News International ‘failed to cooperate’

Senior officers, including the woman in charge of the current phone-hacking investigation, have been giving evidence to MPs.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said police had only contacted 170 people on a list that contained 3,870 names, 5,000 landline numbers and 4,000 mobile numbers.

It follows a week of controversial allegations surrounding News International and its British newspapers. The News of the World, which has taken the brunt of the criticism, was axed at the weekend.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the police officer who decided not to reopen the phone-hacking investigation in 2009, told MPs it was a matter of “great concern” that the News of the World appears to have failed to co-operate in the way it should have.

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“They have only recently supplied information and evidence that would clearly have had a significant impact on the decisions that I took in 2009, had it been provided to us,” he said.

Mr Yates also said he was “99 per cent certain” that his phone had been hacked.

He said: “From the methods I know that are used, and the impact it has on your phone, your pin number, I am 99 per cent certain my phone was hacked during a period of 2005-06.”

Hacking analysis ‘couldn’t be justified’

Peter Clarke, a former deputy assistant commissioner who oversaw the original investigation into phone hacking, said he had not trawled about 11,000 pages of material because he could not justify the resources that would have been needed.

The documents were seized by police after the arrest of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, but Mr Clarke and his senior colleagues decided against an “exhaustive analysis” of the documents, he told the Home Affairs Select Committee.

“In the wider context of counter-terrorist operations that posed an immediate threat to the British public, when set against the criminal course of conduct that involved gross breaches of privacy but no apparent threat of physical harm to the public, I could not justify the huge expenditure of resources this would entail over an inevitably protracted period,” he said.

Mr Clarke also criticised News International for refusing to co-operate and said that was why the inquiry into the company could not be broadened out.

Angry clashes

Former Scotland Yard assistant commissioner Andy Hayman clashed with MPs when they tried to ask him if he had ever accepted payments from news organisations.

Mr Hayman initially reacted with mock horror when the question was put to him by Conservative MP Lorraine Fullbrook

“Good God, absolutely not. I can’t believe that you suggested that,” he replied.

But his apparent amusement turned to anger when the Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert interjected: “Lots of people did.”

Mr Hayman hit back, saying: “Come on, hang on, I’m not letting you get away with that. Absolutely no way. I can say to you…”

Home Affairs committee chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, intervened.

“Order, order,” he said. “Members of this committee are allowed to ask any question they wish. It is a fair question to put because it is in the public domain at the moment about other police officers.

“She’s put her question, you’ve given an answer, the answer is an unequivocal ‘no’.”

Finally satisfied, Mr Hayman replied: “Absolutely”.