:00:08. > :00:15.top of the hour. Now it is time for the week's events at the Leveson
:00:15. > :00:18.inquiry. A small number who either got it or leaked stories... That
:00:18. > :00:23.relationship with the media is the single thing that is dominating my
:00:23. > :00:33.life. I found it surprising there was this level of social engagement
:00:33. > :00:33.
:00:34. > :00:39.in wine bars. It can be tough at the top of the
:00:39. > :00:43.Metropolitan Police. Over 50,000 staff protecting over 7 million
:00:43. > :00:49.citizens, always knowing that if things go wrong it can end like
:00:49. > :00:55.this. I have this afternoon informed the Palace, Home Secretary
:00:55. > :00:59.and the Mayor of my intention to resign as commissioner. This week,
:00:59. > :01:01.four former commissioners of the Metropolitan Police told Lord
:01:01. > :01:07.Justice Leveson how they dealt with the scrutiny from a press just
:01:07. > :01:10.waiting for them to slip up. That was what happened to Sir Paul
:01:10. > :01:15.Stephenson, brought down amid the phone hacking scandal. At the
:01:15. > :01:19.centre of his troubles, former News of the World deputy editor Neil
:01:19. > :01:25.Wallis, arrested and bailed over phone hacking last year, previously
:01:25. > :01:29.hired by the Net itself to advise them and public relations. On day
:01:29. > :01:34.45, the now former policeman arrived in a suit and tie to tell
:01:34. > :01:39.the Inquiry how some in his top team did damage by talking to the
:01:39. > :01:42.papers. I am referring well to what I consider a very small number of
:01:42. > :01:47.the management board. I have just gone through what they consisted of.
:01:47. > :01:54.A very small number, who on occasions either have got what leak
:01:54. > :01:58.about stories from within the Met that was deeply unhelpful and added
:01:58. > :02:04.to a continuing dialogue of disharmony and almost disfunction
:02:04. > :02:07.Allodi. The Inquiry heard how the most senior officer in the Met them
:02:07. > :02:13.at -- developed his acquaintance with Neil Wallis over drinks and
:02:13. > :02:20.dinners. Another dinner with Neil Wallis. Presumably a similar
:02:20. > :02:25.purpose as the dinner the previous year. Is that right? Yes. This
:02:25. > :02:31.access was not unique. Sir Paul Stephenson net are that editors as
:02:31. > :02:34.well. A I find it difficult to see how the commissioner could do his
:02:34. > :02:40.or her job properly without engaging pretty heavily with the
:02:40. > :02:45.media at the right level, because if the reportage of the story of
:02:45. > :02:50.the Met continues to be unbalanced, with very often it is, then I have
:02:50. > :02:55.a duty on the 58 -- duty to the people I lead and to try to
:02:55. > :02:59.continue to affect that balance to be more accurate. Recovering after
:02:59. > :03:06.hospital trick there, he accepted a free stay at a health spa offered
:03:06. > :03:12.by a friend of his family. Only later did he learn that Neil Wallis
:03:12. > :03:15.did work for them. I was on significant medication. This
:03:15. > :03:20.possibly represented my best chance of getting back to work as early as
:03:20. > :03:24.possible. That is the reason I did it. Looking back at how the matter
:03:24. > :03:28.dealt with phone hacking, he suggested it was the service's
:03:28. > :03:32.attitude as much as it actions that were to account for its failure to
:03:32. > :03:36.rethink the conclusions of the original phone hacking inquiry.
:03:36. > :03:42.What we did not do is go back and actually challenged the reasons for
:03:42. > :03:45.those decisions in 2006. I don't want to make life difficult for
:03:45. > :03:49.John Yates. I think he acted in good faith. I am convinced about
:03:50. > :03:58.that. We did not challenge the reasons why it was limited because
:03:58. > :04:03.we did not know it was limited. I also think that insomuch that it
:04:03. > :04:07.felt like an investigation, the leader of that original
:04:07. > :04:17.investigation did not do anything improper. The fact that this did
:04:17. > :04:17.
