1 Monday, 6 February 2012
2 (10.00 am)
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Good morning.
4 MR JAY: Sir, the first witness today is Sue Akers, please.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you.
6 MS SUSAN AKERS (sworn)
7 Questions by MR JAY
8 MR JAY: Make yourself comfortable, please, and can you
9 please provide the Inquiry with your full name?
10 A. Yes, Susan Akers.
11 Q. Thank you very much. You provided the Inquiry with
12 a witness statement dated 11 November of last year.
13 There's also an open framework document of 4 November of
14 last year and further open document, I think of Friday's
15 date, 3 February of this year, relating to the three
16 operations which we're going to discuss in due course.
17 But first of all, about yourself: the witness statement
18 is signed and dated by you. It is, therefore, your
19 formal evidence to the Inquiry; is that right?
20 A. That's right.
21 Q. You are now a Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the
22 Metropolitan Police Service. Your statement deals with
23 your earlier career. You were awarded the Queen's
24 Police Medal for services to policing in the 2007
25 Queen's birthday honours, and your remit is described in
1
1 paragraph 6 of your statement; is that right?
2 A. That is right.
3 Q. Paragraph 7, if I could deal with that specifically.
4 You've led several of the highest profile MPS
5 investigations, and there are four of these: first,
6 allegations of complicity in the torture of detained
7 suspects by British officials. Is that an ongoing
8 investigation?
9 A. That's an investigation that was concluded only two
10 weeks ago.
11 Q. Thank you. Then three investigations which are relevant
12 to this Inquiry: Operation Weeting, which relates to
13 allegations of phone hacking; is that right?
14 A. That is right.
15 Q. That, I think, started in January of 2011; is that
16 correct?
17 A. That's correct.
18 Q. Then Operation Elveden, allegations of police
19 corruption, if I can describe it generically in that
20 way. Is that correct?
21 A. That's the one that began in June 2012, yes.
22 Q. Then Operation Tuleta, allegations that private
23 investigators hacked into computers for private
24 information on behalf of journalists?
25 A. Yes.
2
1 Q. When did that one start?
2 A. That was a scoping operation at the beginning and it
3 really only started -- the actual investigation --
4 fairly recently, so only autumn.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Could I just express my gradual duty
6 for the assistance you've provided to the Inquiry.
7 I have taken considerable care not to prejudice any of
8 your investigation, so I hope I haven't.
9 A. Thank you.
10 MR JAY: Owing to the size of these operations -- and you're
11 going to tell us in a minute the number of staff who are
12 dedicated to each of them -- your role is one of
13 oversight.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And you report to the Deputy Commissioner?
16 A. My -- who I report who has changed. I started by
17 reporting to the Assistant Commissioner. Then, when we
18 had a change at the top, I reported to the Acting Deputy
19 Commissioner, and then another Deputy Commissioner and
20 now an Assistant Commissioner again.
21 Q. Of course, there were previous operations into the issue
22 of phone hacking, which you describe in paragraphs 10 to
23 12 of your statement. These are matters which we're
24 going to cover in the second module of this Inquiry, so
25 I'm not going to ask you questions about that now. What
3
1 I am going to do is to see where we are current state of
2 play on each of these operations. First of all,
3 Operation Weeting.
4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Before you do, in relation to the
5 earlier investigations, I think it's right to explain
6 that not only will I be asking for assistance from you
7 in relation to what happened in the past but also
8 prosecuting authorities and the relevant officers. But
9 anybody who feels that they're going to gain insight
10 into that at this stage is going to be disappointed
11 because I don't feel that's the focus of the present
12 Inquiry.
13 A. (Nods head)
14 MR JAY: Operation Weeting first. I'd like to deal with the
15 issue of victim notification.
16 A. Are you happy for me to use my notes?
17 Q. Absolutely. You had provided on Friday a document
18 called "Summary of victim notification", 3 February
19 2012.
20 A. My note says the 6th.
21 Q. All right. You have a slightly later incarnation,
22 I assume, of the same document, because I know the
23 figures are identical.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Can we just run through this? This has been supplied to
4
1 the core participants. I'm not quite sure whether it's
2 available for dissemination on screen but in order to
3 identify it -- I don't have a URN number for it -- it is
4 the third page of the framework document for
5 Operation Weeting. It isn't available on screen. I'll
6 take a little bit more trouble to identify the component
7 parts of this document.
