High Peak Liberal DemocratsIt was only a couple of years ago when my solicitor received a call from a Guardian journalist, that I knew Mulcaire had my name and mobile phone number in his notebook. So you will appreciate, a bit like the animals who agreed to provide the farmer with a full English breakfast for his birthday, whilst other politicians, like the hens, might be committed to the idea of getting to the bottom of the phone hacking saga, I, like the (other) pigs, am involved!
I am part of a group who sought, and have been granted, a judicial review of the first police phone hacking investigation. We are asking the courts whether the police failed in their legal duty to investigate the allegations fully, and failed in their duty under the Human Rights Act to help us to protect our right to a private and family life - the least they could have done is told us to be careful about using our voicemails. If successful, the courts will rule that the police have a lawful duty to fully investigate such crimes and to warn victims and potential victims of phone hacking in the future.
What such action is unlikely to uncover is why the police failed in their duty first time around.
Their current investigation, Operation Weeting, is finally getting to grips with the acres of evidence that was available to the first investigation. Victims, like myself, are being interviewed for the first time and new arrests are being made. There are numerous hypotheses as to why this is only happening now, none of which have sufficient evidence, at the moment, to show that they are the correct explanation.
In the light of recent developments, the "We had far more pressing matters to deal with" excuse seems to prompt the adage 'a stitch in time saves nine'. "We didn't want to upset News International" sounds outrageous but that depends which angle you are looking at it from.
Policing in the UK is based on the consent and active cooperation of the public, which in turn depends on the public having trust and confidence in the police. Too many negative police stories and not enough positive ones in the press can result in the gradual erosion of that trust and confidence, and potentially undermines the whole basis of British policing. A bit like the rioters in Brixton in 1981, you can understand why the police might have done it but that does not justify it.
If the police failed to investigate crimes, including hacking into murder victim Milly Dowler's phone, which had the potential to throw a murder enquiry off course as well as giving the grieving parent's false hope, so as not to upset their relationship with Murdoch's empire, we have every right to be appalled.
The third and most sinister explanation, unsubstantiated but possible, is that someone in the police could have curtailed the initial police investigation because the News of the World had something on them. We know that members of the Parliamentary Committee investigating these issues were warned-off recalling Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade), then editor of the News of the World, under threat that their own private lives would be exposed in the newspapers if they did (she was never recalled).
Similarly, one can speculate that there could have been some senior police officers, who may have had similar warning shots fired across their bows. I can recall at least two Chief Constables who had 'secret love child' stories published by tabloid newspapers in the past, and it is possible that other senior officers' skeletons have been discovered by the press but not yet revealed to the public.
I have to stress that we have no direct evidence to support any of these possible explanations but the longer the police refuse to tell us why the initial phone hacking inquiry was so woefully inadequate, the longer the conspiracy theorists have to engage in damaging speculation.
Brooks admitted in 2003 that News International was paying police officers for information. The only 'new' development on this front is that News International has only now provided the police with information about some of the officers they paid, forcing the police to investigate matters that should arguably have been investigated eight years ago. For the record, paying police officers for confidential information that they could only have secured through their work as a police officer is a criminal offence by both police officer and journalist.
Whilst the Metropolitan Police investigation into these allegations of corruption is being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, it might be timely to remind readers that the Director of Investigations at the IPCC is a former Metropolitan Police Commander and right-hand man to the former Commissioner, now Lord, Ian Blair.
And now they have axed the News of the World. A commercial decision as they no longer have the advertisers and possibly the readership? A cynical ploy to make it more likely that Murdoch can buy BskyB? Or a mass slaughter in an attempt to save one person, Rebekah Brooks? Whatever it is, it should make no difference to the police investigation or the public inquiry.
Hopefully I have convinced you that this is a complete mess.
The corruption allegations should be investigated by an independent police force, led by a senior officer with no previous connection to the Metropolitan Police. Whilst I have confidence that Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers is conducting a thorough investigation under Operation Weeting, what went wrong with the first phone hacking investigation is beyond her remit.
Only a public inquiry led by a judge, who can compel witnesses to give evidence on oath, stands any chance of getting to the bottom of this. The illegal practices of the press, the relationship between the police and the press, and politicians and the press, all need to be examined. And those found guilty of criminality should be prosecuted.
As for me, as I told Andrew Gilligan in the London Evening Standard during the last Mayoral Campaign, my skeletons and I have been out of the closet for some time, which is why I am unafraid to speak out and demand that the police and the press are held to account.
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