1
2 (12.00 pm)
3 MR JAY: Sir, the next witness is Mr Yates, who is in
4 Bahrain, I think.
5 MR JOHN MICHAEL YATES (sworn)
6 (Evidence by videolink)
7 Questions by MR JAY
8 MR JAY: Your full name, please, Mr Yates.
9 A. It's John Michael Yates.
10 Q. Thank you. May I check that you can see me?
11 A. I can see you, yes.
12 Q. Thank you very much.
13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Hang on. If I speak, you shouldn't
14 see me if I'm not speaking, but if I speak --
15 A. I can see you now in wide vision, sir.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much indeed. Thank
17 you very much for your statement.
18 Yes, Mr Jay.
19 MR JAY: Mr Yates, may I first of all ask you to confirm
20 your witness statement. It is dated 22 February and
21 signed by you. Is this your formal evidence to the
22 Inquiry?
23 A. Yes, it is. It's 46 pages.
24 Q. Thank you very much. May I just check the bundle that
25 you have in front of you, just check it's the same
1
1 bundle as I have. It contains the various exhibits to
2 your statement, which are in subtabs. Do you have
3 a bundle which runs to 79 tabs?
4 A. I have a bundle, it isn't 79 because the numbers go
5 slightly odd thereafter, but it wouldn't be about 79,
6 I can see it goes to 31, 62, and then a series of
7 alphabets, but we might have to work it out from the
8 scale rather than bundle tabulation, if that helps.
9 Q. We'll navigate our way through it. First of all,
10 Mr Yates, your career in the Metropolitan Police
11 Service. You retired in the -- or resigned, I should
12 say more precisely, in the rank of Assistant
13 Commissioner in July 2011; is that correct?
14 A. Not quite correct. I actually officially left on
15 November 7, I think.
16 Q. Thank you very much. You set out your earlier career in
17 paragraph 5 of your statement, but what is material to
18 this Inquiry is that in April 2009 you were the national
19 lead for counter terrorism in Assistant Commissioner
20 rank; is that right?
21 A. Yes, together with the responsibilities within London as
22 well, as set out at paragraph 7. So it was a national
23 role -- it was a national role in terms of counter
24 terrorism as a coordinator and then there were
25 responsibilities within London itself around aviation,
2
1 Parliament, diplomatic protection and the like.
2 Q. It was in that role, and we'll come to this in due
3 course, that Sir Paul Stephenson, the then Commissioner,
4 asked you to review the evidence in relation to
5 Operation Caryatid in July 2009; is that correct?
6 A. I don't want to hit semantics around the word review,
7 but you'll understand from my statement the difference
8 between a review and what the Commissioner asked me to
9 do, which was to establish the facts.
10 Q. Yes. So that we are clear about it, at the time
11 Operation Caryatid was being conducted in 2005
12 concluding in January 2007, you had no role in counter
13 terrorism; is that correct?
14 A. Absolutely correct, yes.
15 Q. Paragraph 8 of your statement you explain -- and this is
16 at page 06472 on our pagination, page 3 on the internal
17 numbering -- that for the vast majority of the time
18 there was a healthy and transparent relationship at all
19 levels, and you're dealing here with a culture of
20 relations between the MPS and the media.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Why do you say that, Mr Yates?
23 A. In terms of a vast majority because there's clearly been
24 instances in the past where actually it hasn't been
25 healthy, and I'm talking about the current corruption
3
1 allegations and the like. So to say there's always been
2 a healthy relationship would be wrong because there have
3 been instances in the past where that hasn't been the
4 case. Rare though they may be.
5 Q. How do you define a healthy and transparent
6 relationship?
7 A. By the very words I've used to describe it, really, in
8 terms of trusting in each way -- healthy and
9 transparent. I can't think of other ways to describe
10 it.
11 Q. Does that include in informal transactions, for example
12 over lunch or dinner with individual journalists?
13 A. Yes, it could well be, yes.
14 Q. In relation to those transactions, how do you ensure
15 that those particular transactions remain healthy and
16 transparent rather than unprofessional?
17 A. It's a matter for one's professional judgment and
18 discretion. The vast majority of my dealings with the
19 media would be around the sort of strategic policy
20 issues that I was exposed to in my service at the senior
21 rank.
22 So in terms of the big issues of the day, be it
23 counter terrorism legislation, be it data retention, be
24 it rape policy, for which I was responsible nationally
25 for a number of years, the very vast majority would be
4
1 around that.
2 Q. Did you see --
3 A. And I think -- sorry.
4 Q. Carry on.
5 A. Yes, and I think, as I set out, I think there's a great
6 value in that in terms of both educating myself, testing
7 hypotheses, testing views, and getting the views back as
8 well, so the last thing I think we would want is
9 policing to be in a bubble and in a vacuum where one
10 isn't connecting to other thinking.
11 Q. Do you or did you see the purpose of interactions
12 between the police and the media, at least from the
13 perspective of the police, to pursue the public interest
14 as distinct from the interests of the police itself?
15 A. I think there's occasionally a bit of both, but public
16 interest is always paramount. It's making sure that
17 whatever -- in terms of things like counter terrorism
18 legislation, counter terrorism legislation reviews,
19 making sure we have the very best policies that are fit
20 for purpose and will work.
21 Q. You make it clear in your statement in various places
22 that given the importance of the work you were doing and
23 the nature of the work you were doing, you were very
24 often the "public face" -- that's the term you use --
25 for policing and policy matters. You use that
5
1 terminology in paragraphs 15 and 16.
2 A. Yes. I think that's a fair assessment which covers my
3 period in charge of serious and organised crime in the
4 capital, both as Deputy and Assistant Commissioner and
5 also my role in counter terrorism as well.
6 Q. Do you consider that there is any sort of risk that you
7 being a public face might put you too close to the media
8 in general, or certain sections of it in particular?
9 A. No, I don't, actually. The certain sections bit.
10 I mean, if you look at the registers, as I know you will
11 have done, Mr Jay, it shows a very broad spectrum of
12 coverage with the media. I would actually deliberately
13 seek out the more obscure sections in terms of some of
14 the views that they might hold, and I particularly look
15 in terms of rape around that, and that's why I did so.
16 So the "certain sections" bit is -- and I know where
17 you're leading to, but I wouldn't say -- I would say
18 I had a very broad spectrum of coverage in a broad
19 spectrum of the meetings with the media.
20 Q. You tell us in paragraphs 23 and 24 of your statement
21 our page 06478, page 9 on the internal numbering, you
22 consider that the media was seeking through its personal
23 dealings with you to fully understand the context around
24 policing issues or particular events.
25 A. Yeah.
6
1 Q. Might it be suggested there, Mr Yates, that you're being
2 slightly naive, if I can put it in those terms? The
3 media might have been expecting through its personal
4 dealings with you something additional in exchange.
5 Would you accept that?
6 A. No, I don't really actually, because I do think many of
7 those dealings, the vast majority, as I said, had been
8 around understanding the context. If you take, for
9 example, the government's desire to legislate around
10 data retention and the use of police (inaudible) data in
11 its general sense, there was a fundamental
12 misunderstanding about how important that was. So if
13 you have the opportunity to explain that and explain the
14 full context and the value of those sort of issues, then
15 I think I'm doing it in what I believe, and I still
16 believe, was in the best interests of the public and the
17 best interests of policing.
18 Q. Don't you feel though that there were sometimes
19 occasions, particularly in social contexts and possibly
20 when alcohol was exchanged or imbibed, when the press
21 were trying to get something more out of you, either
22 perhaps an indiscreet comment or perhaps to influence
23 you in a certain way? Did you have a sense that that
24 had occurred?
25 A. I can certainly see your point, Mr Jay, but as an
7
1 individual that hasn't happened.
2 Q. Okay. I'll come back to that when we look at the
3 register.
4 Paragraph 22 of your statement, if you forgive me
5 from darting around a bit, you tell us that the security
6 services were understandably concerned about the degree
7 of media contact "my previous role had involved"; this
8 presumably was in 2009, and then you say presumably in
9 part because of all the briefing against you and the
10 cash for honours investigation. Can we be clear: what
11 are you referring to there, Mr Yates, in the
12 parentheses?
13 A. I'm firmly of the view that I was briefed against on an
14 industrial scale during the cash for peerages
15 investigation. That's what I'm referring to.
16 Q. I can see that, but what was being said about you,
17 insofar as it's relevant to the sentence we are looking
18 at here in your witness statement?
19 A. Because I think what it put me in, it put me in the
20 public eye in a way that was quite unhelpful. There
21 were allegations made against me about all sorts of
22 things, I was a Kenneth Starr, I was this, I was that,
23 and I was very much in the public eye, and in terms of
24 a counter terrorism lead that's not necessarily a good
25 thing.
8
1 Q. Was it being suggested you were the sort of policeman
2 who does leak to the press and that the security
3 services felt that you were the last sort of policeman
4 they would like to see in a counter terrorist role? Is
5 that the point?
6 A. That was the inference, Mr Jay, but it's not true.
7 Q. Okay. Again we may come back to that. I'm going to
8 move forward to paragraph 41 of your statement and the
9 issue of hospitality and gifts, which is 06483 of our
10 pagination, where you tell us that you accepted
11 hospitality, mainly lunch or dinner, from the media in
12 accordance with the relevant guidance, and hospitality
13 was declared in the register. I'm going to call that
14 the hospitality register, and of course that has been
15 made available to the Inquiry. You say a little bit
16 later:
17 "This would not include any occasion when I met
18 casually with a journalist and drinks or coffee were
19 bought on a reciprocal basis."
20 So you're excluding, are you, anything which is
21 minimal and therefore shouldn't trouble the register?
22 Is that your policy or was that your policy?
23 A. No, I think the word is "reciprocal". So if you are
24 buying and being bought, I don't consider that to be
25 hospitality. So if you buy a drink, you buy one back,
9
1 I don't consider that hospitality. It didn't come
2 within, in my view, the guidelines.
3 Q. I understand. Paragraph 42:
4 "I do not consider a casual meeting in those
5 circumstances ..."
6 So you're making it clear, are you, that it's the
7 casual meeting where one round of beer is bought by you
8 and then reciprocated half an hour later, that's not the
9 sort of thing which amounts to hospitality but
10 everything else would, is that correct?
11 A. No. In that sense --
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Does it matter who pays? Whether
13 it's your personal money or reclaimed back or the
14 journalist's personal money? I'm just asking.
15 A. No, it would have been my own personal money, so you
16 wouldn't claim for those.
17 MR JAY: Paragraph 43:
18 "An arrangement to have supper or lunch or attend
19 a dinner or social function with a journalist was
20 considered perfectly acceptable and had many benefits."
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Some of the benefits you've already explained. Was it
23 your practice to drink alcohol at these occasions in the
24 evening?
25 A. Yes, in sensible quantities, yes.
10
1 Q. Okay.
2 A. And again, as far as I'm aware, the hospitality guidance
3 says that is perfectly acceptable.
4 Q. It does.
5 Paragraph 47, before I come to the detail of the
6 register, page 06485, the then Deputy Commissioner
7 Mr Godwin advised you, as he did all other management
8 board members, to reduce contact with the media, and
9 that was advice you accepted. Can you recall about when
10 that advice was given?
