Former intelligence officer alleges inquiry buried evidence of high-level corruption between MPs, press and police
Tom Harper
Sunday 2 March 2014
Sir Brian Leveson “pulled his punches” over evidence of “serious police corruption at the very highest level” because it was “too hot to handle”, according to a complaint that has been lodged with the judicial watchdog by a News of the World hacking victim.
Ian Hurst, a former British Army intelligence officer whose family computer was infiltrated by private investigators working for the now defunct Sunday red-top, has written to the Ministry of Justice to complain that the senior judge “failed in his judicial duty” during his public inquiry into inappropriate relationships between the press, the police and politicians.
In his letter sent to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, the former spy said Sir Brian “covered up” the existence of a Scotland Yard intelligence report detailing a corrupt relationship between a very senior former police officer and a News of the World executive – neither of whom have ever been charged with criminal offences.
Mr Hurst said his complaint was prompted by The Independent on Sunday revealing the milestone inquiry had ignored the classified document, which alleged the policeman obtained highly confidential information on decisions taken by Lord Blair when he was Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 2006, and passed it to the NOTW.
Mr Hurst said: “I believe this complaint will demonstrate that Sir Brian pulled his punches with regards to evidence of serious police-press corruption at the very highest level – evidence that was indisputably central to the terms of reference agreed with Prime Minister David Cameron.” The former intelligence officer concludes that Sir Brian was “prepared to turn a blind eye to rampant allegations of corruption at the very centre of the nexus of corruption between the press and the police”. Mr Hurst has also implored the watchdog to contact Lord Blair, whom he describes as “perhaps the most high-profile police victim of the dark forces the Leveson Inquiry was supposed to expose and eradicate”.
The former Met chief is understood to be gravely concerned by the report, which shows some within Scotland Yard’s anti-corruption command knew his team had been compromised in 2006 – yet failed to warn him.
Mr Hurst claims he was also shown the intelligence report in June 2011 by a senior journalist from the BBC’s Panorama, who had allegedly obtained it from police sources.
When he gave evidence at the Leveson inquiry, the 53-year-old alluded to the existence of the file and says Sir Brian “begged” him for a copy.
In November 2011, Mr Hurst told the inquiry: “The documentation that I’ve seen and others have seen, including Parliamentarians, clearly shows the corruptness which was allowed to continue and the culture was encouraged, which would not have allowed phone-hacking or computer-hacking to have taken place over such a sustained period if it didn’t have the cover and the protection of very senior police officers.”
According to transcripts, Sir Brian repeatedly asked Mr Hurst to give him details of the report, saying: “I need to know what I need to know.”
In his complaint, Mr Hurst said: “He told me not to bring it up at the time as he was very keen to include it in ‘module two’ [in Part One] of his inquiry in early 2012. Crucially, he quite explicitly said that is was not for Part Two, which is yet to take place.” Part Two is due to look at tabloid phone hacking and whether police were complicit in the misconduct, but has been deferred until the end of criminal proceedings.
The former intelligence officer said he followed Sir Brian’s instructions and prepared a second witness statement, which included details of the intelligence report. But in the intervening months, Sir Brian appeared to have a change of heart, and rejected Mr Hurst’s new evidence.
It is understood that when Lord Blair gave evidence to the inquiry in March 2012, he was surprised not to be questioned about the intelligence report and its significance.
Mr Hurst told the Ministry of Justice: “It also seems that other former senior (and honest) police officers – including ... Lord Blair – are also aware of Sir Brian’s failure to fulfil his judicial duty with regard to the suppression of this evidence.”
He noted that Sir Brian refused to answer questions about the report when he appeared before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in October. Tory MP Tracey Crouch asked the judge if he was “flummoxed”.
In his complaint, Mr Hurst said: “The Met gathered this intelligence in 2006, it leaked out into the public domain in 2011 yet the [police officer] has still not been arrested and it is 2014. [The NOTW executive] has still not been charged with any offences, despite the Met holding prima facie evidence of his criminality dating back to at least 1998 which I have seen and can provide you with.”
