* Watchdog says top officers too close to Murdoch
journalists
* Finds senior police had blurred professional boundaries
* Criticised officer says treated unfairly by watchdog
By Michael Holden
LONDON, April 12 (Reuters) – Senior London police staff
linked to the News Corp phone hacking scandal showed poor
judgment, took bad decisions and got too close to journalists
working for Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, an independent watchdog
said on Thursday.
While the Independent Police Complaints Commission
(IPCC)rejected allegations of corruption involving two of the
top personnel at the Metropolitan Police (MPS), it was highly
critical of their and senior colleagues’ media relationships.
One of the former policemen named by the IPCC said its
release of two reports simultaneously appeared designed to cause
“maximum damage” to his reputation or to generate publicity for
the IPCC.
The IPCC said despite a growing clamour over phone hacking
centred on Murdoch’s News International, the British newspaper
arm of his News Corp empire, senior people at the force
appeared “to have been oblivious to the perception of conflict”.
“It is clear to me that the professional boundaries became
blurred, imprudent decisions taken and poor judgment shown by
senior police personnel,” IPCC Deputy Chairman Deborah Glass
said in a statement.
The IPCC comments come after investigations into John Yates,
the country’s former top counter-terrorism officer, and Dick
Fedorcio, the MPS media chief, over their relationship with Neil
Wallis, a former deputy editor at the News of the World, the
Murdoch tabloid at the heart of the phone-hacking furore.
Murdoch closed down the paper last year, and several News
International executives and journalists have since been
arrested by detectives investigating these and other allegations
that public officials including police were bribed in return for
information.
Fedorcio resigned last month after the MPS decided he would
face charges of gross misconduct over the decision to hire
Wallis in a media consultancy role after he left the newspaper
in 2009. Wallis has since been arrested by detectives
investigating allegations of phone hacking.
Yates quit his job last July, a day after Britain’s top
officer Paul Stephenson also stepped down, after it emerged he
had forwarded the CV of Wallis’s daughter to the head of the
MPS’s human resources department.
“You probably know that Neil has been a great friend (and
occasional critic) of the Met in past years and has been a close
adviser to Paul (Stephenson) on stuff/tactics,” Yates, now an
adviser to the Bahrain government, said in an accompanying
email.
The IPCC concluded that there was no evidence of corruption
but ruled that both men had breached internal policies.
“MAXIMUM DAMAGE”
Yates told Channel 4 News the IPCC had treated him unfairly
and had not given him the opportunity to comment on the email.
He said he had merely been acting as a “postbox” in passing
the details of Wallis’s daughter to a colleague.
“One could say to publish both these reports together was
either to cause maximum damage to people like me or to cause
maximum publicity for the IPCC,” Yates said.
“All you can hope for in these investigations is some
balance, some fairness and some context. On all three the IPCC
has failed,” he added.
The relationship between police and News International
executives and staff has come under the microscope with critics
saying a cosy relationship, which included special briefings and
meals at top restaurants, often arranged by Fedorcio, meant
phone-hacking allegations were not properly investigated.
The News of the World’s royal correspondent was jailed in
2007 for illegal intercepting the voicemail of senior royal
aides, and Yates decided not to reopen the hacking probe in 2009
after less than eight hours’ consideration.
A new investigation, now one of the largest conducted by the
London force, was launched in January 2011 after News
International, faced with a number of private legal actions,
handed over more evidence to the police.
The new probe together with constant damaging revelations
from the media and parliamentary and public inquiries led to
Murdoch’s son James quitting as chairman of Britain’s BSkyB
broadcaster last week.