11 A. With Tim it was reinforced on several occasions because
12 that was his style, so it would be difficult to say
13 exactly when, but there was a management board or
14 a senior management team meeting where I think it was
15 said, but Tim would repeat it quite a lot.
16 Q. So far as the phone hacking events were developing, the
17 advice was particularly relevant to you, wasn't it,
18 because of what happened in July 2009 and subsequently;
19 do you accept that?
20 A. Yes, I suppose I do accept that, yes.
21 Q. Because the advice to other management board members,
22 although salutary, was less relevant to them because
23 after all they had nothing to do with phone hacking or
24 its aftermath, did they?
25 A. Yes, but I think it was generally well-known and by many
11
1 people in a perfectly proper way that I had and had had
2 good relationships with the media going back a number of
3 years, so it was very well-known and, as I say, but
4 I absolutely accept what you're saying in terms of it
5 may have been more directed to me than, say, the
6 director of resources.
7 Q. But his advice that contact should be reduced is
8 obviously in part evaluative or prescriptive, because it
9 suggesting there might have been too much contact with
10 the media and particularly by you. Would you at the
11 present accept that?
12 A. I think -- and Tim will talk for himself -- I think Tim
13 was of the view that the media were the enemy and we
14 shouldn't be in contact with them. Now, I don't concur
15 with that view, never have done, and I've had some
16 healthy dialogue, debate, with Tim on those points. He
17 took it a different view to me and others.
18 Q. Of course we'll ask him, but his view might have been
19 rather more direct, and it was this, that as phone
20 hacking developed as an issue, certainly in and after
21 July 2009, it was particularly inappropriate that there
22 should be any interaction between those investigating
23 phone hacking, such as you, and the media, in particular
24 News International. Do you accept that interpretation?
25 A. No, I don't, actually, because the fact of the matter
12
1 was that we weren't investigating News International
2 after July 2009. I came to a view then, which no doubt
3 we'll discuss, that there was no any evidence on which
4 to base an investigation, and so to say they were under
5 investigation is not correct. They only became under
6 investigation in January 2011.
7 Q. But then Mr Godwin's advice was completely wrong because
8 it was predicated on the premise, wasn't it, that there
9 should be less contact with the media because of the
10 phone hacking events developing, so it doesn't matter
11 whether you call it investigation, whether you call it
12 establishing the facts; it is the public perception
13 which he was driving it, wasn't he?
14 A. But that's -- if you come from that premise, you're
15 saying that after July 2009 we shouldn't have had any
16 contact with the media at all, and I don't accept that.
17 It's not logical. If we were investigating them, then
18 yes I agree, but we weren't investigating them. The
19 matter was concluded then, there was no new evidence and
20 we always said we would reopen the case if there was new
21 evidence and that became apparent when they provided us
22 with material in January, I think the 26th, 2011.
23 Q. Okay, Mr Yates. We have, and I hope you have, as part
24 of the material which has been provided by the MPS, the
25 gifts and hospitality register insofar as it relates to
13
1 you for the period after 1 January 2005. In the bundle
2 I have, it's tab 12, although I'm afraid I don't know
3 the page number on our system. It runs out before
4 tab 11. It's going to be about 06460, but we'll find it
5 about there.
6 A. Is it in bundle 1 or bundle 2? I have bundle 2.
7 I think bundle 1 is mostly around Select Committee
8 stuff.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: There is a bundle which is headed
10 "MPS master bundle gifts and hospitality", but you may
11 only have been sent a small file which contains your own
12 register.
13 MR JAY: Yes, I think that's what happened, if I remember
14 rightly. It runs over about 32 pages. Do you have
15 this?
16 A. No, I don't -- well, I may do, but it's not immediately
17 obvious. Just take me through it and I'll be happy with
18 that, if you're happy.
19 Q. I've also been given but I don't think anybody else has
20 as yet, because the Metropolitan Police Service have
21 kindly provided it to us but we will make this more
22 generally available, a compilation of your diary
23 entries.
24 A. Yes, I've got that.
25 Q. Involving contact with the media. I just want to
14
1 correlate the two, if I may. I'm going to look at one
2 year, which is 2009, so one year in particular.
3 A. Okay.
4 Q. According to the diary entry, for 28 April 2009,
5 a meeting was --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- a dinner was organised, although in the end you
8 didn't attend, with SPS, Dick F, which must be
9 Dick Fedorcio, and NW --
10 A. Yeah.
11 Q. -- who we think must be Neil Wallis. Is that right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. That was at a restaurant called Luciano's.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. I know you didn't attend it, but can you tell us what
16 the purpose of that meeting might have been? Can you
17 recall?
18 A. I have no idea. I didn't go.
19 Q. But if the meeting was going to be for a proper
20 professional purpose, as it was, one would need to know
21 in advance why it had been organised. Can you recall at
22 all why it was set up?
23 A. No, I can't. I'm sorry.
24 Q. On 3 June 2009 there was a private appointment in the
25 evening. Nick Candy, you and Neil, that's Neil Wallis?
15
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Dinner for four at Skalini's.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Do you know what the purpose of that meeting was?
5 A. It's -- it was a private appointment. It was friends.
6 It had nothing to do with policing at all. That's why
7 it says "private appointment".
8 Q. Who is Nick Candy?
9 A. Nick Candy is a friend. He works in property.
10 Q. I think there was also someone called Neil Reading who
11 attended, if I've correctly understood this. If I have,
12 who is he?
13 A. Neil Reading is a friend. He works in PR. It shouldn't
14 have to be in the diary because it was a private
15 appointment. It just helped me managing my diary. So
16 it's nothing to do with policing at all.
17 Q. So does it follow that you paid for this or --
18 A. No, I think Nick paid. As I say -- I think Nick paid,
19 but as I say, it's friends, so there were many times
20 I paid for dinner which don't go in my diary either, so.
21 Q. I understand. So for these purposes, we're going to
22 regard Mr Wallis as a friend; is that correct?
23 A. If it says a private appointment, yes.
24 Q. Would policing issues have been discussed, though, in
25 passing or at all?
16
1 A. Absolutely not.
2 Q. Why do you say that so categorically, Mr Yates?
3 A. Because it's not of interest to the others there and
4 it's -- it just wouldn't be -- it wasn't the purpose of
5 the dinner to go and discuss policing. It was to go and
6 have -- to go out with friends and enjoy a dinner.
7 Q. I understand that, Mr Yates. Did Mr Wallis discuss the
8 media world at all, or the News of the World in
9 particular?
10 A. Not that I can recall. This was -- it's more likely to
11 be discussions about boring stuff like football, to be
12 honest.
13 Q. Well, not necessarily boring, depending on the precise
14 nature of the discussion. Did each of you -- that's you
15 and Mr Wallis -- support the same team?
16 A. No.
17 Q. All right.
18 A. He comes from the Manchester United end of life and
19 I come from the Liverpool end of life, so.
20 Q. Did you go to football matches together?
21 A. Yes, we did.
22 Q. Was this on occasion in Manchester and on other
23 occasions in Liverpool?
24 A. No, I mean probably two or three times I've been to
25 a football match with him.
17
1 Q. I didn't catch that.
2 A. Sorry? Two or three times.
3 Q. Was it once in Manchester, twice in Liverpool?
4 A. No, I don't think -- I don't think he's -- I don't think
5 I let him go to Liverpool, so it was Manchester and
6 I think Arsenal when Liverpool were playing Arsenal,
7 I think.
8 Q. May I ask you this: who paid for the tickets?
9 A. On the Liverpool/Manchester United, he paid for the
10 tickets, and I paid for the travelling, so it's sort of
11 pro rata, really.
12 Q. It sounds as if Mr Wallis was, at least at that stage,
13 a close friend of yours. Is that fair?
14 A. He was -- I've always been completely open that he's
15 a good friend. He certainly was a good friend.
16 I haven't seen him for nigh on a year.
17 Q. Inevitable, wasn't it, Mr Yates, that on these social
18 occasions if you're travelling up from London, whether
19 it be to Manchester or Liverpool, you're with Mr Wallis
20 for at least a couple of hours on the train either way?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. There's going to be discussion around what you do
23 professionally and around what he did professionally.
24 Would you accept that?
25 A. In the margins, yes, but, seriously, it was far more
18
1 about domestic life, family life, football and, you
2 know, there was a life outside the Met, and I'm sure
3 there's a life outside of News International for him.
4 Q. So there was no, as it were, seeping in to professional
5 or work issues during these social interactions, is that
6 right?
7 A. As I say, completely in the margins. Of course there
8 must have been, but, you know, nothing of a -- you know,
9 I can -- I know a number of lawyers, and count them as
10 good friends, and we can talk about the legal system
11 without talking about particular cases. I know bankers,
12 you can talk about banking systems and not talk about
13 individual accounts. You'd have to accept there's
14 a sort of element of professionalism and sound judgment
15 that stops you going into areas where you shouldn't go
16 into, and I think it's -- you know, the inferences
17 shouldn't be there.
18 Q. Are you assuring us that Mr Wallis kept to the proper
19 boundaries and did not share with you matters which
20 related to his work?
21 A. Well, you'd have to ask him himself, but I certainly
22 didn't hear anything from him that caused me concern,
23 no.
24 Q. To go back to your diary, 9 September 2009, another
25 private appointment: dinner with Neil et al, and then it
19
1 says "spk", which must be speak, and then the initials
2 KB at a restaurant called --
3 A. She's my PA.
4 Q. Pardon me?
5 A. KB is my -- was my PA.
6 Q. Thank you. At a restaurant called Scott's, which
7 I think is in Soho. Again, obviously it doesn't feature
8 in the -- actually, I think on this occasion it does.
9 Just bear with me. No, it doesn't feature in the gifts
10 and hospitality register, I suppose because this was
11 a private appointment; is that correct?
12 A. Yes. For all private appointments, read private.
13 Q. Again, it's the same points that you would make that
14 there was no improper discussion with Mr Wallis at any
15 stage?
16 A. No, absolutely.
17 Q. Just bear with me. 1 October 2009 is another private
18 appointment, dinner with Nick Candy and Wallis at
19 a place called Cecconi's, this time in Burlington
20 Gardens. It exactly the same point, is it?
21 A. It is, yes.
22 Q. A lunch with Mr Wallis organised for 14 September
23 I assume was cancelled. He was a very close friend of
24 yours, wasn't he?
25 A. He was a good friend, yes.
20
1 Q. 7 September -- it's out of sequence in the diary as has
2 been compiled -- there's an entry this time in the
3 mid-afternoon, "Mr Wallis to NSY", which obviously is
4 New Scotland Yard, "arranged direct by JY", which is
5 you. Can you recall why Mr Wallis went to New Scotland
6 Yard to see you on that occasion?
7 A. What was the date, sorry?
8 Q. 7 September 2009.
9 A. I think there were several attempts to get an
10 appointment with him, myself and Dick Fedorcio regarding
11 potential work, I think. I can only think it must have
12 been that.
