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Phone hacking: police promise ’robust’ investigation

28 January 2011 01:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The head of the Metropolitan police said today that "no stone will be left unturned" in the fresh investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking allegations announced yesterday, four years after the initial convictions in the case, APA reports quoting guardian.co.uk website.
Speaking at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority in London’s City Hall this morning, acting commissioner Tim Godwin promised a "robust investigation" that "will restore the confidence for those victims who feel we have not given them the service (they deserve)".
Godwin was forced to defend the Met’s decision not to reopen the case 18 months ago, however, in the face of criticism from MPA members.
Scotland Yard announced a new criminal inquiry yesterday after the paper passed it "significant new information".
The new information passed by the News of the World to the police is believed to consist of four emails retrieved from a computer belonging to Ian Edmondson, the News of the World’s assistant editor (news), who was sacked by the paper on Tuesday following an internal inquiry.
Scotland Yard previously rejected repeated demands to re-examine evidence and reopen the case, however, despite a series of revelations in the Guardian and the New York Times about the extent of the practice at the paper.
MPA member Jenny Jones, a Green party member of the London Assembly, told acting assistant commissioner John Yates â€“ who also at City Hall today â€“ he had "got quite tetchy" at a previous hearing when asked why he had decided not reopen the case sooner.
Yates reviewed the phone-hacking evidence in July 2009 after the Guardian revealed the paper’s owner, News Group, had paid about Â£1m in out-of-court settlements to victims of hacking, including PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor, to settle privacy cases. He decided the case should remain closed.
Jones accused Yates of having a "disregard for our questions" and characterised his response to criticisms levelled at the police as: "Don’t worry your pretty little heads about that. We are the experts."
Yates responded: "If I did appear tetchy it was because I was expected to act on facts that were not in any way able to be developed into evidence. I was being asked to act on rumour, innuendo and gossip."
He concluded in less than 24 hours that there was not sufficient evidence to reopen the phone-hacking case, which resulted in jail terms in 2007 for Clive Goodman, a former royal editor at the News of the World, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator employed by the paper.
Both men pleaded guilty to illegally intercepting voicemails belonging to members of the royal household. The paper said they had acted alone and without the knowledge of executives at the paper, including Andy Coulson, who resigned as editor when Goodman was jailed.
Coulson resigned as David Cameron’s director of communications last week saying coverage of phone hacking made it impossible for him to do his job.
"I have always said we will respond to any new evidence and that is exactly what we have done today. This is the first significant new evidence that may have a chance of being admissible. We have set up a new team to deal with that and we need to let them get on with it," Yates said today.
"This is the first time we have announced a new investigation with new material where there is a prospect of developing some promising lines of inquiry," he added.
Yates said "the original investigation was constructed with the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service]", prosecutors had "access to all the material" and the scale of the prosecution was a matter for the CPS.
The emails sent by Edmondson are rumoured to contain the names of other News of the World executives, although the paper has not confirmed this.
Jones also questioned Godwin and Yates about the close ties between the police and News of the World journalists and demanded to know how often senior officers and reporters at the paper were in contact.
"Coffee, lunch, dinner, dance â€“ it would be useful to have that [information]," Jones said.
"We need to understand your motives," she added. "How can we be sure there is no fear or favour in the way the investigation is moving?"
Godwin replied: "I haven’t had any meetings with the News of the World. I would be the last person to bow to pressure to drop the case."
Yates said: "News International is a big beast and we have a lot of dealings with them every week, so don’t be surprised if there are meetings."
Godwin said the new investigation, which will be carried out by deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, will leave "no stone unturned".
Akers is a specialist in tackling organised criminal gangs. The commissioner said that this decision was "not a reflection" of Yates’s personal performance, but a reflection of the need to keep the division focused on counter-terrorism activities at a time of increased threats.
Executives at the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch’s News International, are struggling to contain a crisis that now threatens to engulf the whole of Fleet Street.
A number of public figures are threatening to sue other red-top papers over the actions of reporters who allegedly hacked into their voicemails, according to Mark Lewis, a solicitor acting for several claimants.
Murdoch is in London this week and is understood to have taken charge of the group’s handling of the affair at a sensitive time. He is also in town as the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, considers whether to approve a bid by Murdoch’s global media conglomerate News Corp to take full control of BSkyB.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said today that David Cameron will not be meeting with or speaking to Murdoch while he is in the country.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Fowler, who chairs the House of Lords communications committee, today called for "a full-scale inquiry" into the phone-hacking affair.
A report into phone hacking published by the Commons culture select committee in February 2010 concluded that News International was guilty of "collective amnesia" over the affair.