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

John Yates Cash For Honours 'Well Connected'

John Yates 'resisted handing over phone records' in hunt for media leak

Leveson inquiry told Yates resisted request during cash for honours investigation and said he was 'very well connected'
Vikram Dodd
7 March 2012

The Leveson inquiry heard that former Met police chief Sir Paul Stephenson (left) refused to implement advice that the phone records of former assistant commissioner John Yates (right) be examined.

Former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner John Yates resisted an attempt to examine his phone records over allegations he was leaking information from the cash for honours investigation, saying he was "very well connected", the Leveson inquiry has heard.
Bob Quick, then chief constable of Surrey, said he was called in to review the cash for honours criminal investigation led by Yates. He gave it a clean bill of health but in January 2007 Quick was called in again after Britain's top civil servant, Gus O'Donnell, complained that the police were leaking details to the media.
O'Donnell specifically named Yates as the source of the leaks from the investigation, which menaced the then Labour government.
Quick alleges that the then Met deputy commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, did not implement his recommendation that the phone records of Yates, who was leading the inquiry, should be examined for evidence that he was leaking against the Labour government or evidence ruling him out.
Quick alleges he clashed with Yates over his suggestion. As he resisted the suggestion, Yates told him: "No Bob, I am very well connected." Quick told Leveson his review found no evidence implicating Yates as the leaker.
In 2000, Quick, then part of Scotland Yard's anti-corruption command, wanted to investigate newspapers after a covert operation revealed corrupt payments to police officers for information.
Quick added that in 2000 it struck him as possible that newspaper organisations were aware of the reasons for the payments and were themselves complicit in making corrupt payments to police officers.
His report was submitted to his then boss, Andy Hayman, but no action was taken, the inquiry heard.
Quick said that in 2000 it was clear tabloid journalists, most likely with their bosses' blessing, were bribing officers: "There were considerable grounds to believe that journalists from tabloid newspapers were corruptors." Gruniad

Mark McGowan is Pissed! Yates Stephenson Payoff

But then, not surprisingly, when is he not?

No comment required.

Other than perhaps, you will find further on the two bent scumbags in question, under the Hackgate tag.

Drive on my son!




Yard chiefs who quit over phone hacking 'are given £500,000 in secret cash pay outs' Why is it only the Wail that seems to be carrying this story?

Hackgate and the Met: Stuff You Couldn't Make Up!

Stroll on!

Hacking: Met use Official Secrets Act to demand Guardian reveals sources

Unprecedented move sees Scotland Yard use the Official Secrets Act to demand the paper hands over information
by David Leigh
16 September 2011

