The Met gagged Leveson Inquiry over claims that senior police officer sold secrets to the News of the World
From London Evening Standard
Campaigning Labour MP calls on May to ensure vital documents were not withheld from probe
The Met “gagged” the Leveson Inquiry from revealing intelligence that a very senior former police officer passed on sensitive information to the News of the World, the Standard reveals today.
The force claimed a “public interest immunity certificate” to ban the disclosure of a report that alleged the officer was obtaining highly confidential information on decisions taken by Lord Blair when he was Commissioner.
The classified document, which the Met withheld from the Leveson Inquiry until after it could have been usefully raised in the public hearings, suggested the officer — who is not named for legal reasons —passed the leak on to the tabloid for money.
When it was finally passed to the inquiry, Scotland Yard claimed “public interest immunity” which prevented Lord Justice Leveson from referring to it in public or considering it for the conclusions in his landmark report into inappropriate relationships between the press and police.
Tom Watson, the campaigning Labour MP, said: “These are remarkably serious events uncovered by the Evening Standard. As the Prime Minster has said, this inquiry was supposed to have left no stone unturned but it now appears to have been gagged by the very force it was set up to investigate.
“I’m sure the current Commissioner would wish to urgently review what happened and I will be writing to the Home Secretary Theresa May to ask that she satisfies herself that all seemingly vital documents from the Yard were not withheld from Lord Justice Leveson.”
When the Evening Standard asked counsel to the inquiry Robert Jay QC why he did not raise these matters during the public hearings, he broke a 10-month silence and issued an extra-ordinary public statement.
The senior barrister, who was “gatekeeper” to the inquiry and had a huge influence over what evidence was made public, wanted to “make clear” that he and Lord Justice Leveson were “never shown” the intelligence report until “well after” it could have been used.
He added: “The Met is claiming public interest immunity in relation to any police intelligence report, the contents of which are neither confirmed nor denied.
“I also owe continuing obligations of confidence to the Met and others in relation to information I received during the course of the inquiry. These factors have at all stages limited what I am able to place in the public domain, and continue to do so.”
A source close to Lord Justice Leveson told the Standard the intelligence report would have been used by the inquiry if the Met had passed it over before Lord Blair gave evidence.
Unable to refer to the intelligence of police corruption at a very senior level, Lord Justice Leveson was forced to publicly clear the Met and found the force conducted itself with “integrity” at all times.
News that the Met successfully gagged a public inquiry investigating its own conduct has raised serious questions that Lord Justice Leveson was unable to deliver the aims of David Cameron when he established the milestone judicial investigation in July 2011.
After setting up the inquiry in the wake of the Milly Dowler scandal, Mr Cameron told the Commons: “What this country has to confront is an episode that is frankly disgraceful, accusations of widespread law-breaking by parts of our press; alleged corruption by some police officers; a failure of our political system over many, many years to tackle a problem that’s been getting worse.”
Later, he added: “No one should be in any doubt of our intention to get to the bottom of the truth and learn the lessons for the future.”
Bob Quick, Scotland Yard’s former head of counter-terrorism operations, said: “The contents of this intelligence report, if true, are disturbing. When it was discovered, it was swiftly and properly handed over to the Met prior to the Leveson hearings and I am surprised its content was not subject of some examination during the inquiry.”
The intelligence report, dated 2006 and created by Scotland Yard’s anti-corruption command, said a key News of the World hacking suspect, who shall be called Mr Root for legal reasons, was aware of unauthorised disclosures to the former senior officer, who had left the Met.
However, it is understood the alleged breach in Lord Blair’s senior management team, which regularly discussed matters of national security, was never passed on to the Commissioner.
The former commissioner first learned of the report when a whistleblower handed it to him in December 2011 at the height of the Leveson Inquiry.
When he learned that Met anti- corruption officers had intelligence to suggest his senior team had been compromised six years earlier yet told him nothing about it, Lord Blair visited Scotland Yard’s headquarters in Victoria. He passed the report to detectives working on multiple criminal investigations into corrupt police officers leaking sensitive information to the Murdoch media empire and other newspapers.
Lord Blair, who led the Met between 2005 and 2008, asked his former colleagues to investigate the allegations, find out who knew about the security breach and discover why he was not told.
It is understood the Yard assured him the intelligence report, written by a named detective inside the Met’s powerful directorate of professional standards, would be handed to Lord Justice Leveson to evaluate and consider for his report.
The Standard has been told that Lord Blair also discussed the contents of the document with Neil Garnham, a QC leading the Met’s interaction with the Leveson Inquiry. However, the former police chief was astonished when he was not questioned over the report’s implications during his time in the witness box last March.
Now, it can be disclosed that the Leveson Inquiry was not passed the document until April, six weeks after Lord Blair gave evidence and six months after he handed it to the Met.
The senior former police officer, who shall be called “Zed” for legal reasons, has not been arrested by detectives investigating alleged leaks of information to journalists for payment. However other officers, including the assistant commissioner of City of London police and a Met borough commander, have been seized by detectives investigating unauthorised disclosures to reporters – despite, on each occasion, no money changing hands.
Since Lord Justice Leveson effectively cleared Scotland Yard, police across the country have launched a crackdown on the media, arresting whistleblowers who leak journalists information in the public interest and introducing new rules under which the identities of people they arrest will be kept secret from the public.
A Met spokesman said: “The intelligence report referred to dates from 2006. It did not identify an individual as the source of information allegedly being disclosed from the Met management board and it was not considered that it warranted further action.
“Intelligence reports may contain sensitive information and this document was therefore shared with the inquiry on a confidential basis.
“The Met will neither confirm nor deny whether Public Interest Immunity was sought in relation to any material provided to the inquiry. It was not for the Met to determine what was or was not put to any witnesses or used as evidence.”
A spokesman for Zed said: “These claims are utter nonsense and the implications are possibly defamatory.”
For more on this story go to:
The senior former police officer, called “Zed” for legal reasons, has been named on the cryptome.org website.