13 Q. Potential work for Mr Wallis; is that right?
14 A. I think that -- I'd imagine that's what it is, but
15 I can't be certain in terms of the timing.
16 Q. Is this the business surrounding Mr Wallis' company,
17 Shami?
18 A. Yeah, I think so, yes, but I can't be certain.
19 Q. So you think that this was a meeting which related to
20 that matter? Have I correctly understood it?
21 A. I think it was with Dick Fedorcio, but I can't be
22 absolutely certain without seeing the diary entry.
23 Q. How many of these meetings took place surrounding the
24 Shami issue and Mr Wallis? Can you recall?
25 A. I think one or two in terms of the work he was doing for
21
1 us. Is that the question, sorry?
2 Q. I think just the number of meetings, and you've given
3 your evidence about that.
4 A. Yeah.
5 Q. This was about two months after you were establishing
6 the facts in relation to News International, News of the
7 World and Operation Caryatid on 9 July --
8 A. 9th, yes.
9 Q. When you were establishing those facts, was it ever
10 suggested to you that the conspiracy, if I can use that
11 term, went quite high in the organisation? Or might
12 have done?
13 A. No, absolutely not. It was -- I saw you taking through
14 the briefing notes yesterday exactly what was there, and
15 there was certainly no evidence to suggest that, so
16 absolutely not. And I was -- you know, the level of
17 reassurance I had on that was from a number of pointers,
18 both from sort of Peter Clarke and the late
19 John McDowall in terms of their seniority and their
20 oversight of it, some exceptionally good detectives from
21 specialist operations who were involved with it, the DPP
22 concurred with my view, counsel --
23 Q. We're going to come back to that.
24 A. We will be covering that?
25 Q. We will certainly be covering that.
22
1 A. Thank you.
2 Q. 5 November 2009 in the diary, this is an entry which
3 does appear in the gifts and hospitality register. The
4 register says:
5 "Dinner, News of the World (to improve understanding
6 of each other's operational environment)."
7 Which is a formulation one sees very commonly in the
8 gifts and hospitality register whenever one is meeting
9 a news organisation.
10 A. Yes, it's common across -- it's not just me, it's common
11 across, I think, all the rest, isn't it?
12 Q. We'll see whether it's exactly the same for Mr Hayman.
13 A. I think it was a form of words that was -- I had nothing
14 to do with the formal words, but that was the formal
15 words that appeared to sort of encapsulate it and
16 satisfy the police authority.
17 Q. Because looking at this register you'd have no idea who
18 the dinner was with, but one does from the diary entry:
19 "Dinner meeting with Colin Myler and Lucy Panton."
20 And this is the Ivy Club, which apparently is
21 upstairs from the Ivy restaurant.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. What was going on on this occasion, Mr Yates? What was
24 discussed?
25 A. Again I think it was probably -- I think it was my -- in
23
1 terms of coming into the CT job, I think it was the
2 first time I'd met Colin Myler. Again it was exactly
3 what it says, it's trying to understand perspectives
4 from one of the biggest selling or then biggest selling
5 national newspapers what their big issues of the day
6 were, what our big issues of the day were. It's talking
7 about it at a sort of strategic level, if you like, and
8 helping to understand both his perspective and my
9 perspective.
10 Q. You tell us in your statement that Lucy Panton was one
11 of the most active members of the Crime Reporters
12 Association; is that right?
13 A. She was certainly one of the most visible ones in that
14 sense, yes.
15 Q. She was and probably still is married to a detective in
16 the MPS; is that right?
17 A. Yes, as far as I'm aware.
18 Q. What was the nature of your dealings with her? I'm not
19 suggesting for one moment -- sorry, we're getting an
20 echo on the system. I think it's stopped.
21 A. Am I too loud?
22 Q. No. I mean, how often did you meet with Lucy Panton?
23 A. I've known Lucy, like I've known a number of the crime
24 reporters, for many, many years. I think I put in my
25 statement about a decade. So I've known her an awful
24
1 long time. It would be difficult to say how often I'd
2 met her, but probably two or three times a year, I would
3 say. I don't know.
4 Q. This is an expensive restaurant, isn't it? It goes
5 without saying. We get the idea with the Ivy Club.
6 A. I think all restaurants in London are expensive, Mr Jay.
7 Q. Okay, Mr Yates, but this is at the expensive end, and
8 I mean you don't get out of the Ivy Club, possibly, for
9 less than £100 a head. Obviously alcohol was bought as
10 well, wasn't it?
11 A. Yes, absolutely.
12 Q. Was this an appropriate interaction with Mr Myler and
13 Lucy Panton, in your view, looking back on this?
14 A. I don't -- I mean, in terms of what we know now, yes, it
15 clearly -- as I say, in terms of what has happened in
16 the last three or four months, yes, I suppose it is, but
17 it certainly wasn't at the time in terms of what we knew
18 about the events, Mr Myler's position, he was the new
19 editor who'd come in, and I go back to what I said at
20 the start. I think it's hugely important that senior
21 police officers have a relationship and interact with
22 the media, that they are not the enemy, they are
23 occasionally critical friends and occasionally much
24 worse.
25 Q. Mr Myler's position -- we heard his evidence to this
25
1 Inquiry -- was that there was one rogue reporter. Was
2 that your understanding of the position? Was that
3 affirmatively established to your satisfaction that
4 there was only one rogue reporter at the News of the
5 World?
6 A. In terms of what we knew and what the evidence was, yes,
7 that was the position in July 2009 and remained that
8 position up until January 2011. We had no other way of
9 affirming it either way.
10 Q. In your opinion, there was no evidence at all to suggest
11 that others might be involved; is that correct,
12 Mr Yates?
13 A. Well, there was the -- you know, the long spoken about
14 "for Neville" email, which again was covered in terms of
15 what its value to an investigation was on several
16 occasions, not least by the DPP and counsel in terms of
17 what it would value -- its evidential value. There was
18 nothing else that we knew differently then.
19 Q. Okay, we'll come back to that, but I'm still on this
20 diary. There's a meeting with Nick Davies of the
21 Guardian, which is quite interesting. 30 November 2009.
22 A. Yes, got it.
23 Q. Which is probably at New Scotland Yard.
24 A. It was.
25 Q. We know from the time of day that it wasn't going to be
26
1 lunch, and indeed the diary entry, at least as
2 transcribed to me, says:
3 "Meeting with Nick Davies, Guardian, 30 minutes
4 only."
5 You're making it clear that that's the limit of your
6 time for Mr Davies, isn't it? I'm not saying you're
7 wrong about that, but this is going to be an
8 abbreviated, short as possible, professional
9 interaction, isn't it?
10 A. Well, if you looked at my diary in its broader context,
11 you would see it's sort of fairly round from dawn till
12 early dusk. I imagine that's because it was considered
13 important to have the meeting. Nick was quite
14 a challenging individual for us to deal with in
15 a perfectly proper respect, and we felt there would be
16 some value in having that meeting with him. We had
17 a follow-on meeting, I think, with the editor and the
18 deputy editor around exactly the same issues in terms of
19 just trying to explain what the MPS position was around
20 phone hacking.
21 Q. And on 15 December 2009 in the diary:
22 "Meeting between JY, Dick Fedorcio and Neil Wallis."
23 A. Yeah.
24 Q. This probably relates, does it, to the Shami employment
25 issue?
27
1 A. Yes. I think, if I recall it, I don't think I actually
2 made the meeting, but I think you're right, Mr Jay,
3 that's what it was about.
4 Q. 9 April 2010. This is a CRA lunch.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. At a place called Racine's in Knightsbridge. Were there
7 only four other people there, John Twomey, Lucy Panton
8 and Justin Davenport with Sara Cheesley attending, or
9 was it wider --
10 A. No, that was it. It was the sort of practice of
11 specialist operations going back several years,
12 before -- way before my time, to arrange these -- to
13 arrange these almost monthly, although I never made them
14 monthly, I think I probably got to them only every three
15 or four months, with the CRA, where Sara Cheesley calls
16 the press officer.
17 Q. This one isn't in the gifts and hospitality register.
18 Is there a reason for that?
19 A. I can only think that's an oversight. It's in the
20 diary. Maybe I didn't make it, I don't know. If you
21 look -- what you're of course not pointing out, Mr Jay,
22 is the number of meetings that were cancelled during
23 those years, which were probably more than the ones
24 I attended, so I think that's probably helpful to point
25 out.
28
1 Q. Thank you. 21 May 2010, again in the diary. It's not
2 in the gifts and hospitality register, but it may be
3 that this one didn't take place.
4 A. I don't think it did.
5 Q. It says "Dinner with Neil ..." then it says "TBC". Are
6 we to deduce that it didn't take place?
7 A. Yes. It probably took place in four days' time.
8 Q. Yes I was going to come to that, 25 May, private
9 appointment: "NC". That's Mr Candy, I think, isn't it?
10 A. Yes, the private appointments, Mr Jay -- I shouldn't
11 have them in my diary.
12 Q. Well. It's at somewhere called the Bar Boulud, Mandarin
13 Oriential. NC confirmed booking. So it suggests that
14 he probably paid?
15 A. He may well have done, yes.
16 Q. Mr Wallis was there again, wasn't he?
17 A. Yes, the same four people who I have dined with probably
18 three times that year. As friends.
19 Q. Another private appointment, Neil Wallis, 10 June 2010.
20 Do you see that one?
21 A. Yes. But he was no longer working for
22 News International. I think he was working for us then.
23 Q. Also been transcribed as a diary entry for 3 August
24 2010, although this one appears to have been postponed.
25 It's a drink with Ron McGivern(?) and possibly Wallis.
29
1 A. Yeah, didn't happen.
2 Q. I think the reason why this was drawn to the Inquiry's
3 attention is the email to the right-hand side. Do you
4 see that?
5 "Hello John."
6 And there's a rather disparaging reference to
7 Mr Wallis being drunk in a restaurant and you trying to
8 control him.
9 A. Yeah --
10 Q. Do you recall that?
11 A. That didn't happen. It's not my email. Give us
12 a break.
13 Q. This is coming to an end shortly. 24 August 2010.
14 A. What you -- I can understand why you are ignoring it --
15 is all the other appointments with other sections of the
16 media, the Guardian, the Independent, Channel 4, ITN,
17 which of course show the balance of the level of media
18 contact, which was actually way in favour of those
19 people over News International, in my view, if you did
20 the counting.
21 Q. Thank you.
22 A. I'm just making a point.
23 Q. Yes, fair enough, Mr Yates.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But is there a difference, Mr Yates,
25 if you're going to be involved in investigating
30
1 anything, between the professional contact that you
2 might have with a newspaper or organisation to further
3 the interests of the Metropolitan Police and
4 a relationship with somebody which might be perceived --
5 I mean perfectly innocently, you're entitled to be
6 friends with whomsoever you wish, but who might be
7 perceived to impact on your professional judgment in
8 circumstances that you should be careful to avoid?
9 A. I agree with you, and what I've done in the last year is
10 to cut off contact with someone who was a good friend
11 because of the way things had developed, but from 2005,
12 2006 onwards, whenever Caryatid started, there was never
13 any question of Mr Wallis being involved. He hadn't
14 resigned, he continued to work at the newspaper. There
15 was no evidence in July 2009, there was no evidence in
16 the New York Times, so --
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's not that he personally would
18 necessarily be involved, but he was associated with an
19 organisation that certainly was being the subject of
20 scrutiny, whether correctly or not, and I'm sure that
21 you in your experience from your other investigations
22 have more than enough scars of problems of
23 relationships.