The Metropolitan police are seeking a court order under the Official Secrets Act to make Guardian reporters disclose their confidential sources about the phone-hacking scandal.
In an unprecedented legal attack on journalists' sources, Scotland Yard officers claim the act, which has special powers usually aimed at espionage, could have been breached in July when reporters Amelia Hill and Nick Davies revealed the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone. They are demanding source information be handed over.
The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, said on Friday: "We shall resist this extraordinary demand to the utmost".
Tom Watson, the former Labour minister who has been prominent in exposing hacking by the News of the World, said: "It is an outrageous abuse and completely unacceptable that, having failed to investigate serious wrongdoing at the News of the World for more than a decade, the police should now be trying to move against the Guardian. It was the Guardian who first exposed this scandal."
The NUJ general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, said: "This is a very serious threat to journalists and the NUJ will fight off this vicious attempt to use the Official Secrets Act … Journalists have investigated the hacking story and told the truth to the public. They should be congratulated rather than being hounded and criminalised by the state.
"The protection of sources is an essential principle which has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European court of human rights as the cornerstone of press freedom. The NUJ shall defend it. In 2007 a judge made it clear that journalists and their sources are protected under article 10 of the Human Rights Act and it applies to leaked material. The use of the Official Secrets Act is a disgraceful attempt to get round this existing judgment."
The paper's revelation in July that police had never properly pursued the News of the World for hacking the phone of the missing murdered girl caused a wave of public revulsion worldwide.
The ensuing uproar over police inadequacy and alleged collusion with the Murdoch media empire swept away the top officers at Scotland Yard. It also brought about the closure of the News of the World itself, the withdrawal of the Murdoch takeover bid for Sky, and the launch of a major judicial inquiry into the entire scandal.
Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and assistant commissioner John Yates both resigned. David Cameron's former PR chief Andy Coulson is among those who have subsequently been arrested for questioning, along with former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.
Police now intend to go before a judge at the Old Bailey in London on 23 September, in an attempt to force the handover of documents relating to the source of information for a number of articles, including the article published by Hill and Davies on 4 July disclosing "the interception of the telephone of Milly Dowler".
Documents written by both reporters about the Milly Dowler story are covered by the terms of the production order police are now demanding.
The application, authorised by Detective-Superintendent Mark Mitchell of Scotland Yard's professional standards unit, claims that the published article could have disclosed information in breach of the 1989 Official Secrets Act.
It is claimed Hill could have incited police working on the then Operation Weeting hacking inquiry into leaking information, both about Milly Dowler and about the identity of Coulson, Rebekah Brooks and other arrested newspaper executives.
A police officer is also being investigated, Scotland Yard say, for breaching the Official Secrets Act, as well as alleged misconduct in public office, for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
An obscure clause – section 5 – of the 1989 Official Secrets Act, highly controversial at the time of its passing, allows individuals to be prosecuted for passing on "damaging" information leaked to them by government officials in breach of section 4 of the same act. This includes police information "likely to impede … the prosecution of suspected offenders".
The clause is aimed at those who deliberately derail investigations by, for example, tipping off a suspect about an impending police raid. But it is being used in this case in an unprecedented way, against individual journalists for publishing a news article. The Guardian's reporters did not pay any police officers.
Police claim their work might be undermined by the alleged leaks. The head of Operation Weeting, deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, is on record deploring that some details of inquiries have apparently leaked to the Guardian. Some of the arrestees are reported to be already claiming that media publicity will prevent them getting a fair trial.
Scotland Yard says it has not officially released any of the arrestees' names, none of whom has as yet been charged with any offence. But they do not assert that anyone was "tipped off" by the arrest disclosures in the Guardian or other papers. Most of those questioned were arrested by appointment.
The only previous attempt to use the 1989 Official Secrets Act against a journalist collapsed 11 years ago after a public outcry. Lieutenant Colonel Wylde, a former military intelligence officer, and author Tony Geraghty were arrested in December 1998 by defence ministry police after early morning raids at their homes. Both had computers and documents seized. This followed the publication of Geraghty's book The Irish War, which describes two British army computer databases in Northern Ireland used to identify vehicles and suspects.
Expert reports were produced by the defence showing the information was not damaging. After consultations with Labour attorney general Lord Williams of Mostyn, both cases were finally dropped in November 2000.
Wylde's lawyer, John Wadham, then of Liberty, said: "This case should never have got off the ground … This case is another nail in the coffin of the Official Secrets Act. The act is fundamentally flawed and needs to be reformed."
In the same year, police failed in a similar attempt to get a production order for journalistic material from the Guardian and the Observer, over correspondence with renegade MI5 officer David Shayler. The appeal court, led by Lord Justice Judge, ruled: "Unless there are compelling reasons of national security, the public is entitled to know the facts, and as the eyes and ears of the public, journalists are entitled to investigate and report the facts … Inconvenient or embarrassing revelations, whether for the security services, or for public authorities, should not be suppressed.
"Legal proceedings directed towards the seizure of the working papers of an individual journalist, or the premises of the newspaper … tend to inhibit discussion … Compelling evidence would normally be needed to demonstrate that the public interest would be served by such proceedings.
"Otherwise, to the public disadvantage, legitimate inquiry and discussion, and 'the safety valve of effective investigative journalism' … would be discouraged, perhaps stifled."
In 2009 the police threatened to prosecute Conservative MP Damian Green for "aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office". The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, intervened in that case, saying he did not consider that the damage caused by the leaked information outweighed the importance of the freedom of the press.
Only last week the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told MPs: "There is an important difference between off-the-record briefing and the payment of money by or to the police in return for information.
"Journalists must operate within the law, but … we must be careful not to overreact in a way that would undermine the foundations of a free society."
At a speech at the Royal Television Society this week, Hunt praised the Guardian's coverage of the hacking scandal, describing it as "investigative journalism of the highest quality".
The former Met commissioner Stephenson admitted to MPs that he had tried to talk the Guardian out of its phone-hacking campaign in December 2009. He added that "we should be grateful" to the Guardian for ignoring his advice and continuing its campaign. Gruniad