He added that inquiries should “proceed to recover all the available material of evidential value without fear, favour or outside influences”.
Sir Brian did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the Judiciary said: "The Inquiry has now concluded and all of Lord Justice Leveson's conclusions are set out in his Report. The Inquiry didn't provide any kind of commentary outside of the hearings on what was included or not during the course of the Inquiry and it wouldn't be appropriate to start doing so now. He has nothing to add to his Report.
"In any event, the terms of reference for the Inquiry were about the culture, practices and ethics of the press and how they engaged with the public, the police and politicians. Evidence on other issues would have been considered to have been outside those terms of reference. As you yourself indicate, Lord Justice Leveson dealt with the point of Ian Hurst's evidence in his ruling of 26 March 2012." Indi Online
1. Was the 'man carrying a child' really a red herring?
On the night Maddy went missing, one of the McCann's holiday companions said she saw a man carrying a child near the Ocean Club apartment block at around 9.15pm.
Jane Tanner said the child was barefoot and wearing light-coloured pink pyjamas with a floral pattern and cuffs on the legs, a description that matched the pyjamas Maddy had been wearing.
But Scotland Yard said last year they believe the man Ms Tanner saw was another British holidaymaker carrying his child.
Officers took photos of the man wearing similar clothes and standing in a similar posed.
DCI Redwood said his officers were "almost certain" that this sighting was not related to the abduction.
1. Was the 'man carrying a child' really a red herring?
On the night Maddy went missing, one of the McCann's holiday companions said she saw a man carrying a child near the Ocean Club apartment block at around 9.15pm.
Jane Tanner said the child was barefoot and wearing light-coloured pink pyjamas with a floral pattern and cuffs on the legs, a description that matched the pyjamas Maddy had been wearing.
But Scotland Yard said last year they believe the man Ms Tanner saw was another British holidaymaker carrying his child.
Officers took photos of the man wearing similar clothes and standing in a similar posed.
DCI Redwood said his officers were "almost certain" that this sighting was not related to the abduction. Source
Same Kinda Clothes
. . . . At what stage did this guy (crechedad) go to the Leicestershire Police in the UK and tell them that he believed he was the person who Jane Tanner had seen carrying a child?
Much as I thought it odd that this guy had preserved the actual clothes he had been wearing on that night, I find it much more odd, that the clothes he is wearing in the above picture were in fact NOT those same clothes.
So were did he get them? Metropolitan Police provide them for him?
Makes it all the more FISHY!
Met were hardly going to supply him with an outfit that did not match the McCanns sketch, a sketch we are told was based on their buddy Jane Tanner's sighting!
Well, now you can knock me down with a feather, because that rather changes an already outrageous story! . . . . My! What a lot of questions.
A new disgrace in the €16.4 million police investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has erupted in the British media.
It now appears that the Operation Grange ‘Maddie probe’ has involved the hiring of private investigators from firms that were actually being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for “allegedly overcharging” the British government.
According to a report in the Sunday Times, both firms were under suspicion of putting in bogus charges for the electronic tagging of released prisoners who were either “dead, back in prison or had fled the country”.
One of the companies, G4S, has “since repaid more than €130 million to the Treasury” over the scandal, but it is still another low moment for the Metropolitan Police which has come under enormous criticism for spending so much money on the Maddie investigation over the past eight-plus years, without coming up with one single charge or provable theory.
According to stories in the media today, “up to 81 officers from private security firm G4S were recruited to assist Operation Grange - even though at one stage 31 detectives were assigned to work on the case full-time”. more
Si M said
A G4S Director/Share Holder is married to Home Secretary Theresa May, so this is effectively laundering of British government money( ie TAX PAYERS money) supposedly put aside to hunt for girl whom all the evidence suggests died in Praia De Luz. SCAM!
Security firm G4S has vehemently denied that Theresa May’s husband has any involvement with it, following claims on this blog and many, many others. more