8 First of all, DAC Akers, we see potential victims:
9 6,349. We know from your evidence that there are 11,000
10 pages in the Mulcaire material, if I can describe it in
11 these terms. The 6,349 figure, what does that mean,
12 please?
13 A. That means that we have got names who are people we can
14 identify that are in all the material that we hold. So
15 most of it will be the 11,000 pages of the Mulcaire
16 documents.
17 Q. So these are identifiable names, but there isn't
18 necessarily a phone number or anything else which ties
19 in with these names; is that correct?
20 A. That's correct, yes.
21 Q. Then the next category is potential victims with a phone
22 number, 4,375 names. So that is a subset, presumably,
23 of the 6,349, and as the brackets suggest -- or as,
24 rather, the category suggests -- we have here a phone
25 number which links up with the name; is that correct?
5
1 A. Yes, that's correct.
2 Q. Then the next category is "Total people contacted by
3 Operation Weeting (including those that wrote in but do
4 not appear in the material)": 2,900 individuals. Does
5 that suggest that a significant number of people wrote
6 in to you believing that they might be in the Mulcaire
7 material, seeking confirmation from you one way or the
8 other whether that was so?
9 A. That's exactly the position, yes.
10 Q. The next category is "Total people contacted who appear
11 in the material": 1,578 names. This, again, is a subset
12 of the 2,900?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. So these are people who you can identify in the Mulcaire
15 and related material; is that right?
16 A. They are people who have been contacted.
17 Q. Who have been contacted by you. And of those, we have
18 likely victims: 829?
19 A. Yes. We've defined "likely victims" as those that have
20 detail around their names that would make it -- suggest
21 to us that they had either been hacked or had the
22 potential to be hacked. So some kind of detail that
23 would enable a hacking to take place.
24 Q. So to be clear about that, obviously there is a phone
25 number -- we know that from the second category, the
6
1 4,375 names, of which this is a subset -- but there is
2 additional material which suggests at the very least the
3 potential for hacking because there's evidence, for
4 example, of unique voicemail numbers, PIN numbers or
5 whatever --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- which raises the level of suspicion to the point at
8 which you can say the potential is there is to have
9 hacked into this phone?
10 A. That's exactly right.
11 Q. Is it right that in relation to some of these 829,
12 there's yet further evidence, such as recordings of
13 voicemails, which may or may not be of additional
14 assistance?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. So we focus then on the 829 and keep that figure in your
17 minds. Of those, you have contacted 581; is that
18 correct?
19 A. We've contacted all those people who are -- we are able
20 to contact; in other words, who we've been able to
21 identify and get hold of.
22 Q. So 581 you have in fact contacted. 231 are
23 uncontactable because of unidentified UVNs -- that's
24 unique voicemail numbers -- voicemail messages and
25 common names, et cetera. So there are all sorts of
7
1 individual reasons why you haven't been able to contact
2 people. There's 231 of those. Then there are 17 people
3 who haven't been told for operational reasons; is that
4 right?
5 A. Yes, that's right.
6 Q. And if you add up the 581, 231 and the 17, you get to
7 the 829, which is the total figure.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Can we just see the current state of play with the
10 investigation. A total of 17 individuals have been
11 arrested; is that right?
12 A. That's right.
13 Q. What has happened in relation to the 17, if anything?
14 A. Two of those have had no further action taken against
15 them. The remaining 15 are on bail.
16 Q. And I think most of these will return to answer their
17 bail in March; is that correct?
18 A. That's right, yes.
19 Q. The investigation strategy. Could you tell us in
20 a nutshell what that has been, please?
21 A. Well, it's been focused on identifying, securing and
22 analysing the evidence that's connected with the
23 offences that are under investigation, so offences under
24 RIPA and computer misuse.
25 Q. Thank you. So the evidence comprises both real evidence
8
1 and witness evidence. The real evidence, if I can
2 identify it in these terms: the Mulcaire documents --
3 these are the 11,000 pages -- various email exchanges --
4 is that right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. -- audio tape recordings of voicemails being hacked,
7 notes of hacked voicemails and telephone records; is
8 that correct?
9 A. Yes, that's right.
10 Q. What about any witness evidence? Is there any of that
11 that you've been able to obtain?