h/t Steelmagnolia

Sir Paul Stephenson Liar! Shurely Shome Mishtake?

You may not remember this as well as I, but then I did sit through Stephenson's testimony before the select committee.

Scanned from the Eye, I can't be arsed transcribing the thing.



Previous:

There Isn't Much Integrity In a Twelve Grand Freebie - Stephenson

Stephenson Gone!

The Met and the News Of The World: Too Cosy By Far

Top Met Cops Flying With The Crows

More under the Hackgate tag.

Hackgate: 'Ere Guv Gotta New Tee Shirt?

Well that didn't take long, get your own, John, 'integrity' Yates teeshirt. Love it!

HACKGATE - Mr. Yates

- - -

10 things we learned from the Met police at the phone-hacking hearing

Sir Paul Stephenson, John Yates and Dick Fedorcio provided some illuminating moments in front of the select committee
by Peter Walker
19 July 2011

1. David Cameron's chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, turned down the opportunity for the prime minister to be briefed on the fact that Neil Wallis was giving PR advice to the Metropolitan police, according to the force. The outgoing Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson first alluded to an unnamed "No 10 official" who briefed the force that Cameron should not be "compromised" over the issue. The outgoing assistant commissioner John Yates subsequently named the official as Llewellyn.

2. The buck does not always stop at the top in the Met. Stephenson deflected a number of tough questions by telling MPs this was a matter for Yates, giving evidence later.

3. No one properly checked Wallis before he began work for Scotland Yard. The force's head of PR, Dick Fedorcio, told MPs that "due diligence" was carried out by Yates, even though Yates and Wallis were friends. Not so, said Yates: all he did was make a single phone call to Wallis to ask whether anything he had done could "embarrass" the force.

4. Stephenson resigned despite, he believed, still having the full support of Theresa May, the home secretary, London's mayor, Boris Johnson, and the bulk of the force. He told MPs: "It was against the advice of many, many colleagues – and, indeed, my wife." He added: "I'm not leaving because I was pushed or threatened."

5. Yates passed on the CV of Wallis's daughter within the force, thus possibly assisting her to get a job with the Met. He insisted he had done nothing wrong but "simply acted as a postbox".

6. The Metropolitan police has 45 press officers, 10 of whom previously worked for News International, figures revealed by Stephenson.

7. Corporate PR consultancy can be a lucrative business. The Met received three tenders for a two-day-a-month contract to advise senior officers on press matters. The winning bid and "by far the cheapest", came from Wallis's company, at £1,000 a day.

8. Stephenson is not a fan of ex-colleague Andy Hayman's new career as a journalist. Asked whether he reads Hayman's Times column, the response was: "No, I do not."

9. Stephenson was determined to go out with a bang. He began quoting (inexactly) Macbeth on his resignation – "If it's done then best it's done quickly" – before vehemently defending his £12,000 free stay at Champneys health spa. He signed off with a clearly pre-prepared statement of defiance, describing his resignation as "an act of leadership".

10. We are living in strange times: there have been very few previous select committee hearings at which a Conservative MP (Mark Reckless) and a commissioner of the Metropolitan police go out of their way to praise the Guardian. Stephenson/Fedorcio/Yates blah blah video.

Sir Paul Stephenson on Champneys: I think it was very unfortunate for me.....I think it was damnably unlucky. See video link.

There Isn't Much Integrity In a Twelve Grand Freebie - Stephenson

Not a great deal either, in keeping shtum about the toerags you hire on a grand a day.

Integrity me feckin arse!

