27 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry, News and features
Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Brian Paddick, has described a culture of cover-up and infighting among senior officers during his time at the force.
Testifying at the Leveson Inquiry today, Paddick called for a change in culture “from the top”, arguing that it was important for there to be a healthy and “above-board” relationship between the police and the press, suggesting that relations between the two should be on the basis of formal, minuted meetings, “not on gossiping over dinners or booze”.
“We have to draw a line when it comes to police officers being paid for information,” Paddick added. “I do not accept (…) that if a story is in the public interest you can pay a public official to disclose information,” he said.
He told the Inquiry that the Met’s commissioners had “conducted charm offensives with mixed success” and wrote in his witness statement that the efforts made to get positive stories into the media “distorted” senior officers’ judgments.
“The difficulty comes when the police have to prosecute their ‘friends’” his statement read.
Paddick wrote that the culture at the Met went from being “very open to almost paranoid” during Sir Ian Blair’s Commissionership. He cited a “clampdown on anyone having contact with the media”, and unsuccessful investigations being launched to look into unauthorised leaks of information. He added that “good relationships” with UK newspaper editors were “seen as being more important than ever”.
He added that the Met sought to prevent certain stories from getting into the public domain in order to protect its reputation. He told the Inquiry he was ordered to “tone down” criticisms made of a review into rape investigations by the Met that had found “serious shortcomings” and made recommendations. The press officer involved said her job was to “make sure report got no publicity”, Paddick added, arguing that the interests of rape victims were sacrificed to protect the Met.
He opined that the “desire of the MPS to avoid public embarrassment and reputational damage may have led them not to pursue evidence of possible police corruption and to mislead the public about the ambit and scale of phone-hacking.”
He noted that within six days of the arrests of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire in August 2006, 418 potential hacking victims had been identified, but “only a tiny fraction of those people were actually told”.
Paddick also told the Inquiry his name appeared on a printout from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire’s computer, listed as a “project”, which he said meant it was “reasonable [that] there was a prima facie case I was a target for phone hacking.”
He also revealed that a printout from Mulcaire’s computer that was shown to a police officer appeared to contain details of people who had been given new identities after being put on the Witness Protection Programme.
“It would have included people like the people convicted of James Bulger’s murder,” he said. “People are only put into the witness protection programme when their lives are potentially at risk or in serious danger. For this to be in the hands of Mulcaire and potentially the News of the World is clearly worrying.”
He stressed he had the “utmost respect” for current DAC Sue Akers, the officer leading the investigations into illegal behaviour of journalists, but added that it was “difficult to see how everybody can have complete confidence we are going to get to the bottom of what is going on” He suggested it would be better for public perception if current investigations were being conducted by an outside force not connected to the Met.
Last year Paddick and the former deputy Prime Minister Lord John Prescott successfully argued at a judicial review that the Metropolitan Police failed to notify them about potential hacking.
Prescott, who also appeared before the court this afternoon expressed his unease about the relationship between politicians and the press.
“I’m not the best person to ask about relationships with the press because mine has never been good but with regards to the Murdoch press, I always thought it was wrong that politicians at the highest level were too close to Murdoch…There is always a price. It’s not exactly corruption and I’m not accusing them of that…I thought it gave a corrupting influence that they had too much influence and power.”
Prescott added that that he was opposed to a statutory regulation, even though he believes he has “as much reason as anyone to have a go at the press”. The former MP suggested a regulatory framework, to be decided on by a judge, adding: “You have to find a balance that people think is fair. What’s made the difference is no-win no-cost. I just think if you can’t get redress, you’ve got to have a sanction.”
Describing the stories regarding his social life, the politician told the court he had wondered where stories came from, but never imagined that his phone had been hacked. In December 2009, Prescott was told by police that there was no evidence that Glenn Mulcaire had intercepted his voicemail, but police said there were two tax invoices and a piece of paper with “Prescott” written on it.
