{"id":93437,"date":"2011-12-05T14:31:37","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T14:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=6979"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:28:36","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:28:36","slug":"leveson-inquiry-aldhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93437","title":{"rendered":"This morning at the Leveson Inquiry – 05\/12\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Deputy Information Commissioner\u00a0told the Leveson Inquiry today that he did not recollect\u00a0telling an investigator<\/a> in Operation Motorman that the press were too big to take on.<\/p>\n

Francis Aldhouse said this was not his view and he did\u00a0“not\u00a0fear\u00a0the\u00a0media”.<\/p>\n

In his testimony to the Inquiry last week, former investigator Alec Owens claimed that, when he had alerted Aldhouse to the documents seized from private investigator\u00a0Steve Whittamore’s home that revealed\u00a0the extent of the press\u00a0using private investigators,\u00a0Aldhouse\u00a0had\u00a0told\u00a0him\u00a0the\u00a0press\u00a0were\u00a0too\u00a0big\u00a0for\u00a0the\u00a0ICO\u00a0to\u00a0take\u00a0on.<\/p>\n

Aldhouse refuted the claims, telling the Inquiry that\u00a0he did not\u00a0recollect the meeting Owens, or hold the view that the media were too powerful. He said he\u00a0had been happy to\u00a0negotiate with the press in the past.<\/p>\n

He added that\u00a0he believed there had been\u00a0a case for involving newspapers and journalists further\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0Operation.\u00a0He\u00a0said\u00a0he\u00a0was\u00a0“disappointed,\u00a0but\u00a0not\u00a0surprised”\u00a0to\u00a0have\u00a0apparently\u00a0not\u00a0been
\nconsulted\u00a0by\u00a0his\u00a0colleagues\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0involvement\u00a0of\u00a0journalists.<\/p>\n

He said had he been asked at the time, his view would have been that “we really ought to find a way to pursue this.”<\/p>\n

Pressed by the Inquiry, Aldhouse said he did not recall any discussions regarding the way forward of the Operation, which he deemed one of the ICO’s “largest”. He said decisions made not to prosecute the press were done so by the Information Commissioner himself, adding that\u00a0discussions he had with him were only “casual”.<\/p>\n

The Inquiry was also shown potentially damning evidence given to the ICO\u00a0by a senior lawyer in 2003.\u00a0The counsel’s advice read\u00a0that\u00a0“many if not all of the journalists involved have committed offences”, and went on to\u00a0say that the “overwhelming inference is that several editors must have been well aware of what their staff were up to and therefore party to it.”<\/p>\n

The counsel’s advice also prioritised enforcement over the prosecution\u00a0of journalists, to give a chance for the Press Complaints Commission\u00a0to “put its\u00a0house in order”.<\/p>\n

Follow Index on Censorship\u2019s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter \u2013\u00a0@IndexLeveson.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marta Cooper<\/strong>: This morning at the Leveson Inquiry – 05\/12\/11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3815],"tags":[14338,14345,542,7427,14339],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109302,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93437\/revisions\/109302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}