How Sir Paul Stephenson's £12,000 spa break triggered downfall

Former Metropolitan police chief says he had no reason to suspect adviser of involvement in phone hacking

Sir Paul Stephenson was brought in as a safe pair of hands in December 2009 with the remit of placing the Metropolitan police back on a stable footing following the turbulent reign of Sir Ian Blair.

However, the confidence of senior politicians began to drain away in recent days after the phone-hacking crisis enveloped both News International and the Met.

Just hours before Stephenson's resignation, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, told the BBC that a growing public perception of police corruption was deeply concerning.

"I think when the public starts losing faith in the police, it's altogether much more serious and you know you really are in some trouble."




Announcing his resignation, Stephenson admitted he was doing so because of the speculation relating to the Met's links with News International, but also "in particular in relation to Mr Neil Wallis", the former News International executive who was arrested last Thursday, and who it then emerged had worked for the Met.

The Guardian was also preparing to publish a story about how Scotland Yard chiefs invited Wallis to apply for a senior communications post with the force, a decision which Stephenson was aware of.

Stephenson dated his relationship to Wallis back to 2006, a meeting that took place in the context of the latter's work as a journalist.

From October 2009 to September 2010, Wallis's part-time work at the Met involved strategic communications, advising the commissioner and the assistant commissioner, John Yates, as the force said there was no need to reopen the criminal investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.

The Guardian understands Wallis was approached to apply for the two-day-a-month contract with the Met after discussions which involved the most senior figures in the force. He was the lowest bidder after a tender process and was paid more than £1,000 a day, earning £24,000.

Stephenson said that he had no role in the management of Wallis's contract.

His relationship with Wallis had always been "one maintained for professional purposes and an acquaintance".

He went on: "I have heard suggestions that we must have suspected the alleged involvement of Mr Wallis in phone hacking. Let me say unequivocally that I did not and had no reason to have done so.

"I do not occupy a position in the world of journalism. I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice and the repugnant nature of the selection of victims that is now emerging, nor of its apparent reach into senior levels."

Stephenson insisted the contract only became of relevance when Wallis's name became linked with the new investigation into phone hacking, although he admitted that "the interests of transparency might have made earlier disclosure of this information desirable".

But it was with a flash of anger that he addressed the question of his acceptance of around £12,000-worth of hospitality at a health spa for which Wallis worked as a PR consultant. Yesterday's Sunday Times had revealed Stephenson stayed at Champneys in Tring, Hertfordshire, as he recovered from a serious illness.

"There has been no impropriety and I am extremely happy with what I did and the reasons for it – to do everything possible to return to running the Met full time, significantly ahead of medical, family and friends' advice," he said. "The attempt to represent this in a negative way is both cynical and disappointing."

Wallis had served as deputy to the then NoW editor Andy Coulson during a period when it is alleged there was wide-scale phone hacking at the paper and among private investigators it employed.

Police sources said that the decision to employ Wallis is regretted now, but they insist he had nothing to do with the Met's handling of the phone-hacking controversy. Their account of the appointment is that in 2009, the Met's deputy PR chief was diagnosed with a serious illness, and there was a need for someone to be brought in temporarily. A number of PR firms were "sounded out" about the role, including Wallis's company, Chamy media. A source with knowledge of the Yard's thinking at the time said part of Wallis's attraction was his connection to Coulson, who was a top aide to David Cameron, then in opposition and expected to become prime minister.

Part of the Met's thinking was that Wallis's past connections would help the force's relationship with Cameron: "One [Wallis] is a lot cheaper and gives you direct access into No 10," the source added.

The contract was terminated in September 2010 after new allegations in the media about the extent of hacking at NoW.

It also emerged that Charlie Brooks, the husband of the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, claims to run an alternative treatment therapy centre at Champneys.

Stephenson is a career policeman who was brought up in the Lancashire town of Bacup. He had once wanted to become a shoe salesman, but joined Lancashire constabulary in 1975, following in the footsteps of his elder brother.

His first real test after taking the Met hotseat came within months. The Met was criticised for its handling of the G20 summit protests in London, when thousands of demonstrators clashed with officers.

