Yates was the police chief who oversaw the Operation Tempura debacle that resulted in not one successful prosecution and with the Scotland Yard team dispatched from the Caymans.

John Yates, who quit Met over hacking scandal, joins shopping giant Westfield

By Oliver Laughland in Sydney From The Gardian, UK

Former assistant commissioner will be based in Australia and take up the position of head of security from November

John Yates, who has been hired by the Australian shopping centre group Westfield. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

John Yates, the former assistant commissioner of London’s Metropolitan police who resigned over the phone hacking scandal, has been hired by the Australian shopping centre group Westfield, Guardian Australia has learned.

Yates, who moved to Bahrain as an adviser on police reform following his resignation in 2011, has joined the company, Westfield in Australia confirmed. He will be based in Australia and take up the position of head of security from November.

The multinational company operates one of the largest shopping centre networks in the world. Its half yearly results announced a profit of $515m in June, with an estimated portfolio value of $67.8bn.

A spokeswoman for Westfield in Australia would not comment further.

Yates resigned from the Metropolitan police in July 2011 following allegations he had helped the daughter of the News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis get a job there. He had also been criticised for failing to reopen a police inquiry into the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World in 2009, a decision he later described as a “pretty crap one”.

Yates said the decision to resign was due to the “huge amount of inaccurate, ill-informed and on occasion downright malicious gossip published about me personally. This has the potential to be a significant distraction in my current role as the national lead for counter-terrorism,” he said at the time.

He was subsequently investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) following the Wallis allegations, with the inquiry clearing him of any misconduct.

The Leveson inquiry also cleared Yates of corruption but criticised him for failing to stand aside during the 2009 re-examination of the phone hacking scandal. Leveson described it as “poor judgment”.

Following his resignation, Yates, the UK’s former top counter-terrorism officer, took up a six-month advisory job in Bahrain. This followed an independent assessment which found government security forces were responsible for human rights violations during the suppression of the country’s “Pearl revolution”.

He was briefed with reforming the police, following the Bahrain Independent Commission Inquiry’s report, which published more than 500 allegations of torture and a number of killings, during the uprising’s suppression.

On taking up the position, Yates said the preceding events were “tragic” and “appalling”, but as protesters continued to clash with police before the 2012 Bahrain F1 grand prix he dismissed some allegations of police brutality as “malicious propaganda”.

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