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


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 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


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 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.


21

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