The most vociferous criticism came after a 47-year-old newspaper seller, Ian Tomlinson, collapsed and died on the fringes of the demonstrations after a confrontation with police officers.

There were also reports that Stephenson, who received a knighthood in the Queen's birthday honours list last June, offered to stand down after a Rolls-Royce carrying the Prince of Wales and Camilla was mobbed during the riots. Guardian

Stephenson Gone!

Good shot, Yates next?

Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson quits

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned following the phone hacking scandal.

Britain's most senior police officer has faced criticism for hiring former News of the World executive Neil Wallis - who was questioned by police investigating hacking - as an adviser.

Sir Paul said his links to the journalist could hamper investigations.

He said there were lessons to be learned from the affair, but he was leaving with his integrity intact.

He also said he had no knowledge of the extent of the phone hacking.



Home Secretary Theresa May said she was "sorry" he had resigned and thanked him for all the work he had done during his time in office.

Earlier, she said she would address MPs on Monday about her "concerns" over the closeness of the relationship between News International and police.
'Great sadness'

Sir Paul said in a statement: "I have taken this decision as a consequence of the ongoing speculation and accusations relating to the Met's links with News International at a senior level and in particular in relation to Mr Neil Wallis."

He added: "Let me state clearly, I and the people who know me know that my integrity is completely intact.

"I may wish we had done some things differently, but I will not lose sleep over my personal integrity." short clip blah blah

Top Met Cops Flying With The Crows

And we all know what happens to them.




It was only when I had finished this thing, that I thought hmmm, I should have put Icarus in there as well. Still, can't have everything.

Update: I think you're fucked old son, time to pull the the stumps you bent fuck.

Met chief faces questions over spa stay

Sir Paul Stephenson accepted £12,000 freebie while both he and Champneys spa employed ex-NoW deputy editor Neil Wallis more

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Scotland Yard's finest called to account over 'culture of collusion' with the press
Friendship between John Yates and Neil Wallis, once treasured by both men, is at the centre of the hacking firestorm
By Daniel Boffey and Mark Townsend
17 July 2011

John Yates, assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, knows that the latest man to be arrested over the phone hacking scandal likes to drink ice-cold white wine, preferably chablis. He is aware of Neil Wallis's favourite tipple not because it has come up during questioning or surveillance, but because the former News of the World deputy editor is a close friend, a man he has supped with dozens of times.

Now this 12-year friendship is at the centre of the hacking firestorm and has raised serious doubts over the future career prospects of Yates.

Most significantly, however, the friendship, suggesting a hitherto unrealised closeness between the police and News International, is itself threatening the perceived probity of the Metropolitan police and its commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson.




At 4pm on Thursday, at a time when the Yard was already reeling from criticism of its first inquiry and the Yates review of evidence, the Met's press office felt forced by events to announce a secret which thrust the force even more firmly into the centre of the story.

In an extraordinary twist, it was revealed that Wallis, abruptly awoken at dawn that morning to be arrested, had worked the previous year for Scotland Yard as a PR consultant, at a time when Stephenson and Yates were trying to persuade the Guardian that its coverage of the phone-hacking scandal was exaggerated and unwarranted.

Moreover, the Observer has learned that Stephenson dined with Wallis eight times between 2006 and 2009 – meetings which he formally registered – but also, crucially, met him up to five times privately in the last two years.

Yet neither Yates nor Stephenson told the Guardian last year as they were trying to persuade the paper to drop their campaign that they had Wallis, a NoW executive between 2003 and 2009, in their pay. Nor was it mentioned by Yates when Labour MP David Winnick asked him last Tuesday at the home affairs select committee hearing whether he had met any senior people at NI over the last two years. Yates answered "yes" in exasperation and claimed he had been "absolutely open about that" – but he offered no further clues.

Winnick was, therefore, understandably astonished when the news emerged only three days later that Wallis had not only met Yates over the last two years, but that the former NoW man's Chamy Media (a conjoining of the names of Wallis's children, Charlie and Amy), had received £1,000 a day for his part-time consultancy work for the Met between October 2009 and September 2010.

