Yates apologises for failures in phone hacking review

An assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has expressed “regret” and admitted the force did not do enough to deal with individuals who were potentially affected by the phone hacking scandal, but accused the News of the World of failing to cooperate with the inquiry in 2009.

Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) on Tuesday (July 12), John Yates said if the previous inquiry, which he led, had known what the current investigation has been made aware of, a “different decision” would have been taken.

He said: “I express regret that we didn’t do enough about dealing with those that were potentially affected by the phone hacking and I have held my hands up and I passionately believe in doing the right thing around these matters. If I’m found out to be wrong and made an error then I’ll hold my hands up.

“It is a matter of great concern, for whatever reason, the News of the World has failed to cooperate in the way we now know they should have with the relevant police inquiries until January this year. They have only recently supplied information and evidence that would clearly have had a significant impact on the decisions I took in 2009 had it been provided to us then.”
Mr Yates categorically denied that he had lied and that all the information he had given to various committees had been in “good faith”.

The MPS’ former deputy assistant commissioner, Peter Clarke, also echoed the concerns raised by Mr Yates and said that the original inquiry in 2005/6 “pursued it as far as we could through the correspondence with the News of the World lawyers.”

However, the News of the World, under the ownership of News International, had access to the best legal advice, added Mr Clarke, and deliberately tried to thwart a criminal investigation.
The HASC also heard that during the original inquiry in 2005 and 2006, a number of other life threatening inquiries, in particular threats from terrorism, were being looked at by the MPS and a judgement call had to be made.

The former commissioner of the MPS, Lord Ian Blair, also gave evidence and recalled that at the time the investigation into the phone hacking of members of the Royal Family was not a major inquiry and never became one while he was leading the force.

Lord Blair said that he might have taken a “different decision” if all the evidence now available was made available then.

He added that he was completely unaware of any officers accepting payments from the News of the World in return for information, although he did suspect there was some level of corruption taking place.

“I do not have that information but in my track record I have a very long record of dealing with corruption in the police service, and had I suspected that we had any evidence that suggested that was happening, then no stone would have been unturned. I strongly suspected there was corruption, that’s why we had an anti-corruption command. I do not know of any payments that were made,” explained Lord Blair.

Sir Paul Stephenson, Commissioner of the MPS, gave his backing to Mr Yates and described him as having an “excellent record” in challenging areas.

He said: “We saw yet again Assistant Commissioner John Yates called to give evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee. John has taken on some of the MPS’s most difficult roles and has an excellent record in some very challenging areas. He never shies away from those difficult cases and in this particular matter, we need to give him credit for his courage and humility in acknowledging that if he knew then what he knows now, he would have taken different decisions.”

Sir Paul added that assistant commissioner currently undertakes one of the most difficult jobs in UK policing, and is doing an outstanding job leading the force’s fight against terrorism.
“He has my full support and confidence and that of our partners,” concluded Sir Paul.

Investigations

The Independent Police