12 A. We have a number of key witnesses that we will want to
13 see, and that process is ongoing now. It will take
14 a few more months.
15 Q. Thank you. Can you assist us, please, on the issue of
16 emails. I think you were originally told that emails
17 had been deleted from the system but you have been able
18 to reconstruct the email database?
19 A. Yes, we've rebuilt -- experts have rebuilt material that
20 we thought had been lost, and that was completed towards
21 the end of November last year. So we're now going
22 through that material.
23 Q. Thank you, and the scale of the exercise: 300 million
24 emails in all, I think --
25 A. Yes.
9
1 Q. -- have been retrieved and reconstructed and you are
2 presumably using various sophisticated search means in
3 order to interrogate the database --
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. -- and bring out the material you require; is that
6 correct?
7 A. Yes, that's right.
8 Q. Is that process of interrogation at a relatively
9 advanced stage?
10 A. It is, yes.
11 Q. Thank you. Are there also documents which have been
12 archived which you've been able to look at?
13 A. Yes, we've found an archive of hard copy material that
14 we are in the processes of going through as well.
15 Q. Okay. You probably don't want to give a timescale for
16 this but overall you're probably nearer the finishing
17 line than the starting gun; is that right?
18 A. I'd like to think so, yes.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes.
20 MR JAY: Thank you. It has taken some time, but I think you
21 also wish to point out that there have been ongoing
22 inquiries. Not just this is Inquiry; there's civil
23 litigations, in which you've been involved as a third
24 party. There's been a judicial review, which has,
25 I think, been compromised, and other ongoing --
10
1 A. And two select committees as well that have --
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: To say nothing of the time that I've
3 taken up.
4 MR JAY: In order to understand the resource implications of
5 this, how many staff are dedicated to Operation Weeting?
6 A. About 90.
7 Q. Does that include police officers and support staff?
8 A. It does, and of those 90, there's about 35 that are
9 dedicated to the victims, which has been quite
10 time-consuming.
11 Q. Thank you. We'll hear in due course the resources which
12 were applied to earlier operations. That's an issue for
13 module 2; we won't address that now.
14 I move on to the next operation, which is Operation
15 Elveden, which is the inquiry into police corruption.
16 The focus there, is this right, is on cash payments to
17 police officers?
18 A. That's right.
19 Q. You mentioned the offences which are relevant to
20 Operation Weeting. The offences which are relevant to
21 Operation Elveden are offences under the 1986 Prevention
22 of Corruption Act which was in place at the material
23 time, which, of course, has been repealed. I think
24 there's also the common law offence, is this right, of
25 misconduct in public office?
11
1 A. There is, yes.
2 Q. As far as you're concerned -- it may be self-evident --
3 is there a public interest in pursuing these matters?
4 A. Yes. If the public think that information is being
5 leaked by police officers to journalists, then it is
6 inevitable that public confidence is eroded, so as far
7 as we're concerned, there is a very legitimate public
8 interest in investigating this.
9 Q. Thank you. The resources which have been dedicated to
10 this operation, how many officers and staff are we
11 talking about, please?
12 A. We have 40 police officers and staff, but we are going
13 to grow the team to take account of the fact that we
14 moved last weekend into investigation into the Sun, or
15 journalists within the Sun.
16 Q. Yes. We'll cover that in a moment. So you're hoping to
17 expand the team, I think, to 61 officers?
18 A. That's right, yes.
19 Q. To date, how many arrests have there been?
20 A. 14. That's three police officers and one arrest by the
21 IPCC, who are involved because of the allegations of
22 corruption against police officers. And they're
23 supervising that aspect of Elveden.
24 Q. Thank you. Now a general point which I think should be
25 made is that have you been receiving assistance by the
12
1 MSC, which, of course, is the independent review team
2 within News International?
3 A. The Management Standards Committee in
4 News International. Yes, we have been receiving --
5 we've got a co-operative working relationship with them,
6 and they are the people who have passed us information
7 upon which we've made arrests, as well as supplying
8 information to us when we've made requests.
9 Q. Thank you. In terms of the chronology, if you look at
10 the first period, June to December 2011, did the inquiry
11 focus on initial disclosures that identified an
12 ex-News of the World journalist who may have paid police
13 for information?
14 A. Yes, that's right.
15 Q. And were others within the News of the World also
16 arrested at that point?