"The obvious question is why we were not told about this previously," Winnick told the Observer. Another MP added: "We were assured that Yates and Stephenson weren't taking money from the journalists. What we didn't know was that the journalists were taking money from the cops."

Further embarrassing news came on Saturday night. It emerged Stephenson had in January enjoyed a free five-week stay at Champneys health spa in Tring, Herts, courtesy of the managing director Stephen Purdew, a close personal friend. Although Stephenson declared the trip under "gifts and hospitality", what he says he did not know until Saturday night was that Wallis happened to be in charge of the company promoting Champneys.

Stephenson was driving to Hendon Police College in north London for a commendation ceremony when he was ordered to the city hall on Thursday. He rushed through the formalities of the event and arrived shortly afterwards on the South Bank ashen-faced, muttering: "I came as soon as I could." Over 90 minutes, Stephenson reportedly faced a barrage of "robust" language from London mayor Boris Johnson, who was said to be amazed by Wallis's appointment and his ignorance of it. The question raised at city hall and in parliament was how could Yates and Stephenson think this was appropriate?

The answer, say sources, is that they may have been blinded by friendship. "Yates thought Wallis was a fantastic guy and really one of the very best journalists around," said one source. "The strange thing is that Wallis was regarded as a monster by lots of people in the newsrooms he worked in, but Yates had the utmost respect for him."

Wallis met Yates around the time he became editor of the People, a Sunday tabloid, in 1998. Working under Wallis was James Weatherup – the senior NoW journalist arrested in April – and Ian Edmondson, the paper's former head of news arrested earlier in the same month. Both men followed Wallis to the NoW when he went there to be deputy editor in 2003, although Weatherup spent a few intervening years at the Sunday Mirror.

During Wallis's time at the NoW, it broke a series of intriguing stories about the "cash for peerages" investigation into Tony Blair's government, led by Yates, including the claim that detectives believed Downing Street was trying to wreck their probe by leaking evidence. The Yardrefused to comment on whether Yates was the source.

When Wallis left the NoW in 2009 to start a freelance PR firm, the relationship continued. A senior Met source told the Observer: "Wallis met Yates numerous times for drinks and meals and they were not registered." A source added: "They were always very chummy and have continued to be so."

Now, however, both home secretary Theresa May and Johnson have referred the matter of Wallis's employment to Lord Justice Leveson, who is to head the inquiry into phone hacking and the ethics of the press ordered by David Cameron last week.

In his letter, Johnson also suggested the judge should assess whether the UK had a culture of "financial collusion between the press and police". In the coming days this question will continue to be asked.

Witnesses were taken aback by Labour MP Keith Vaz's abrupt and aggressive treatment of Yates at the home affairs select committee inquiry, which he chairs. Vaz read the assistant commissioner his rights in relation to misleading the committee, bawled "order, order" when he felt the officer was wasting time with overlong answers and ultimately concluded, peering over his glasses like a disappointed headteacher, that Yates's evidence was "unconvincing".

There is little in the makeup of Vaz to suggest he will give Stephenson an easier or more civil time when he appears before him . On Friday, Vaz recalled Stephenson, citing his serious concerns that Yates did not mention "the fact they were employing in their press office the [ex-]deputy editor of the newspaper they were investigating".

Former Met assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who now writes for the Times, was also grilled by the committee and reacted with outrage after being asked if he had accepted payments from journalists: "Good God, absolutely not. I can't believe you suggested that," he said.

Tory MP James Clappison, a member of the committee, said that, while sympathetic to the police, he too had been astonished. "I just want to have a full understanding of what the situation was between the Met and News International."

Yet Stephenson's greatest hurdle may not be the embarrassment of being probed by MPs. The bigger problem on the horizon is the next full meeting of the Metropolitan police authority, the body responsible for scrutinising the work of Scotland Yard, on 28 July.

There is growing talk of a vote of no confidence in the commissioner, a move which would inevitably leave Stephenson little choice but to remove himself from office. And as Scotland Yard struggles to deal with the crisis, its critics, who have long been dissatisfied by the size and inefficiency of the force, may take the opportunity to break it apart.