:04:17. > :04:24.not feel like a priority was a relevant factor. I then go on to
:04:24. > :04:29.think that we got ourselves almost hawked on a strategy, and defensive
:04:29. > :04:33.strategy that we would not expend significant resources without new
:04:33. > :04:36.evidence. Three in the wake of the phone hacking traumas that followed
:04:36. > :04:41.that defensive strategy, the Met commissioned a report on its
:04:41. > :04:45.relations with the press from a former parliamentary standards
:04:45. > :04:51.watchdog. He said there were doubts even in the police service itself
:04:51. > :04:55.about the perks available to those at the top. Many of the police
:04:55. > :05:01.officers and staff that I interviewed were obviously highly
:05:01. > :05:10.shocked by the amount of hospitality that the senior people
:05:10. > :05:14.appeared to be receiving. But many, many of the lower ranked people, as
:05:14. > :05:19.one of the senior people quoted said, that people were filling
:05:19. > :05:23.their boots. That was a very general view. She had even heard
:05:23. > :05:28.allegations that reputations of some of those senior officers were
:05:28. > :05:33.being protected in return for favours to reporters. People told
:05:33. > :05:43.me of a variety of occasions in which information for example about
:05:43. > :05:48.senior officers' private lives was kept out, so they claim, by the
:05:48. > :05:53.media, by the person in the media who had that information, getting
:05:53. > :06:03.an exclusive story. It was a trade. Sometimes she had heard the trade
:06:03. > :06:07.was even more straightforward. of it was about people allegedly
:06:07. > :06:11.ringing up in excitement to the newspaper to say that a certain
:06:11. > :06:16.celebrity has just come into my police station. When that poor
:06:16. > :06:22.celebrity got outside there were lots of cameras there because the
:06:22. > :06:28.media had delivered the cameras. People also said to me that they
:06:28. > :06:35.thought in some instances people were paid for information about the
:06:35. > :06:38.celebrities. This former Chief Constable and author of an
:06:38. > :06:46.inspector's report talk, he admitted, are rather more austere
:06:46. > :06:53.view then some. You say that you do not accept, or didn't accept,
:06:53. > :06:57.hospitality from the media. No meals, no alcohol. This is it.
:06:57. > :07:04.makes me sound extremely boring, but that was the case in my time as
:07:04. > :07:14.chief constable. In the trees, there was never an occasion to do
:07:14. > :07:16.
:07:16. > :07:20.that. We were polite and courteous. I had tea, coffee or water. I am
:07:20. > :07:30.not sure how the Inquiry would go if there was a bottle of fine
:07:30. > :07:30.
:07:30. > :07:34.champagne. It might go more quickly. That was about as much levity as
:07:34. > :07:38.Lord Justice Leveson allowed here, although the Inquiry heard that
:07:38. > :07:43.some police staff were rather less scrupulous about what they put in
:07:43. > :07:47.the public domain. There has clearly been a communications
:07:47. > :07:52.revolution around how but only the media but the public communicate
:07:52. > :07:57.with each other, and not unlike other organisations the police have
:07:57. > :08:02.been struggling to keep in front of that, or at pace with it. Could you
:08:02. > :08:10.give me an example? In extreme is somebody who had identified
:08:11. > :08:13.themselves as working for a police force, exposing themselves, taking
:08:14. > :08:17.photographs of themselves, minus appropriate clothing. They had
:08:17. > :08:25.appeared on Facebook. On the day 46 a commissioner who spent seven
:08:25. > :08:31.years on the job and in an age before social media, found the
:08:31. > :08:38.papers were vital. Everyone working minutes, I was on duty. -- every
:08:38. > :08:43.waking minute. That relationship with the media was the single thing
:08:43. > :08:52.that was dominating my life. Major terrorism event in London, and I
:08:52. > :08:55.had them during my time, both Middle Eastern and Irish terrorism,
:08:55. > :09:00.there would be an insatiable demand for the Commissioner of the day to
:09:00. > :09:03.be saying things about it, to be reassuring the public, to be giving
:09:03. > :09:12.information. For all that, he preferred to brief the press on
:09:12. > :09:19.police premises. As editor of the Telegraph, I was the editor of the
:09:19. > :09:26.standard. Always moaned about the food and drink at Scotland Yard. I
:09:26. > :09:30.think I was weak on a couple of occasions. I had one lunch with Max.