“That should be a good clue to a policeman that there is something there. I did suspect at first they meant my son because the Murdoch press and the Times had done a number of stories on him but I’ve since been assured not,” Prescott told the court.
He added that misleading statements and the failure of the police to provide him with the information he believed he was entitled to, led him to take legal action.
27 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The Metropolitan police’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner told the Leveson Inquiry this morning that Operation Elveden has revealed there was “a culture at the Sun of illegal payments while hiding the identity of the officials”.
Discussing the recent arrests of journalists at the tabloid over alleged improper payments, Sue Akers said that payments to sources were openly referred to within the Sun, and that one official has been paid more than £80,000 over a number of years, while another journalist received £150,000 over a period to pay a source.
Akers said Operation Elveden, which investigates payments to police officers, revealed a “network of corrupted officials”, and that payments were made not only to police officers but wide range of public officials across the military, prisons, police and health departments. Akers added that were was a “tradecraft” of hiding cash payments by making them to a source’s friend or relative, a practice that was authorised at a “senior level” at the paper.
The majority of payments she had seen evidence of had led to articles that were “salacious gossip rather than anything that could regarded as remotely in the public interest”, Akers claimed.
The revelations were made as the Leveson Inquiry began its second module, which examines the relationship between the press and the police.
In a dramatic morning, Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC discussed an email from ex-News International legal manager Tom Crone to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, which revealed that Coulson was told in 2006 that there were over £1 million of payments to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, and that Mulcaire had hacked hundreds of phones.
The email, based on a briefing that Crone had been told by then Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, showed that Brooks was aware the police had found evidence of News International’s payments to Mulcaire, and that police had asked her whether she “wanted to take it [the investigation] further”.
It was revealed that after the 2006 arrest of Mulcaire and former News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman, the police realised that there were hundreds of individuals who had been targeted for hacking, yet argued that counter-terrorism was more important than investigating the practice.
In his opening remarks, Jay said the relationship between News International and the Metropolitan police was “at best inappropriately close, and if not actually corrupt, very close to it.”
He added that there was an “obvious risk when two powerful organisations come into contact” arguing that there was scope for “self-interest” and that it “does not take many rotten apples to undermine the whole body politic.” Jay cited that risks might include off the record briefings with an “obvious lack of transparency” and the attribution of stories to police sources who may not in fact be police sources.
Lord Justice Leveson also made a thinly-veiled rebuttal of remarks made by education secretary Michael Gove that the Inquiry had had a chilling effect on the British press.
Leveson argued that criticism of the Inquiry was “troubling”, and that the inquiry itself had “done no more than follow its mandated terms of reference”.
In a speech to journalists at Westminster last week, Gove claimed there was now a “chilling atmosphere towards freedom of expression which emanates from the debate around Leveson”.
“I do not believe the inquiry was or is premature, and I intend to continue to do neither more nor less than was required of me,” Leveson said.
He reiterated his belief in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but said journalism must obey the “rule of law” and act in the public interest. He said he was “not interested” in becoming an arbiter of what a free press should look like.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
27 Feb 2012 | Russia
More than 30,000 people encircled Moscow in a human chain along Sadovoe Kolco, a 10-mile long road surrounding the city yesterday.
Protesters were calling for fair elections and for the ousting of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Arguably, the biggest surprise of the protest was its participants. What was once referred to as a “hipster-revolution” has become a broader movement. Yesterday’s human chain united people across social class, age, gender and even political creed. There were hard-core leftists but also liberals and disillusioned former Putinistas. There were mothers and fathers with their children (and dogs, too). There were, of course, youngsters – but also many, many elderly people as well.
Kaya Ivanovna, a 80-year-old former librarian found out about the protests from the radio. “There are many more prohibitions, and all the interesting TV programmes that made us reflect and discuss were shut down. I want real change”.