17 A. They were.
18 Q. And without naming anybody, what was their role or
19 position within the News of the World?
20 A. They varied, but the positions were reasonably senior.
21 Q. Thank you. Did the inquiry involve going through large
22 volumes of business records and email searches in the
23 same sort of way as we've seen for Weeting?
24 A. Yes, it did.
25 Q. In relation to that specific aspect of the Inquiry, have
13
1 any police officers been identified as suspects?
2 A. Not in relation to the initial lines which emanated from
3 the emails in June, no.
4 Q. I think the line of inquiry developed into looking into
5 a News of the World journalist that had met with many
6 police officers, there being evidence that some may have
7 received cash payments; is that correct?
8 A. Yes. Yes, that's the journalist that was arrested
9 in December.
10 Q. But again, no police officers have been identified as
11 suspects as yet?
12 A. Not yet, no.
13 Q. I think there may be a general issue here. You were
14 able to identify journalists as a result of these
15 searches. What, if anything, is the difficulty in
16 identifying police officers?
17 A. Well, the material upon which we're basing it has come
18 from the newspaper, so the journalists are identified.
19 They don't, as a general rule, identify by name their
20 sources, and so -- and they would certainly seek to
21 protect any public official that they are making
22 payments to because they would know that -- I would hope
23 they would know that it's illegal to do so.
24 Q. So when you are examining the journalists' own records,
25 there is a singular lack of information which would
14
1 enable you to identify the police officers. You need to
2 attain that information by other evidence; is that
3 correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. If that evidence is available.
6 A. If we can.
7 Q. Go back to the chronology, December 2011. I think the
8 email searches eventually identified an officer from
9 specialist operations, or that directorate, who had had
10 suspicious contact with the News of the World. Was that
11 officer arrested in December 2011?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. A Sun journalist -- and this is all in the public
14 domain -- was arrested in November 2011. Where did the
15 information come from which enabled you to authorise
16 that arrest?
17 A. That came from the internal review which was being
18 conducted by the Management Standards Committee at
19 News International into their other papers.
20 Q. Now, we know it was on Saturday, 28 January 2012, that
21 further Sun employees were arrested. Again, that is all
22 in the public domain.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Where did the information come from which enabled those
25 arrests to take place?
15
1 A. It came from the disclosures, again, from the Management
2 Standards Committee, as well as our own analysis of the
3 material that we've been handed.
4 Q. The position here -- we're not going to name the
5 journalists in this Inquiry but the information is all
6 in the public domain. Anybody can Google it, frankly.
7 There are four journalists, one police officer and
8 I think one further journalist who --
9 A. Is abroad.
10 Q. -- is abroad at the moment.
11 I think there's one general issue again which you'd
12 like to mention here, which I'm not saying is impeding
13 your inquiry but may explain why it proceeds in
14 a certain way, and that's the issue of PACE 1984 and
15 Article 10 and the journalist exception. Are you in
16 a position to obtain production orders against
17 newspapers and/or journalists?
18 A. All the legal advice that we've had has told us that
19 whilst you have the co-operation of News International,
20 as it is in this case, we must proceed by the way of
21 protocol, and that's what we're doing. So it's
22 voluntary disclosure as opposed to applying for
23 a production order through PACE.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, because PACE makes it clear that
25 if there are other ways of getting the information, you
16
1 have to try them.
2 A. Absolutely.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And you're not entitled to seek
4 a warrant if somebody's prepared to provide the
5 information to you voluntarily.
6 A. Absolutely.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I think I might be responsible for
8 a Divisional Court decision to that effect.
9 MR JAY: It may have been clearer in relation to Operation
10 Weeting what the possible time scales were. In relation
11 to Elveden, this is an ongoing inquiry. Is this right:
12 one can't really say when, if at all, the position might
13 be attained when charges could be brought or --
14 A. I wouldn't be able to say that anyway, because it's the
15 CPS that make the decisions as to timing and what, if
16 any, charges would be brought, but I think I'm less
17 confident in saying that I think we're nearer the end
18 than the beginning on Elveden than I was when I made
19 that comment about Weeting.
20 Q. Thank you very much.
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Do I gather from your evidence and
22 your statements that in fact the Metropolitan Police are
23 working extremely closely with the
24 Crown Prosecution Service throughout each one of these
25 investigations?