24 A. Yeah, I mean I -- the way this has been described in the
25 past in terms of -- if a Detective Inspector at Bromley
31
1 police station gets arrested -- in a big organisation
2 gets arrested for corruption, that doesn't mean you cut
3 off contact with the rest of the organisation. So as
4 far as we were aware, you had Mr Goodman, as a cog in
5 a large organisation, arrested for wrongdoing and sent
6 to prison. That, as far as I was aware at the time and
7 others were aware, no other evidence to suggest others'
8 involvement, does that mean you cut off relationships
9 with a very influential section of the media? I don't
10 think it does.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I don't think it necessarily does
12 either, but that's rather different if you are then
13 required to make judgments about the existence or
14 otherwise of evidence, and that you then run the risk of
15 somebody saying actually you have something of a -- not
16 an interest --
17 A. Because there's so many formal checks and balances and
18 informal checks and balances in these matters. Public
19 perception, I accept your point, my Lord, but if you
20 want -- you saw Keith Surtees yesterday. If you're
21 honestly suggesting that someone like Keith Surtees
22 would accept a perverse decision just because I was the
23 senior officer, it's just nonsense, sir. These are the
24 informal checks and balances that take place as well,
25 and, you know, I absolutely know what I did on July 9th,
32
1 I know what I was provided with, I know the judgment
2 I made. You know, time has shown that to be -- and
3 what's happened -- not the greatest call, but at that
4 time it was the right call, and it wasn't influenced in
5 any way, shape or form by other matters.
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Those are two questions, aren't they?
7 First of all, whether the basis for the call, and
8 secondly whether whatever basis there was for the call,
9 it was justified by events or -- and finally, whether
10 what happened thereafter. I understand the separation
11 of the issues.
12 A. Yes. Thank you.
13 MR JAY: Mr Yates, in relation to the diary and the
14 register, the diary shows, looking elsewhere now, that
15 there were occasional meals, usually in the evening,
16 with Mr Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. On each occasion, those do feature in the gifts and
19 hospitality register. Do you follow me?
20 A. Yes. They all should. But if there's the occasional
21 oversight, that's regrettable, but it's what it is.
22 Q. But your interactions with him were always, as it were,
23 a deux, there weren't other people there. Do you follow
24 me?
25 A. Yeah, that's right.
33
1 Q. Then on perhaps more occasions you're having drinks with
2 a journalist called James Hanning, which this Inquiry's
3 heard from, of the Independent. Does that match your
4 recollection?
5 A. Yeah, it does, and James was a sort of very interesting
6 interrogator, small "i", and challenging some of my --
7 many of my assumptions and preconceptions around phone
8 hacking, and I found it extremely useful to talk to him
9 because he was giving a completely different view about
10 the public perception around what had taken place. So
11 I found that extremely useful.
12 Q. So he was telling you, was he, from what he'd heard and
13 knew, this activity was far more widespread than you
14 believed? Is that right?
15 A. And it was -- that's what James' view was, and he can
16 speak for himself, I don't want to put words in his
17 mouth. But from my perspective what I was trying to get
18 across to him was the limitations on what could have
19 been done in 2005/6 when I wasn't responsible, the
20 exercise I undertook in 2009 when I was responsible, and
21 the continuing attention I gave it, which I think is
22 probably clear from the paperwork, from July 2009
23 onwards until January 2011.
24 Q. I mean did he share with you his belief, albeit in this
25 informal context, that the conspiracy, as it were, went
34
1 high up in News International?
2 A. He was one of those ones that would (break in
3 transmission) --
4 Q. Sorry, we didn't catch that.
5 A. He was one of the ones -- sorry. He was an individual,
6 I think, and again he can speak for himself, I don't
7 want to put words in his mouth, but James did see
8 a grander conspiracy, and, you know, the discussion was
9 around this is what we've done, this is why we've done
10 it, and I believe -- again he can speak for himself --
11 that I would have been very helpful in terms of putting
12 context around why police do certain things and why
13 police can't do certain things.
14 Q. I'm not dealing here with the rights and wrongs of this;
15 I'm dealing solely with what he told you, and so --
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. -- you say he can speak for himself, but what in fact is
18 important is what you can tell us as to what he told
19 you, and he was telling you --
20 A. Okay, if the point you're getting to is -- sorry to
21 overspeak. If the point you're getting to is did he
22 give me any nugget of evidence that enabled me to do
23 anything with it, the answer is no. And if he had done,
24 of course I'd have taken it forward.
25 Q. Yes. But what he was doing, though, was casting -- or
35
1 perhaps this is what ought to have happened -- casting
2 doubt in your mind as to the propriety of you continuing
3 to have frequent social interactions with Mr Wallis.
4 Wasn't he at least doing that?
5 A. He had a view about -- it was not so much -- I can't
6 actually recall the exact details of the conversation --
7 it wasn't so much about Wallis, it was about others. He
8 had a view. He had a view about what had taken place.
9 It was actually certainly far more about other senior
10 people in the Murdoch stable, as it were, than
11 Mr Wallis. He by then didn't work for them, of course.
12 Q. I go back to Lucy Panton in paragraph 65 of your
13 statement.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. You refer to an email that you were shown from James
16 Mellor to Lucy Panton, 30 October 2010. The email
17 itself is in our bundle at our page number 06530.
18 Tab 3, probably, of the bundle you have.
19 A. I have it, yeah.
20 Q. It's a rather odd email to get one's mind around without
21 knowing a lot more of the context.
22 A. I can help you with the context, probably.
23 Q. Yes. Very briefly, Mr Yates.
24 A. Sorry?
25 Q. Please do, but very briefly.
36
1 A. The context was around -- the background is the weekend
2 of that 30 October was -- I think it was about two or
3 three days beforehand there had been a printer cartridge
4 bomb found on a DHL flight up in the West Midlands
5 Airport, so there was a lot of interest around what had
6 happened that weekend.
7 Q. Why you were shown this email -- and it may have been
8 the MPS who showed it to you -- was the last two lines:
9 "Thinks John Yates could be crucial here. Have you
10 spoken to him? Really need an exclusive splash line so
11 time to call in all those bottles of champagne ..."
12 A. Yeah.
13 Q. One interpretation is, well, you'd been providing
14 bottles of champagne to Lucy Panton; it was time to call
15 in the favour, as it were, or it may have been the other
16 way around. But you can see the point. I think it's
17 the other way around.
18 A. Yeah, and I sort of put a -- I mean, firstly I have no
19 clue who James Mellor is, I never met him in my life.
20 Secondly, it's not my email and it's a turn of phrase,
21 and thirdly, it would indicate even by October 2010 that
22 those perceived favours had never been called and
23 I hadn't provided them with anything before and that's
24 the position.
25 So I can't account for -- yes, it's a phrase, and
37
1 I think it's slightly unfair that it's put to me in that
2 way, and I've said I put a completely different spin on
3 it to you.
4 Q. The only spin I put on it -- and I prefer the word
5 interpretation, actually, rather than spin -- is that
6 Lucy Panton is plying you with champagne, that was known
7 about to James Mellor, and the suggestion is that the
8 favour needs to be returned and that's what this clearly
9 says, doesn't it?
10 A. It's a turn of phrase. No, I hadn't been plied with
11 champagne by Lucy Panton and I think it's an unfortunate
12 emphasis you're putting on it.
13 Q. I'll only ask one other question: did you ever drink
14 champagne with Lucy Panton?
15 A. There may well have been the very odd occasion, yes,
16 when a bottle was being shared with several people, but
17 no in the sense that you're suggesting.
18 Q. This email was drawn to our attention, and therefore it
19 was right to ask questions about it, but I leave it
20 there.
21 Can I move on to the next section of your witness
22 statement?
23 A. Paragraph?
24 Q. This is paragraph 66, our page 06489.
25 A. Yes.
38
1 Q. This is Mr Wallis coming to work for the MPS. There's
2 detailed evidence -- or rather there's a statement from
3 you, it's not that detailed, but it runs over a few
4 pages -- your exhibit JMY3.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Mr Wallis coming to wok for the MPS. We'll take JMY3 as
7 read, but the conversation you had with him, when you
8 referred to evidence you gave to the Home Affairs Select
9 Committee --
10 A. Yeah.
11 Q. -- wanted "absolute assurance there was nothing in the
12 previous phone hacking matters still being reported and
13 chased by Nick Davies that could embarrass him, me, the
14 Commissioner or the Metropolitan Police Service.
15 I received categorical assurances that this was the
16 case."
17 What was the --
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. -- value of those assurances, Mr Yates?
20 A. It was the proper assurances and the proper due
21 diligence, as it were, is of course done through the
22 normal channels of the procurement branch in the Met.
23 It was a type of formal reassurance to me that there was
24 nothing. I wanted to be doubly certain. I knew the
25 rumours that were swilling around potentially, and
39
1 I just wanted to be absolutely certain.
2 Q. But he was hardly going to say yes to you. You, of
3 course, are a policeman, and an extremely senior
4 policeman. He has to say no, whatever the truth of the
5 matter. Do you see that? Asking Mr Wallis for
6 a categorical assurance is entirely worthless, isn't it?
7 A. I don't think it is, actually, because I think it is me
8 saying, "Come on, Neil, is there anything, anything,
9 anything, that's going to embarrass you, me or the Met
10 in the future?" I felt it was valuable. You know, it
11 would -- if anything, it would put him off taking the
12 job if he thought there was something, rather than say,
13 "Oh yes, lots to embarrass you." He might just say, "Do
14 you know what, I don't think it's worth it", or
15 something. So it was me sort of reinforcing those facts
16 with him.
17 Q. The offer of work by the MPS to Neil Wallis' daughter
18 Amy, that's paragraph 74 of your statement. That's
19 a matter which has been considered elsewhere.
20 A. Yeah. Considered elsewhere, of course there was
21 absolutely no wrongdoing. I've been completely cleared
22 of any sort of wrongdoing regarding that.
23 Q. Questions of course were asked by a Select Committee,
24 but the gist of it is this, that you passed on an email
25 and said words to the effect, "Let me know what happens
40
1 to this so I can manage expectations"; is that right?
2 A. Absolutely. So I was -- as I've said before, I was
3 completely equivocal about whether Amy got the job or
4 not, and I had no influence on it at all. As has been
5 confirmed.
6 Q. Just the appearance of this, Mr Yates. You're an
7 Assistant Commissioner, you're passing on the email to
8 someone in human resources --
9 A. To the -- sorry. I was passing it to the director of
10 human resources.
11 Q. Yes, but that person knows by the very fact that you're
12 passing on the email that you know the father.
13 A. Yeah.
14 Q. That's the reason why expectations need to be managed.
15 There is at least the perception of influence by you,
16 which might be said by some to have been or at least
17 give the appearance of being causative in Amy Wallis
18 getting the job. Do you see that point?