The unusual protest started at 2pm and continued for a couple of hours under the abundant snow covering the capital. Moscow, a usually grey and unwelcoming city, yesterday displayed a ten-mile-long smile.
The only note of unrest in an otherwise peaceful demonstration was the impromptu action organised by the opposition party Left Front in Revolution Square. The unauthorised protest triggered scuffles with the police and the ultra-nationalist group Nashi.
Index was there and filmed the Left Front’s leader Sergei Udaltsov’s statement before the clashes and arrests started. “We are here to celebrate our own Maslennitsa [the Russian spring feast celebrated yesterday]”, he said. “We want to get rid of the political winter, and we want a new political spring to come to Russia starting from today”.
Meanwhile, thousands of Russians are preparing to serve as election observers for the elections to be held on 4 March. Referring to the huge number of registrations the daily newspaper Vedomosti referenced “A country of observers”.
The next protest action is planned for election day 4 March but many believe that 5 March will be the day when the movement “for fair elections” will see its biggest demonstration yet.
Tena Prelec is a freelance writer and consultant at the ESOP Centre, London.
27 Feb 2012 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
A Cairo military court on Sunday heard witness testimony in a case against a soldier who allegedly performed “virginity tests” on seven female protesters on 10 March 2011.
22-year-old Samira Ibrahim filed a lawsuit against the military doctor whom she accuses of conducting the tests on her and six other female detainees near Tahrir Square. In December, Ibrahim won an earlier case against the Supreme Council of the Armed Force (SCAF) when a Cairo Administrative Court ruled that virginity checks should not take place again in military prisons. According to human rights lawyer Hossam Bahgat the landmark ruling was the first of its kind against the military and was “the first crack in the SCAF’s impunity.”
In this second case, the defendant has denied performing the tests, insisting that he had simply asked the detainees if they were virgins rather than subjecting them to physical tests.
In Sunday’s court session, Rasha Abdel Rahman, a protester who claims to have undergone a virginity test after she was arrested on 9 March 2011, offered the court a graphic description of her ordeal. Abdel Rahman said she had been strip-searched by a female prison guard in an exposed space where the door and windows were left wide open. According to Abdel Rahman the doctor performed the test as soldiers walked past, she was threatened with beatings and electrocution if she refused to comply.
“Imagine if you, your daughter, sister or wife were subjected to such violation?” Abdel Rahman asked in a video she had earlier posted on YouTube. She says the traumatic experience continues to haunt her.
Other witnesses in the case included human rights activist Mona Seif, founder of the No to Military Trials campaign and Heba Morayef, a Human Rights Watch researcher.
They testified that Generals Mohamed El Assar and Hassan el Ruweiny had described the tests as a routine procedure in military prisons. Explaining that during official meetings El Assar and el Ruweiny described the tests as a “defensive measure” so that the women could not later claim they had been raped or sexually violated while in prison. Amnesty International also sent a written testimony citing an acknowledgement from a third general that the tests had been performed.
On 27 May 2011 in an interview with me on CNN, a senior military general admitted for the first time that virginity tests were performed on the female detainees. At the time, CNN did not disclose the general’s name. While testifying in court Sunday, I revealed my source was General Ismail Etman, who at the time was Head of the Armed Forces Morale Affairs department.
The court also heard from the defendant’s lawyers who claimed Abdel Rahman’s story did not match Ibrahim’s earlier story. The defence went on to point out that the other witnesses all worked for “foreign organisations”— suggesting that these organisations had hidden agendas, an allegation which has been frequently repeated by SCAF and government officials in recent weeks.
Ibrahim’s lawyers described the court session as a theatrical drama and a farce saying that the verdict was probably predetermined. The lawyers added that the case should have been referred to a civilian court to guarantee a fair trial.
“However, we are putting up a fight in order to reveal the truth,” Hossam Bahgat told reporters gathered outside the Nasr City military courthouse.
The court adjourned until 11 March when a verdict is expected.
