police were told that one of the suspects intended to make life difficult for Cook, and the BBC1 programme received an email suggesting she was having an affair with a senior police detective.

The couple subsequently found themselves under surveillance by News International. Two vans parked outside their house were traced back to the News of the World causing them "great anxiety", said Hames.

Contacted by Met press chief Dick Fedorcio, Brooks said the paper was investigating suspicions that the couple were having an affair with each other, Hames said.

Hames told the inquiry this was "absolutely pathetic". "This was utterly nonsensical as we had by then been married for four years, had been together for 11 years and had two children," said Hames in her witness statement.

"Our marriage was common knowledge to the extent that we had even appeared together in Hello! magazine."

She said the News of the World had "never supplied a coherent explanation for why we were placed under surveillance".

In a meeting with her husband and his boss commander Andre Baker, she said Brooks "repeated the unconvincing explanation that the News of the World believed we were having an affair".

Hames said: "I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation.

"These events left me distressed, anxious and needing counselling and contributed to the breakdown of my marriage to David in 2010."

She added: "Given the impact of these events, I would like to know why the police did not investigate why we came to be placed under surveillance by a newspaper like this."

Hames told the inquiry that it was impossible not to conclude that there had been "collusion between people at the News of the World and people who were suspected of killing Daniel Morgan".

Asked by Lord Justice Leveson about the impact of the News of World surveillance on her personal life, Hames broke down in tears.

Leveson told her it was clearly very distressing and she did not have to continue.

But having recovered her composure, Hames told the court: "No one from any walk of life should have to put up with it. I would hate to think of anyone having to go through what we have had 10 years of."

Hames said private investigator Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks were later found to include her payroll number, her previous police accommodation, her address, telephone numbers, and details about her then husband.

Mulcaire worked for the News of the World for several years up to mid 2006 and was jailed for intercepting voicemail messages in January 2007.

She said the information showed the paper knew she was married to Cook and could not have been having an affair with him.

Hames, who was a presenter on Crimewatch between 1990 and 2006 and took early retirement from the police force in 2008, said this information could only have come from the Met's personnel file.

"When you learn that someone in your family, the police service, has sold you down the line it's very painful," she added. Gruniad