19 A. No. I disagree with you. This is passed to a peer on
20 the management board who had a reputation for telling it
21 as it is. If he thought there was anything
22 inappropriate, if you were to read out the email from
23 Martin Tiplady, you would actually see what he said
24 about that. So no, I don't accept that and of course
25 the IPCC have agreed with me.
41
1 Q. I move on to a separate issue now, that of leaks.
2 Paragraph 85 of your statement, page 06496. Cash for
3 honours --
4 A. Page 5?
5 Q. Paragraph 85.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You say you have always denied being the source of any
8 inappropriate information reaching the public domain and
9 still do. It was being suggested by many that you were
10 the source of leaks of information into the public
11 domain, wasn't it?
12 A. It was, but that was the inference that was put out,
13 I don't know if it was ever put quite as starkly as
14 that, but it's not true.
15 Q. So your clear evidence is that you were not the source
16 of any leaks in relation to that investigation; is that
17 right?
18 A. I don't put out anything in the public domain that
19 I wasn't entitled to do so by virtue of my rank or
20 authority by somebody else, no.
21 Q. That's a slightly different formulation. It suggests
22 that you might have put things into the public domain,
23 but feel that it was appropriate to do so by virtue of
24 your rank and status?
25 A. No, no, no. Okay. No. In terms of knocking down
42
1 stories that weren't right, yes, I did that on at least
2 a couple of occasions, because we were saying if that
3 story goes to the public domain that will distract the
4 team for days on end, create a media furore that is
5 completely unnecessary and you would say -- you provide
6 the items to say you're completely wrong.
7 But I stand by what I put in my statement that the
8 salient facts and the -- in media terms the salacious
9 facts about that enquiry remain known to very few people
10 and that's the way it's always remained. We managed to
11 interview a certain Prime Minister four times with
12 no one knowing so I think that bears testament to the
13 tightness of the team and myself during what was a very
14 testing period.
15 Q. Can I move now to the phone hacking investigation, which
16 starts at paragraph 95. You feel now, this is
17 paragraph 96, our page 06498:
18 "It is now very clear from the outset News of the
19 World deliberately failed to co-operate with the
20 original investigation and have seriously misled
21 a variety of people and institutions over the past
22 several years."
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. The reference to "from the outset" is presumably
25 a reference to -- what, do you mean literally by that?
43
1 What happened on 8 August 2006 and subsequently; have
2 I understood that right?
3 A. Yes, I think that is my view. It's clear that both from
4 the sort of -- the solicitors' and lawyers' letters that
5 were traded from the earlier investigation, that there
6 was a deliberate obfuscation around all these matters,
7 and that they clearly had material which they didn't
8 provide us, and didn't provide until some five years
9 later, January 2011.
10 Q. Weren't you told, though, by Mr Williams -- Mr Surtees,
11 of course, wasn't part of what happened in July 2009 --
12 that News of the World had been obstructive in the
13 police's view in August/September 2006?
14 A. There's obstruction that -- which I heard about
15 yesterday and I knew about in terms of sort of a slight
16 lockdown at Wapping when police turned up, and then
17 there's the obstruction that has to be a deliberate
18 obstruction that would foil us in terms of getting
19 a production order. When lawyers wrote, as they did, on
20 numerous occasions the opening paragraph was always the
21 lines of "we intend to co-operate completely with your
22 enquiries". You would know and I would know and our
23 lawyers told us that that would foil the ability to get
24 a production order then. That's my understanding, of
25 course. I wasn't part of that team. That's my
44
1 understanding.
2 Q. You may well have followed the evidence that was given
3 to this Inquiry yesterday, but it was I think I'm right
4 in saying the view of all three officers from whom we
5 heard yesterday at the time that they felt News of the
6 World were being obstructive. Was that communicated to
7 you by Mr Williams in July 2009?
8 A. I recall sort of the phrase a sort of Mexican stand-off
9 at Wapping HQ when they turned up with a warrant, but
10 I think that would happen at a lot of newspaper offices
11 if the police came in with a warrant. I think the
12 newspaper lawyers would want to test that warrant and do
13 everything they could do to safeguard journalistic
14 material. I wouldn't necessarily think that would be an
15 unusual turn of events at a newspaper.
16 Q. Even if the police had a warrant which excluded from its
17 ambit journalistic material? Is that still your
18 evidence, Mr Yates?
19 A. It's difficult -- what happened in 2005/2006 obviously
20 had nothing to do with me and I can't make those
21 judgments. The important thing is in 2009, when it did
22 come under my umbrella, that a production order was --
23 was just not relevant any more. So you've heard the
24 evidence from Mr Clarke, Mr Williams and Mr Surtees
25 around those matters. Obviously what they say is
45
1 correct.
2 Q. There's a difference between whether it might have been
3 possible to obtain a production order and whether
4 News International or more specifically those at the
5 News of the World were obstructive through their lawyers
6 in failing to reply to police requests in late August
7 and September 2006. Do you see that?
8 A. But that is -- it wasn't part of my remit at that point,
9 so you're asking me to comment on something that was for
10 others to do. My remit was 2009 onwards.
11 Q. It's part of the inferential picture one might draw as
12 to whether there was evidence generally speaking against
13 others at the News of the World. Do you see the
14 relevance of it from that point of view?
15 A. I do and I don't. I mean, the inference of was there
16 other evidence, you will see the note from counsel dated
17 14 July, we could go to that, I'm not sure where it is
18 in the --
19 Q. We've seen it yesterday, it's Mr Perry's note.
20 A. But it's a very important note from my perspective, Mr
21 Jay, because what it --
22 Q. Please carry on.
23 A. Thank you. What it says is that leading counsel saw the
24 material, albeit I know in terms of the indictment they
25 were looking at it, but they say in that -- I haven't
46
1 got it in front of me -- that we were not told about
2 others' involvement, and the crucial phrase "nor did we
3 see any evidence of others' involvement". So I have
4 counsel, the leading counsel, and I knew junior counsel
5 had spent a considerable amount of time, two and a half,
6 three days, going through all the material giving me
7 that level of assurance that there was no evidence of
8 others' involvement.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm not sure it means that, does it?
10 MR JAY: Does it -- sorry.
11 A. Well --
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, we'll go through it, Mr Yates.
13 It's quite important.
14 MR JAY: I must say --
15 A. It is important.
16 Q. -- the inference I drew from it, and possibly
17 Lord Justice Leveson, was different. I think they were
18 saying, in answer to your suggestion that there was no
19 evidence, they had been shown no evidence but that
20 doesn't mean that there wasn't any evidence. Do you see
21 the difference?
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Let's have a look at it.
23 MR JAY: I think it's in your bundle there. We have it at
24 tab 163 of a much bigger bundle. Do you have the note
25 there to hand, Mr Yates?
47
1 A. I jump from 18 to --
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's behind --
3 A. Yes, I've got it.
4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's behind divider 23.
5 A. Yeah, I've got it. It's my 19, but I have it. My
6 particular point is the sixth line down:
7 "We were told there was not and we never saw any
8 such evidence."
9 I take that to mean that Mr Mably had reviewed all
10 the unused material and in that exercise he had never
11 seen any other evidence to suggest others were involved.
12 MR JAY: No. This was Mr Perry and Mr Mably before Mr Mably
13 had reviewed the unused material making it clear that at
14 the conference on 21 August 2006 the specific questions
15 were asked: was there any evidence against others? And
16 they were told there was no such evidence and we never
17 saw any such evidence.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Do you see that? So what they might be saying -- well,
20 there are a number of things they might be saying by
21 implication, but one of them is: don't draw the
22 inference from our advising conference that there was no
23 evidence; merely this: we were told that there was no
24 evidence and we never saw it. Do you see the difference
25 between that?
48
1 A. No, I don't. This is written on 14 July 2009. Yes?
2 Q. Mm-hm.
3 A. And Mr Mably and Mr Perry are putting their name to
4 a document that says, "We were told there was no
5 evidence and we never saw such evidence". Mr Mably had
6 done the disclosure exercise allegedly seeing all the
7 unused material in 2006, 2007, I'm not sure when the
8 (inaudible) are, and he's saying two years later, having
9 done that exercise, he never saw any such evidence.
10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But the exercise Mr Mably was doing
11 wasn't to decide how the investigation should proceed.
12 As I understand it, he was never asked that question.
13 The question which Mr Mably was dealing with was whether
14 there was any material which might exculpate those who
15 were being charged. In other words, he was doing a CPIA
16 piece of work. Now --
17 A. I completely --
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- is it really fair to place so much
19 reliance on this -- incidentally, I want to know about
20 dates of this, because I don't quite understand them --
21 to justify the sort of conclusion that you were reaching
22 when you came to review the matter in July 2009? That's
23 the issue.
24 A. It's one limb that was helping me form views, both on
25 July 9 and thereafter, as we -- you know, as we've seen
49
1 from the information and stuff I've submitted, it was
2 a constant exercise over the next 18-month period
3 almost, around, you know, is there anything new, have we
4 treated the victims appropriately, all those issues.
5 This was quite an important limb, I would say, in terms
6 of saying, well, okay, he was looking at it from the CPI
7 perspective from the indictment, but if counsel is
8 telling me that they never saw any such evidence, then
9 of course I'm going to place some reliance on that. But
10 it was only one limb of a series of aspects which
11 enabled me to come to that view, if you like.
12 MR JAY: Mr Yates, there are two points here. The first
13 point is that you had already stated your view in your
14 press statement on the afternoon of 9 July, and this --
15 A. On?
16 Q. 9 July 2009. This note from counsel, of course,
17 postdates your press statement, doesn't it?
18 A. It does, and the press statement was solely dealing with
19 establishing the facts about the Guardian article, and
20 there's a caveat at the end of that article, you'll
21 recall, which says, "We need to do everything possible
22 to check we've done everything appropriately around
23 victims", so I sort of left a slight open end to say
24 I was going to look at this afterwards very carefully as
25 well, and I think the documentation you see bears that
50
1 out, but it wasn't just an eight-hour exercise that has
2 been seen by staff, it was a continuing exercise of
3 reviewing, considering, reflecting about, you know,
4 whether we were on the right track and whether we needed
5 to do something different.
6 Q. We'll come back --
7 A. That 14 July --
8 Q. We'll come back to that point, because it's important,
9 but I do suggest to you you misunderstood what leading
10 and junior counsel are saying, but the review of the
11 evidence which Mr Mably carried out after the conference
12 on 21 August 2006 was merely for the purposes of the
13 1996 Act and wasn't to advise the police as to whether
14 to start investigating other journalists. It was
15 focused solely -- just wait for the end of the question,
16 Mr Yates -- on the Goodman/Mulcaire prosecutions and
17 whether there was any exculpatory evidence. That's what
18 the law required, wasn't it?
19 A. Well, if you read out the sentence in the note, I think
20 it's abundantly clear what's there, and on any reading,
21 exculpatory, CPIA or whatever, they are saying they've
22 done the exercise on CPIA and they never saw any such
23 evidence about others' involvement. I just --
24 I can't -- I know you're cross, Mr Jay, but I can't see
25 any other reading of it that would -- you know, it's
51
1 there.