:09:30. > :09:34.Probably at one of his clubs. fought shy of criticising his
:09:34. > :09:44.successors whose appeared to have spent more time in -- more time
:09:44. > :09:48.with journalists in restaurants. But he issued his warning. You say,
:09:48. > :09:52.in my view, hospitality can be the start of a grinning process which
:09:52. > :10:01.leads to inappropriate and unethical behaviour. -- grooming
:10:01. > :10:06.process. How did you come to the view? That is with the benefit of
:10:06. > :10:12.hindsight, because since leaving the service I have gone on to work
:10:12. > :10:16.with the integrity of in that -- in - -- international sport and the
:10:16. > :10:26.business community. It is just common sense that in any walk of
:10:26. > :10:27.
:10:27. > :10:31.life, hospitality can be appropriate, sensible, necessary,
:10:31. > :10:36.ethical, but the other side of that is that it can lead to
:10:36. > :10:42.inappropriate closeness and in some cases that can lead to criminal
:10:42. > :10:46.behaviour. By the time John Stevens took over as commissioner in 2000
:10:46. > :10:50.the Met was, he said, in severe crisis. It was interesting going to
:10:50. > :10:53.various places that nobody wanted to join the Metropolitan Police
:10:53. > :10:57.because they did not think it was worth joining. Dealing with the
:10:57. > :11:04.media was part of his strategy for putting their reputation to write.
:11:04. > :11:09.There will always be bad news. It is not a matter of bearing bad news,
:11:09. > :11:15.it is a matter of admitting to mistakes but at the street and
:11:15. > :11:19.support staff who do a tremendous amount every day to actually tell
:11:19. > :11:24.their stories far more in a positive way. It is what the Net
:11:24. > :11:27.did, or didn't do, that the Guardian's phone hacking
:11:27. > :11:32.revelations in 2009 that are under attack today. Lord Stevens
:11:32. > :11:38.suggested he might have handled things different be. I would like
:11:38. > :11:44.to have thought the issues with the Guardian had the raised, I would
:11:44. > :11:50.have picked them up as commissioner. If they had been picked up, I would
:11:50. > :11:55.have been ruthless in pursuing it. He wrote columns for the News of
:11:55. > :12:00.the World, as much as �7,000 a time. His pieces were edited by the
:12:00. > :12:07.deputy editor, and a familiar name, Neil Wallis. But after a News of
:12:07. > :12:12.the World report -- reporter was convicted of phone hacking, he
:12:12. > :12:17.abandoned his contract. It's I did not complete the contract because
:12:17. > :12:21.of the convictions that took place. I saw Colin Myler and Neil Wallis.
:12:21. > :12:31.I told them I did not want to continue. I never gave specific
:12:31. > :12:36.reasons but then I never saw them Two years later, the police hired
:12:36. > :12:43.him to get their advice -- to give them advice on public relations.
:12:44. > :12:47.And what to do about the future? Lord Stevens urged caution. People
:12:47. > :12:52.were absolutely terrified of picking up the phone and speaks to
:12:52. > :12:56.the press in any way, shape or form. For some, that relationship is
:12:56. > :12:59.pretty strained, with the police investigating reporters. It emerged
:12:59. > :13:04.the attorney-general was looking into evidence given by the officer
:13:04. > :13:10.in charge of those investigations a prejudiced trial that might follow.
