The Metropolitan police has backed down from its threat to use the Official Secrets Act to force Guardian journalists to reveal sources in the phone-hacking scandal investigation. The Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Mark Simmons, admitted that the attempt was “not appropriate.” Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian welcomed the withdrawal of the “ill-judged order”, and said that “threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists’ confidential sources.” Index condemned the efforts on Friday, and Chief Executive John Kampfner said that the move was “shocking” and “a direct attack on a free press.”