2 Q. We'll see whether there was any evidence in a moment,
3 but can I deal first with paragraph 106 of your
4 statement, our page 06501.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Where you say:
7 "The advice described at paragraph 105 ..."
8 That's the advice as to the true meaning of section
9 2 of RIPA.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. "... dictated who the police considered to be victims."
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. "I have confirmed in evidence to various select
14 committees the fact that the activities of
15 Glenn Mulcaire affected many people. However, I have
16 also said in evidence to the same committees that in the
17 light of the legal advice received, the police were only
18 able to positively identify a small number of victims,
19 ie where the offence could actually be proved to the
20 requisite evidential standard as per paragraph 105
21 above."
22 And then you say that in fact the only person in
23 respect of whom that was conclusively proved was
24 Mr Lowther-Pinkerton. So is this right, that your
25 definition of victims for the purpose of notifying
52
1 people is far narrower than anybody else's, it's
2 confined to those in respect of whom there was
3 conclusive proof of unlawful interception before the
4 voicemail was read by its intended recipient? Is that
5 correct?
6 A. That is correct. That is definitely what I thought at
7 the time, and it was in good faith, based on the
8 briefings I'd received, but I absolutely accept now that
9 I got that wrong and I made a fundamental misjudgment
10 there. So I've said that before in other forum and I do
11 regret that.
12 Q. Okay, can we move forward to the events of 9 July 2009.
13 This is paragraph 111 of your statement, page 06503.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. You wrote yourself a file note, which is 06539, under
16 your tab 7.
17 A. I have it. It's in the statement itself.
18 Q. Is this a contemporaneous file note?
19 A. Contemporaneous in terms of that day, yes. I can't
20 actually remember when I did it. It was within sort of
21 24 hours of doing it. It was taken from the rough
22 scrawl into a proper file note. So yes,
23 contemporaneous.
24 Q. So the request by Sir Paul Stephenson was to establish
25 the facts around the case. You set out the approach you
53
1 were going to adopt in relation to establishing the
2 facts, and then you say in paragraph 8 you're going to
3 deal as well with approach to victims, how they were
4 managed and dealt with and the impact of any further
5 enquiries if deemed necessary on them. Is that correct?
6 A. Yes. Yes.
7 Q. There are two exercises here. You're going to establish
8 the facts, and once the facts are established, you're
9 going to set out your opinion, and then there is
10 a separate exercise, which is ancillary to that, which
11 is the victim notification management exercise. Is that
12 correct?
13 A. Yes. That's right.
14 Q. Am I right in saying that the establishing the facts
15 exercise was completed when you gave your press
16 statement that afternoon?
17 A. Yes, about 5.30-ish, I think.
18 Q. Whatever the time was, the press --
19 A. Yes, it was.
20 Q. You established the facts. Can we establish when the
21 fact-establishing exercise commenced? What time of the
22 morning do you say it commenced?
23 A. I can't recall exactly. I think Paul Stephenson was up
24 at an ACPO conference. The article would have been in
25 our press cutting, would obviously have raised issues
54
1 without Paul asking me to do anything, so I imagine
2 first thing in the morning, sort of 7.30, 8-ish. But
3 I can't -- in terms of that time, I would have been --
4 you know, the sort of battle rhythm of the Met was to
5 review press cuttings first thing and see if any issues
6 arose, and clearly that was part of the specialist
7 operations investigation that came under specialist
8 operations in the past, so I would have been looking at
9 it then.
10 Q. Yes, but that was before Sir Paul Stephenson asked you
11 to do anything about it, wasn't it?
12 A. Yes. I would have been considering it then. You know,
13 it would have been clearly of interest to me, Mr Jay.
14 Q. Yes, interest, it was vaguely on your radar because you
15 were looking at a whole range of press cuttings, weren't
16 you?
17 A. It would have been more than on my radar. It would have
18 been of significant interest to me because I was then in
19 charge of SO and this was an SO job.
20 Q. You're not trying to persuade us, are you, that this was
21 part of the establishing the facts exercise that Sir
22 Paul Stephenson was later on going to ask you to do, are
23 you?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Because that didn't start until 11.00 in the morning,
55
1 did it? Look at tab 8, our page 06540.
2 A. I don't have it. My numbers are all different. What's
3 the --
4 Q. Tab 8.
5 A. -- the document?
6 Q. Your tab 8.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Hang on.
8 MR JAY: Our page 06540.
9 A. No, my tab 8 is about the Information Commissioner.
10 Would you give me a hint --
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It is your tab 3, I think.
12 A. Oh, I see, the Gold Group minutes, yes, I've got it.
13 MR JAY: I have it in tab 8.
14 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I have it in tab 8 too but I also
15 have an exhibit list to Mr Yates' statement, which I can
16 use to correlate it.
17 MR JAY: Thank you very much.
18 A. Thank you, my Lord.
19 Q. The only point I'd note, Mr Yates, is this: this meeting
20 didn't start until 11 am, did it?
21 A. No, that's the formal meeting where everyone is present
22 and everyone can pool their knowledge or whatever.
23 That's the formal meeting. There were several meetings
24 going on way before that that I'd have been briefed on
25 and given insight into what this was about.
56
1 Q. But who was doing the briefing? The person you needed
2 to hear from in particular was DCS Phil Williams; is
3 that right?
4 A. There were several people involved. Clive Timmons was
5 involved, Keith Surtees was involved, Kevin South --
6 there were numerous people who had worked on the inquiry
7 at whatever level and those informal briefings would
8 have started almost immediately, but this was a formal
9 meeting to discuss the facts and record decisions in the
10 way that you can see there.
11 Q. I know we're trying to get to our eight hours by one
12 route or another, Mr Yates, or indeed you are, but --
13 A. Mr Jay, can I assure you I'm not, and I don't quite
14 understand why you're suggesting that.
15 Q. Well, because --
16 A. This was a simple exercise and one of a number of
17 exercises that the Commissioner or Deputy would ask ACs
18 like me to do almost on a weekly basis. It was an
19 article in a newspaper, and it was no more, no less than
20 that. So the fact that I sort of cleared my diary and
21 did something relatively formal around this, recognising
22 some of the challenges, is actually qualitatively
23 different than many times you'd do it. So it's what it
24 was. It was an article in a newspaper. Events make
25 that look very different, I know, but give me the
57
1 credit, this was an article in a newspaper, that's what
2 it was about. It wasn't a formal review.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I think we're going to have just five
4 minutes because we've been going for an hour and a half
5 and the shorthand writer needs a break and I think it
6 might be just a good idea. Five minutes.
7 A. Thank you.
8 (1.32 pm)
9 (A short break)
10 (1.40 pm)
11 MR JAY: Mr Yates, can we go back to 9 July 2009?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And the Guardian article, which I have under tab 6, it's
14 page 06536.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's your tab 1.
16 A. Thank you.
17 MR JAY: It refers to the settlement of legal cases. Third
18 paragraph:
19 "Today the Guardian revealed details of the
20 suppressed evidence which may open the door to hundreds
21 more legal actions as well as provoking police enquiries
22 into reporters who were involved and the senior
23 executives responsible for them."
24 And then there's various comments about difficult
25 questions which might have to be asked.
58
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. So the general thrust of the article was that this was
3 potentially a conspiracy which embraced others at the
4 News of the World and possibly went quite high up in the
5 organisation. Is that correct?
6 A. That's the tone of the article, yes.
7 Q. And Mr Wallis at the material time was of course the
8 deputy editor of the News of the World, wasn't he, in
9 July 2009?
10 A. Yes, he was. I can't remember whether he'd left then.
11 I cannot remember.
12 Q. He was deputy editor in July 2009.
13 A. Yes. Yes.
14 Q. And you told us that you read the Guardian article and
15 it was of significance and interest to you that very
16 morning, didn't you?
17 A. Yes, I did, yes.
18 Q. So there are two points here. The first point is that
19 didn't any alarm bells ring at all about the
20 appropriateness of you carrying out this establishment
21 of the facts exercise given your relationship with
22 Mr Wallis?
23 A. No. No, it didn't. There was -- the inference you're
24 making is, you know, that there was -- the relationship
25 was improper. It was not improper. You're talking to
59
1 someone who's --
2 Q. No, that's not the point, Mr Yates.
3 A. It's --
4 Q. Just wait. What the Guardian was saying, rightly or
5 wrongly, was, look, this has the appearance of being
6 a conspiracy which goes to other journalists at the
7 News of the World and possibly high up in the
8 organisation. Fact number one. Fact number two,
9 Mr Wallis is someone high up in the organisation of the
10 News of the World. Fact number three, or point number
11 three: why didn't it pass your mind that, at least
12 putting it at its lowest, it was inappropriate for you
13 to be carrying out this establishment of the fact
14 exercise at all?
15 A. Well, you might as well ask that to the Commissioner as
16 well and others who knew full well that I had
17 a relationship with Neil Wallis, and, you know, I was
18 looking at this dispassionately from the evidential
19 perspective and I had people advising me on that, and we
20 went through an exercise, and we got to the point we got
21 to. To suggest that I would be influenced otherwise,
22 which I think you're making, is wrong. You know, you're
23 talking to a person, Mr Jay, who investigated serving
24 government on which the Home Secretary has the final say
25 on my career. I have a reputation and a track record of
60
1 doing difficult things and doing them in a dispassionate
2 and evidence-based way and that's exactly what I did in
3 this case.
4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's not quite the point, Mr Yates.
5 The issue is slightly different. As I said before, you
6 were entitled to be friends with whomsoever you wish.
7 There's nothing wrong with that, and nobody is
8 suggesting that anything improper should be inferred
9 from your friendship with the deputy editor of the News
10 of the World.
11 Mr Jay's point is rather different. It is not that
12 you would in fact be influenced or affected; it is that
13 here was the Metropolitan Police having to review an
14 inquiry which it undertook in circumstances in which
15 some pretty big players were expressing concern. You
16 knew your friendship with Mr Wallis, therefore the
17 perception might be that you would be affected. Not the
18 reality, but the perception.
19 A. No, I take -- of course I take your point, but I think
20 the benefit of hindsight once again comes into play
21 because in July 2009 there was nothing to suggest that
22 Wallis was involved in any way whatsoever, and what's
23 happened in the last few year, and of course nothing has
24 been proven yet, but in July 2009 there was just --
25 there was no indication at all, and I did this very
61
1 dispassionately, and I take your point about the
2 perception, but it didn't appear to me to be a problem
3 then and it didn't appear to others to be a problem
4 then. It is clearly a problem now.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, well, actually --
6 A. And I accept that.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: The third paragraph of the Guardian
8 article speaks about "senior executives responsible for
9 reporters", and I would have thought somebody would say
10 that the deputy editor was a senior executive
11 responsible for reporters. It's a perception thing.
12 I'm not saying it's any more than that.
13 A. I completely take that as a perception, but what this
14 was on July 9, 2009, was a newspaper article. It didn't
15 present evidence. Newspaper articles, as we all know,
16 can have basis in facts and they can have lots of flour
17 put around them to make them more interesting. I can
18 only go on what the evidence was that day and that's
19 where I got to.