:13:10. > :13:17.She had alleged there appeared to be a culture at the Sun of illegal
:13:17. > :13:23.payments to public officials. Brooks' lawyer wrote a newspaper
:13:23. > :13:28.piece saying there was a spectacular failure. On day 47, the
:13:28. > :13:35.man who was the Met commissioner when phone hacking was first
:13:35. > :13:40.investigated. His reputation became under skriet ni. His son, like the
:13:40. > :13:44.son -- scrutiny. His son, like the son of a previous commissioner, did
:13:44. > :13:48.work experience at the Sun newspaper. Paul's son had done work
:13:48. > :13:54.experience at Sun. So I said, "That's the kind of thing that
:13:54. > :14:01.would excite most 15-year-olds. That's a good idea." That's all I
:14:01. > :14:09.thought about it. Rebekah Brooks got to... It was recorded by that
:14:09. > :14:13.head of press. What I understand he would say is that he was telephoned
:14:13. > :14:18.by Rebekah Brooks asking about this arrangement that she had heard that
:14:18. > :14:26.this arrangement existed and that then he arranged for her to go down
:14:26. > :14:31.and see the inspector about horses and have a discussion about it.
:14:31. > :14:35.This actually happened on the day that I had lunch with her and what
:14:35. > :14:39.I understand he's going to say is that this was discussed at the
:14:39. > :14:45.lunch. I have absolutely no recollection of that. The horse
:14:45. > :14:55.incident wasn't a big deal, he said. The decision not a widen the phone
:14:55. > :15:03.
:15:03. > :15:11.But did you ask the question, "Oh, hang on, if me ?" That's precisely
:15:11. > :15:21.what I dnt do. In 2009, it fell top John Yates to consider the question
:15:21. > :15:22.
:15:22. > :15:29.of, "Who else?" He he -- spent -- he spent six hours on that job.
:15:29. > :15:32.Could you ask you if you would comment on one further decision,
:15:32. > :15:41.which puzzles me. Having made the decision and given a press
:15:41. > :15:46.conference, the following days were then spent gathering documents
:15:46. > :15:51.which some may say could only have been required to justify the
:15:51. > :15:58.decisions being made. Because if it was an open review, then why on
:15:58. > :16:02.earth make the announcement? Do I believe that John Yates took that
:16:02. > :16:05.decision in order to play kait News International? No, I don't. I don't
:16:05. > :16:10.believe he did that. But his difficulty, without making it more
:16:10. > :16:18.difficult for him, is the number of contacts. And that, I think, is a
:16:18. > :16:21.problem. Bob Quick's time at the Net ended when he accidentally
:16:21. > :16:26.revealed to the media confidential note bs a police operation. That
:16:26. > :16:31.brought an end to a long career, one that saw him examining
:16:31. > :16:36.suspicions that journalists were corrupting police officers 12 years
:16:36. > :16:41.ago. We believe the journalists who were paying the bribes were not
:16:41. > :16:47.paying them from their own funds. And the intelligence and evidence
:16:47. > :16:51.reveals paifplts up to 2,000 pound -- payments up to 2,000 pounds. And
:16:51. > :16:55.therefore we believe they were claiming that money back from their
:16:55. > :17:01.employers. Quick wrote a report pushing for more action, but no-one
:17:01. > :17:05.was done. Years later, the police did investigate whether the police
:17:05. > :17:10.were going to lend money to the Labour Party, on the understanding.