17
1 A. Absolutely, and that's really increased over the last
2 three months, I think, where we have pretty much
3 dedicated lawyers working alongside us.
4 MR JAY: Thank you. The last operation is Operation Tuleta.
5 I'm not sure how you prefer to pronounce it; it probably
6 doesn't matter. You provided again an open framework
7 document, which is largely self-explanatory, but can
8 I just draw out a few points here. The first of them:
9 what are the resources dedicated to this operation?
10 A. They're much smaller than the previous two, because
11 we're only dealing with -- we're scoping it and then
12 looking and seeing whether we are going to embark upon
13 a full investigation, and at that point then we will
14 look at the resources that we'll attach to each
15 investigation. So there's a smaller number of officers,
16 the numbers of which I don't have to hand, but I think
17 it's something in the region of -- or will be, when
18 we've resourced it -- about 20.
19 Q. Thank you. At present, this is at the scoping stage; is
20 that right? But you're looking or assessing, rather, 57
21 separate allegations of data intrusion?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. This does overlap, to some extent, with Operation
24 Weeting because these include allegations of phone
25 hacking, but they're more specifically computer hacking
18
1 and then other medical and confidential records?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. You say in paragraph 4:
4 "The allegations are of an historic nature."
5 How far back are we talking there, please?
6 A. Some of them are connected with investigations that go
7 a very long way back, back into as long ago as the late
8 1980s, but -- I don't have the exact dates to hand but
9 some are connected with very historic investigations
10 that the Met has undertaken.
11 Q. Thank you. And some are more recent, and it ties in
12 with some evidence we heard, I think it was on
13 28 November.
14 In terms of the scale of the electronic data, you
15 refer to four terabytes of data, which I understand to
16 be a vast amount.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. I'm sure exactly how --
19 A. I think a terabyte is one billion.
20 Q. I think the whole of -- well, anyway, it's a lot.
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, if you printed it out, what
22 would it look like?
23 A. I've no idea. It would be a huge amount. Vast.
24 MR JAY: Can you deal with paragraph 5. You deal with the
25 allegations which are being considered.
19
1 A. Well, we've had an allegation of -- these are the
2 allegations where we have put the matter before the
3 Crown Prosecution Service and they have decided that
4 there will be no further action taken. They include an
5 allegation of blackmail in connection with the
6 publication of a newspaper story, an allegation of
7 breach of anonymity under the Sexual Offences Act by
8 newspapers, and allegations of telephone interceptions
9 against a person who was awaiting trial for
10 manslaughter.
11 In the first two, there was insufficient to
12 prosecute, and in the last one, our enquiries were able
13 to prove that those interceptions didn't occur.
14 Q. But there are other diverse allegations that remain
15 active and you list those.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. These are all issues which are being considered but have
18 not been taken, obviously, to the stage of making any
19 arrests.
20 A. That's right.
21 Q. At this stage, of course, you can only give us the very
22 general picture through fear of prejudicing your
23 investigations.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Finally, can you tell us about Operation Kalmyk? What
20
1 does that relate to?
2 A. This relates to illegal accessing of computers belonging
3 to others for financial gain and this is the one of them
4 that has been a full investigation as a result of the
5 scoping exercise that Tuleta has undertaken, and an
6 arrest has been made. In that incidence, one person is
7 arrested and is on police bail until March.
8 Q. Thank you. You explain this was the subject of the BBC
9 Panorama programme, which some of us have seen.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. That brings us, I think, up to date with the current
12 position, insofar as you can tell us about those matters
13 without prejudicing your investigation. It's already
14 been made clear that this Inquiry is not concerned at
15 this stage to look at the position before you arrived on
16 the scene -- in other words, between 2006 and early
17 2011 -- since those are matters which fall really within
18 the scope of module 2 and will be considered in due
19 course.
20 Those are all the questions I had for you. There
21 may be some further questions.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I don't think so. Deputy assistant
23 Commissioner, I hope you'll be prepared to keep the
24 Inquiry informed as to the likely timeline that your
25 investigations take, because I repeat that I have no
21
1 wish to cause any difficulty to your enquiries; equally,
2 my train isn't stopping.
3 A. I understand that, and we'll do everything we can to
4 make sure you're kept fully up to date.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much indeed.
6 MR JAY: Thank you.
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