Richard Barnes, the deputy mayor of London and former deputy chairman of the police authority, said: "What I get incredibly disturbed about is the naivety of the management of the Met. There seems to be no exercise of control and that is supremely disappointing. It's like an endemic process, so they live with it.

"It also raises the question: is the Met too large now? Are there national issues that should be under a separate command and should the Met become a London police service? It has 52,000 people, a £3bn-plus budget. Can it be properly administered, does it need to be looked at? I do think we have to properly examine this." Guardian

The Met and the News Of The World: Too Cosy By Far

That the origin for this round-up of skulduggery and nefarious goings on is all the one source, I make no apology.

Leaving aside for today, Assistant Commissioner John, sweep it under the carpet and it will go away, Yates, we shall take a look at his boss, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson.

The first page of the many that I opened, all courtesy of the London Evening Standard, was accompanied by an involuntary but familiar groan. Seeing yet another top cop with ties to the north of Ireland, does tend to have that effect on me.

Whether in the case of Stephenson this has any bearing I couldn't say, but given how many other rouges in blue have previously cut their teeth on that particular rusk, I thought it worth a mention. (Sir Ronnie Flanagan, Jim Gamble, Sir Hugh Orde, Matt Baggott, Colin Port, to name but a few.)

Sir Paul Stephenson
...He was a superintendent by 1988, and spells in Liverpool and with the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland during the Troubles followed. He returned to Lancashire and was appointed chief constable in 2002, boosting his reputation by having his force judged the best in the country. Brief Bio

And just like another bent clown that we recently heard from, former assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, the same Andy Hayman that went on to work for News International. Just as Hayman blustered when questioned about his own integrity, even being called a "dodgy geezer" by one MP on the select committee, we have this from Sir Paul Stephenson. (Story and much watch video here, Hayman at the 2m 20s) mark

"I do not believe that on any occasion I have acted inappropriately. I am very satisfied with my own integrity," he said.

You may well be Sir Paul, but something's amiss, if it's not your integrity then it must be your judgement. Why else would you be hauled up before Boris for a right royal bollocking? sorry, Mayoral bollocking, to explain why you as Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Scotland Yard came to employ a former News of the World journalist arrested in the phone hacking inquiry as a PR consultant.

So if your integrity is not in question, then it must be your aforementioned judgement, though for the quarter of a million pounds that we pay you each year, I thought we might expect something a tad better.

Seems I'm not the only one that thinks we're being short changed, even David, call me paddling pool,* Camereon, would like a few answers, which one has to say, is a bit rich by anybody's standards.

Our next story from the Evening Standard starts with this header:

A huge blunder by Yard bosses - but will others emerge?

A huge blunder! how very kind of him; and continues:

At best, this is a massive failure of judgment (sic) by Scotland Yard bosses.

The practice of senior policemen dining with executives of national newspapers is nothing new and arguably an important part of staying in touch with public opinion.

Yet, sometimes there are questions over the type of company being kept by the police.

For these officers to then go and pay the newspapermen taxpayers' cash for media advice is much more serious and takes the debate to a new level.

Now, there are justifiable questions to be asked about why these contacts were being maintained, what did the police know and were there any deals done over stories and inquiries. There are further questions about when Met Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, who is investigating the hacking and bribery scandals, was told about Mr Wallis's contract.

Sir Paul Stephenson has attracted the ire of London Mayor Boris Johnson, MPs and the Prime Minister by failing to disclose the contract to them before the news leaked out last night

Despite the controversy, there is no suggestion, at present, that Neil Wallis gave any advice on phone hacking or that his employment at Scotland Yard had any impact upon the Met's decisions on whether or not to reopen its investigation into the News of the World.

Scotland Yard bosses will want to try to keep this as one isolated blunder.

The question is are there any more waiting to be revealed. LES

If I didn't know better, I would say your position, and that of your underdog, was becoming untenable, or to put it a tad less politely, you're fucked. But therein lies the problem, I've been around long enough that I do know better. Unfortunately.

* Shallow

Unedited