:17:10. > :17:13.The prime minister was interviewed. There were no charges after an
:17:13. > :17:19.investigation, but feelings ran high. The man in charge of the
:17:19. > :17:24.investigation, John Yates, was suspected of leaking, something
:17:24. > :17:30.he's denied. Quick found evidence there were no leaks, but this
:17:30. > :17:34.happened. You asked Mr Yates for his consent that it will be allowed
:17:34. > :17:40.his private and telephone records be examined. You thought he might
:17:40. > :17:46.welcome this and then he indicated his refeudal. When you pressed him,
:17:46. > :17:54.-- refusal. When you pressed him, and then when I questioned him, he
:17:54. > :17:58.said, "No, Bob, I am very well connected." What did you draw from
:17:58. > :18:04.that? I didn't place huge significance on it at the time. I
:18:04. > :18:11.thought it was a bit of theatre. I sensed Yates was clearly sensitive,
:18:11. > :18:17.as I think I would be, to an intrucive process like that. That
:18:17. > :18:25.wasn't the last time Bob Quick's inquiries ran into this. This man
:18:25. > :18:30.was arrested. The allegations were quickly established. The scoping
:18:30. > :18:36.exercise had revealed that someone working very close to the Home
:18:36. > :18:41.Secretary in her private office seemed to be accessing letters from
:18:41. > :18:49.the Secretary of State to the Prime Minister as well as removing
:18:49. > :18:54.documents from a safe in the private office. And that the CPS,
:18:54. > :18:58.who had been consulted, advised that these are likely to be
:18:58. > :19:03.criminal matters. A civil servant, Christopher, was accused of taking
:19:03. > :19:07.the material and of leaking it to Green, then the opposition's
:19:07. > :19:14.immigration spokesman. An inquiry heard allegation from the police
:19:14. > :19:17.interview. He details two meetings with Mr Green, where he handed over
:19:17. > :19:22.leaked material to Mr Green, including that stolen from the
:19:22. > :19:32.private house office. One meeting was in a wine bar. That's correct,
:19:32. > :19:39.sir. The quotation there, in an e- mail? That was in an e-mail from Mr
:19:40. > :19:45.Green, arranging a meet anywhere we won't see any of your colleagues.
:19:45. > :19:49.Opposite Victoria Station. arresting an MP and raiding his
:19:49. > :19:54.Westminster office raised big constitutional issues and attracted
:19:54. > :19:58.the critical attention of, among others, London's Mayor, Boris
:19:58. > :20:02.Johnson. I had concerns at some early reports just before the
:20:02. > :20:09.weekend, I believe, where the Mayor had expressed concerns about the
:20:09. > :20:13.arrest of Mr Green. And I detect thad that had an impact and I --
:20:13. > :20:17.that that had an impact and I detected a change on the operations
:20:17. > :20:23.of one or two colleagues, and real anxiety and fear about what was
:20:23. > :20:30.going on around them. And that did concern me, yes. A review of the
:20:30. > :20:36.case decided the arrest of Damien Green was disproportionate. No
:20:36. > :20:45.charges. It was clear the politician's concerns put the plus
:20:45. > :20:51.on edge. Very angry. Resignation. You... Indeed. I was surprised and
:20:51. > :20:54.quite shocked that that remark - because I couldn't see that the
:20:54. > :20:58.police were doing anything other than their duty to investigate what
:20:58. > :21:03.were very serious allegations from a government department. That was
:21:03. > :21:08.later disputed by the Met's lawyers. Quick himself got a bad press and
:21:08. > :21:11.didn't feel he got the support he was due from his colleagues. Some
:21:11. > :21:16.senior officers, though, were working on their own media
:21:16. > :21:23.relations. Do you recall at least on two occasions you were invited
:21:23. > :21:33.to drinks at a wine bar local to Scotland Yard and you saw Yates,
:21:33. > :21:34.
:21:34. > :21:39.and people known to be journalists. Mike Sullivan, his son...? This was
:21:39. > :21:45.early into my time in the mement Police. And I sensed some --
:21:45. > :21:50.Metropolitan Police. And I sensed some unease about this only because
:21:50. > :21:54.it crossed my mind that these journalists had homes to go to, and
:21:54. > :21:59.families, I am sure. I found it surprising that there was this
:21:59. > :22:03.level of social engage. In local wine bars or pubs. There is now no
:22:03. > :22:07.shortage of detail about the relationships between those who
:22:07. > :22:11.were at the top of the Metropolitan Police and those who were at the