20 MR JAY: Mr Yates, you're not evening beginning to answer
21 Lord Justice Leveson's question, you're answering
22 a different question. His question was: isn't there at
23 least the appearance of a lack of disinterestedness by
24 you because of your close friendship with Mr Wallis?
25 Mr Wallis is within the ambit of those referred to by
62
1 the Guardian in the third paragraph of their piece. You
2 should have left this for another Assistant Commissioner
3 to do. Do you accept that or not?
4 A. I think I've just accepted that with Lord Justice
5 Leveson actually. I think I just said that, but anyway.
6 It's -- we are where we are.
7 Q. The second issue is the one you were dealing with which
8 I'm now going to ask you about, namely the issues raised
9 by the Guardian article and your response to those
10 issues. Do you accept that the issues raised by the
11 article, whatever the evidence base for them, were
12 wide-ranging, serious and important?
13 A. The interference with people's voicemail is serious. On
14 a serious end -- this is what I'm thinking in July 2009
15 and not now. It would not be at the serious end at all.
16 One looks at the invasion of privacy uncovered by
17 Motorman and Glade and the sentences they got there,
18 which was conditional discharges, so I would not put it
19 at the serious end. What we know now puts it at the
20 very serious end, but in July 2009 it was phone hacking.
21 I was three months into a new job as head of
22 anti-terrorism, we were dealing with the fall-out of
23 a very difficult operation up in Manchester, which was
24 still going, numerous other high-profile operations
25 involving the security of the state. This did not
63
1 present itself as a hugely serious thing in 2009.
2 Q. Was it for that reason, then, that if you go back to the
3 summary of the meeting which took place on 9 July
4 starting at 11 am --
5 A. Yeah.
6 Q. -- that you made it clear at the very outset that you
7 were going to establish the facts and you were going to
8 put out a press statement for release later that very
9 afternoon?
10 A. Yes, and the press statement could of course have said
11 we're not going to do anything, which it did, or it
12 could have said we're going to conduct a full
13 investigation or it could have said we're going to
14 conduct a full review. That's what the press statement
15 meant.
16 Q. You weren't indicating at 11 o'clock, when you started
17 on this exercise, you were going to get through this
18 quickly and, come what may, you were going to publish
19 your decision, as it were, having established the facts
20 that very afternoon?
21 A. If you look at the list of people who were present at
22 that meeting, all very senior, all very experienced. If
23 there had been a scintilla of evidence that said we
24 should be doing something differently, I can absolutely
25 assure you they would have challenged me and I'd have
64
1 challenged myself and we'd have done something
2 different. The fact of the matter was, as I was
3 briefed, there was nothing else in that article that led
4 us to suggest that anything else needed to be done
5 immediately regarding the investigation, or anything
6 about the investigation.
7 Q. Can I just be clear what material you were provided with
8 on that occasion? You were provided with briefing
9 documents by DCS Clive Timmons, there referred to in
10 about the fourth paragraph.
11 A. I can't actually recall the content of those documents.
12 If it said there were briefings, then I would have seen
13 them, yes.
14 Q. And then Mr Timmons gave a brief overview, and then
15 there's a synopsis of what the investigation was?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. It's all quite succinct, isn't it? We're skim reading
18 it as we proceed.
19 A. But it covers the key issues around the -- you know,
20 there was a lot of data, the evidence against it was
21 limited, the phone companies have been tasked, the
22 Prescott phone issue was covered.
23 Q. Yes, the Prescott phone issue was covered on the next
24 page, 06541.
25 A. Yeah.
65
1 Q. "PW [of course is Phil Williams] confirmed he had no
2 knowledge of John Prescott's phone being intercepted.
3 If he had been subject to interception and evidence
4 supported then he would have been informed."
5 Of course you weren't aware of the evidence which
6 related to his PA, were you?
7 A. Not -- I don't think so at that point. But I cannot
8 tell you the amount of times I checked and sought
9 further and better particulars about the possibility
10 that Mr Prescott's phone had been interfered with. It
11 would be literally scores -- over the following months,
12 Mr Jay, there would be scores of times that, you know,
13 because the level of concern I had about it is
14 commensurate with the number of times I sought clarity
15 about it, and every time, right up until I think the end
16 of 2010 when there was a piece of paper that showed that
17 he might have been involved or had some access to his
18 sent messages, that was the first time.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But were you not told about his PA?
20 A. I think she -- as I recall, that individual had been --
21 I was aware -- I can't remember what time I was aware,
22 but I think she had finished working for him at that
23 point, and I think the -- as I recall, any targeting of
24 her was almost in her own right as an individual, having
25 put herself in the public domain by selling her story,
66
1 I think, to one of the newspapers. That's the best of
2 my recollection.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, Mr Yates, I'd like chapter and
4 verse on that, because that's absolutely not the
5 evidence I've heard, and it's not my understanding of
6 the Mulcaire notebook.
7 A. Well I mean --
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Don't get me wrong, in one sense this
9 may not be your fault in the sense that you're relying
10 on information you are provided with. I recognise that.
11 Nobody is suggesting that you should then burn the
12 midnight oil going through the Mulcaire documents
13 yourself. That's not the job. You're relying on what
14 you're told.
15 A. Yes.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: What may be relevant is the extent to
17 which some of these issues were glossed over or taken
18 seriously, and I say that because what you've just said
19 has caused me real surprise. When you say that there
20 were scores of times that you went back to check on
21 Mr Prescott's position -- because he was writing to you,
22 I have no doubt -- and you were still getting the same
23 information, and we now know what the position is --
24 A. Yes.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- I am disturbed that your
67
1 persistent requests didn't reveal the answer. And that
2 concerns me for reasons which I probably do not need to
3 explain.
4 MR GARNHAM: Sir --
5 A. I think what happened, and I say -- and I've absolutely
6 stated this in my statement and accepted it, that there
7 was an indexing issue around the name John Prescott
8 being linked to his -- I think it was his adviser, whose
9 name I would never have known or could never -- I don't
10 think anyone could have made the link, to be honest.
11 And I think what happened was -- sorry?
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm sorry, Mr Yates. You ought to
13 know that the investigating detective who interviewed
14 Glenn Mulcaire within a day or so of his arrest made the
15 link and specifically asked Mr Mulcaire about that
16 person. So this wasn't an unknown fact.
17 A. I saw that, and I was just as surprised as you seem to
18 be surprised now. That was the first time I was aware
19 of that. I have checked that with the Met lawyers and
20 the individuals, as in Phil Williams. Was I ever made
21 aware of that? No, I wasn't, because he wasn't aware of
22 that either. I can't answer to that, I'm afraid. I was
23 only as good as my briefing.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I understand that point, but what
25 concerns me, and after I've said this Mr Garnham wanted
68
1 to say something so I'm going to let him say it, is that
2 people were bleeding over these papers for Mr Prescott
3 for some time, yet somehow this has all slipped through
4 the cracks.
5 A. No, it's deeply regrettable and I can't account for it,
6 I'm afraid. But the reassurance in terms of what I did
7 was I asked him -- there'll be a Met lawyer sat in court
8 who will be nodding now saying he asked scores of times
9 around this. Because I was so concerned, the idea of
10 misleading the Deputy Prime Minister is not something
11 I'd relish and I was absolutely desperate to get to the
12 bottom if there was something there.
13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right. Mr Garnham, you wanted to
14 say something.
15 MR GARNHAM: Sir, only this, that it may be important to
16 ensure that Mr Yates is clear as to whether he's talking
17 about Mr Prescott's assistant or the person with whom it
18 was said Mr Prescott was having a relationship, and the
19 answer appears to have confused the two.
20 MR SHERBORNE: Sir, I was going to rise before Mr Garnham
21 but he beat me to my feet. The fact is for the record,
22 contrary to what Mr Yates says, Joan Hammell was working
23 as the special adviser to Mr Prescott at the time, and
24 she did not sell any story, nor did she put herself in
25 the public domain.
69
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
2 MR GARNHAM: That is right, but --
3 A. I was --
4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right, now we've unpicked it.
5 The reference to that --
6 A. I was desperate --
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Sorry.
8 A. I was desperate not to mention any names, so I apologise
9 for the confusion. It was clearly not her.
10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You've got the point that bothers me
11 and it bothers you too.
12 A. Yes, it does.
13 MR JAY: Can I ask you please to continue to look at the
14 note of the meeting on 9 July.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Under the heading towards the top of the page:
17 "Did we alert others?
18 "Yes, as outlined above. No evidence to support
19 wider phones had been intercepted."
20 If you look a few lines above that:
21 "Wider people were not informed as there was no
22 evidence to suggest there was any criminal activity on
23 their phones."
24 So you were --
25 A. Yeah, and I got it redacted thereafter, so whatever that
70
1 is.
2 Q. Don't worry about that bit, because we don't know what's
3 behind the redaction, but you were therefore being told
4 that only those in respect of whom there was evidence of
5 criminal activity on their phones were being informed as
6 victims; is that right?
7 A. Yes, that was certainly the case, yes.
8 Q. And then a little bit further down:
9 "Why was there not a more wide-ranging
10 investigation?
11 "There was no evidence to expand the investigation
12 wider, which, if it had done, then this would have been
13 an ineffective use of police resources.
14 "What other journalists were involved?
15 "There was no evidence at that time to implicate
16 involvement in any other journalists."
17 These are the --
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. -- only references in the note to any consideration
20 being given to the main sting of the Guardian article,
21 which was that there were other journalists involved, or
22 at least there might be. Do you accept that?
23 A. Yes, I do, but it's clear from this that we went through
24 an exercise to try and establish the facts, and this was
25 the summary note of the briefing that I received that
71
1 day, which led me to the conclusion that I did.
2 Q. To what extent did you test the proposition "there was
3 no evidence at that time to implicate involvement in any
4 other journalists" because there's no written record
5 here of you testing that proposition and answers being
6 given to you pursuant to any such probing. Would you
7 accept that?
8 A. I can assure you -- I can't recall the exact questions
9 I would have asked, but I would have been -- I would
10 have said, "Did counsel see it? Did the CPS see it?"
11 All the sort of levels of assurance that from sort of
12 independent people, those are the type of areas that
13 I would have gone into, and said, for example, was all
14 the unused material reviewed properly? And accepting
15 the point I know you make that it was only reviewed on
16 a sort of CPI basis but it still gives you a sense that
17 all this would have been gone through and from what
18 I was told on that day, that was the position.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But do you think it's really fair to
20 rely on that for this reason: the article you've made
21 the point was the Guardian that morning. The
22 investigation had been conducted just short of three
23 years beforehand and, save for the prosecution of two
24 persons, had been brought to an end in September 2006.
25 Now, it's true you had Detective Chief Superintendent
72
1 Williams, as he then was, with you, who had been --
2 A. Yes.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- the SIO, but he must have done
4 many things in two and a half years.
5 Let me just take one other fact from the meeting to
6 ask you about. It says this at the top of the third
7 page, 6542:
8 "There was no evidence to prove criminally any other
9 person's phone had been intercepted. There was strong
10 evidence that they had intercepted three Royal Family
11 aides' phones and a further five other high profile
12 people all of which were the subject of charges and
13 proceedings in court."
14 Now, you will have heard yesterday, if you have seen
15 Mr Williams' evidence, that actually they looked at
16 a number of people to make complaints, but they didn't
17 want to get involved. And the choice of --
18 A. I think the --
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- the other charges wasn't because
20 there wasn't a basis to proceed; it was because these
21 were the people who were prepared to say something, and
22 leading counsel had said five or six was enough.
23 A. Yes, and I was aware of that. I hesitate to say this,
24 but this is not a sort of forensic note of everything
25 that took place that day, because it's the minutes of
73
1 the Gold Group, probably completed by my superintendent,
2 I think, and capturing what, you know, he will consider
3 to be the summary points. As a sort of full forensic
4 note and a full legal advice file, no, it's not, and
5 I was certainly aware that at least three other people
6 had been approached, all quite high profile people had
7 been approached around potentially giving evidence and
8 their phones had been hacked.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: We can't do more than read what you
10 wrote at the time, Mr Yates.
11 A. No, no, Mr Leveson, I absolutely -- I accept that, but
12 this was July 2009, and would we have thought there
13 would be the scrutiny that there is now in 2012? No, we
14 wouldn't. It was a sort of summary note of the Gold
15 Group, it was the best we'd got.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I agree. I'm going to stop in
17 a moment, but if I look at your meeting of the Gold
18 Group the following day, on Friday 10th at midday, the
19 second line says:
20 "Previous minutes agreed."
21 In other words, it's agreed that that's a reflection
22 of the previous day's meeting.
23 A. Yes.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Which it's obviously not.
25 A. Yes, it's a fair point.
74
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
2 MR JAY: Did you ask for a succinct summary, at least, of
3 what the evidence was in relation to any other
4 journalists?
5 A. What I asked Phil to do, I think it was that weekend,
6 was to produce me a full note once they had access to
7 more material actually to refresh their memories around
8 it. Because I readily understood that this would be
9 a matter of interest to both the Commissioner, the
10 police authority and probably the Home Office as well,
11 and that was absolutely right. So there was a fuller
12 note completed by Phil Williams and Keith Surtees,
13 I think, that -- over that weekend, which I think is in
14 the bundle somewhere.
15 Q. That's right, Mr Yates, but you were giving your press
16 statement out that very afternoon without waiting for
17 the fruits of any later briefing notes from Mr Williams,
18 weren't you?
19 A. Yes, because we -- in the vernacular, we'd established
20 the facts and the facts were, then, that that Guardian
21 article had some new information for the general public,
22 but it wasn't new to the investigators or to the police,
23 and there was nothing -- there was no new evidence
24 presented by that article to warrant reopening the
25 investigation at that stage. So I came out and said it.
75
1 I could have waited a week, two weeks, and choreographed
2 it and spun it, but I didn't. I said it as it was.
3 Q. It's not a question of choreographing and spinning it.
4 Why not wait until your Detective Chief Superintendent,
5 as I think he then had become, had spent the weekend and
6 started to prepare you a briefing note before
7 precipitantly giving a press statement? Why not do
8 that?
9 A. Because the briefing note was the flesh on the bones, as
10 it were. I mean, whatever you say about what I did that
11 day and whether it was precipitous or not, the fact of
12 the matter was only a week later the DPP came out and
13 agreed with exactly what I'd done, so precipitous or
14 not, it was --
15 Q. Well, you're now beginning to argue a case. The
16 question was: why didn't you wait? And we've heard your
17 answer.
18 The press statement is at tab 16, or it might be in
19 your bundle at tab 11.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It is.
21 MR JAY: It is. Page 06555. You come to a clear conclusion
22 here, don't you, on the two main points:
23 "No additional evidence has come to light since this
24 case has concluded and I therefore consider that no
25 further investigation is required."
76
1 You're really closing the door to any further
2 establishing the fact exercise, aren't you?
3 A. Well, not entirely, because I say later on that if
4 further evidence comes to light, of course we'll
5 consider it. So it is simply -- the exercise is: is
6 there anything new in the Guardian? It is not a review,
7 it's establishing the facts. Answer: no, there wasn't.
8 I think even on the cold light of day today, there
9 wasn't at that time. And I opened the door to, one,
10 review the victim strategy, and secondly, that if
11 further evidence came to light, we would consider
12 reopening it. We've been consistent or I've been
13 consistent on that point throughout.
14 Q. Where do you say that in this press statement, "If
15 further evidence comes to light, we'll consider it"?
16 A. It wasn't in this press statement. It had been in every
17 other public comment I've made. I thought it was in
18 this statement.
19 Q. It's pretty clear, isn't it, Mr Yates, that you came to
20 a rapid conclusion that there was nothing in this and in
21 less time than the eight hours which has been suggested
22 elsewhere you took, possibly a maximum of six hours, you
23 had all this done and dusted, including the drafting of
24 this press statement, which must have taken a bit of
25 time, and that was the end of it. Isn't that the
77
1 position?
2 A. It was a fairly straightforward -- again, you talk with
3 what's happened since, with sort of the taint of what's
4 happened since, and I completely accept that. But in
5 July 2009, that's what I was asked to do. If I'd seen
6 anything to suggest that I needed to do more, of course
7 I'd have done -- I'd have gone beyond establishing the
8 facts, because for the level of seniority I was, of
9 course that is part of my discretion. I spoke with the
10 key people who had run the operation, who had dealt with
11 all the liaison with the CPS. That's what I was briefed
12 and that's the conclusion I came to.
13 Q. Mm. It's true there's a difference of emphasis, really,
14 or it may be a bit deeper than that, between the
15 evidence of Mr Williams and Mr Surtees we heard
16 yesterday, but if we take into account Mr Surtees'
17 evidence, it amounted to this, that he had very
18 considerable suspicions if not accepted the proposition
19 that there was circumstantial inferential evidence in
20 relation to other journalists, but it was really the
21 overwhelming impact of resource considerations which
22 closed down this investigation in September 2006 rather
23 than any perception that there was no evidence against
24 other journalists. You followed yesterday's evidence
25 and understand that?
78
1 A. As best I could, as best I could, and I absolutely, you
2 know, accept the resource constraints then, but that's
3 not part of my business at that point.
4 The irony of this, I suppose, is something that on
5 one hand we are asked as senior police officers to make
6 difficult decisions. If you look at something like the
7 HMIC report into the Damian Green affair, we are
8 absolutely directed by the chief HMI, but you have to
9 make difficult decisions, I have the paper here, based
10 on proportionality, seriousness, public interest and
11 costs. Such cases always involve making difficult
12 choices and sometimes the decision is not to
13 investigate. That's the advice and guidance we were
14 given in September 2009 by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector
15 of Constabulary. We are paid to make difficult
16 decisions. There are constant resource constraints and
17 constant resource challenges.
18 Q. Mr Clarke explained all that to us this morning. You
19 may not have heard his evidence. But it may have been
20 more accurate on 9 July 2009 to have said: there may
21 well have been evidence which implicated others, but the
22 decision was taken in September 2006 to close down this
23 investigation for resource reasons alone. But that's
24 not what you said, was it?
25 A. I don't accept that's the case, either. There may --
79
1 Keith Surtees may have had suspicions and those
2 suspicions are clearly well-founded now, but they
3 weren't -- there was no evidence then. If there had
4 been any evidence for us to pursue -- you've got to let
5 me finish this point because this is really important.
6 You're judging me on 2012 by what was taking place in
7 July 2009, and we are paid, I am paid or was paid to
8 make those difficult resourcing decisions about
9 competing priorities.
10 Two people had gone to prison. The mobile phone
11 networks, as far as I was aware, were aware of the
12 problems, they'd put the security parameters around it,
13 and it was time to move on to other things, as it were.
14 But this was a simple exercise. It looks extremely
15 challenging now, two and a half years later, with all
16 that we know, but then at this time it was
17 a straightforward exercise, it's something I probably
18 did every couple of months and assistant commissioners
19 would do every couple of weeks for the Commissioner
20 based on these sort of premises.
21 Q. What was your reaction, then, Mr Yates, to the evidence
22 you heard yesterday before this Inquiry, which was to
23 the effect -- and I summarise it -- that there was
24 circumstantial and indeed other evidence which
25 implicated other journalists before the investigation
80
1 was shut down in September 2006?
2 A. Well, I'm surprised it was phrased that way because it's
3 never been phrased that way to me. There was the "for
4 Neville" email, which has been well ventilated in
5 a number of areas. That is all I knew that was
6 additional.
7 Q. That wasn't the question. I'm just asking you as
8 formerly an extremely --
9 A. I'm very surprised, very surprised.
10 Q. You were surprised?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Would you characterise what you heard from Mr Williams,
13 Mr Surtees and Mr Maberly, would you characterise the
14 evidence which existed at all material times, but in
15 particular August/September 2006, as amounting to good
16 circumstantial inferential evidence involving or
17 implicating a number of other journalists?
18 A. I don't think I was ever given that inference at all.
19 There was certainly a desire to go to the phone hubs and
20 all that. The evidential challenges were paramount, and
21 as far as I was aware from them were completely that
22 they could not be overcome.
23 Q. I think your position, Mr Yates, is then you were
24 surprised by hearing that evidence because that
25 wasn't --
81
1 A. I didn't --
2 Q. Is this right, because that wasn't the picture you were
3 being given on 9 July 2009? Is that right?
4 A. I haven't seen all their evidence from yesterday, so
5 I can't make that judgment, it would be unfair. I have
6 seen snippets but not all of it, so I can't make that
7 judgment without seeing it at all.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Have you had a chance -- I don't
9 suppose you have -- of yourself seeing some of the
10 entries in the Mulcaire notebook with the phone numbers,
11 the PIN numbers, the details, the addresses, the links,
12 the paper material that was available as a result of the
13 search? You may never have seen it. I don't know.
14 A. No, I -- I've seen -- I've certainly seen samples
15 because I wanted to see -- you know, I was always being
16 told "scraps of paper and hieroglyphics all over it", so
17 I've seen samples, but have I gone through any of that
18 in a formulaic way? No I haven't.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, I wasn't suggesting you'd go
20 through it formally. I've already said I wasn't
21 expecting you to reinvestigate this yourself. My point
22 was rather different. Had you seen a name and addresses
23 with links to other people with phone numbers and PIN
24 numbers and this sort of documentary material, once you
25 got a PIN number, somebody's worked quite hard to get
82
1 hold of that.
2 A. Yes.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Would you not agree that that
4 provides an evidential basis --
5 A. Yes.
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- for investigation? It may be
7 you're absolutely right: for good resource reasons, it
8 can't be done.
9 A. Yes.
10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And I recognised, if you didn't hear
11 it, to Mr Clarke earlier today that I well understand on
12 resource grounds in the light of what was happening in
13 2006 why the investment of resource into this operation
14 could not be justified. I quite get that.
15 A. Yes.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But my point is different, and it's
17 therefore not looking at what we know now because of
18 Weeting; it's looking at actually what the piece of
19 papers then said.
20 A. Yes.
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: How much work it involved
22 I recognise.
23 A. Yes, and I think the point I would have been aware of
24 but I can't absolutely recall when was yes, Mulcaire
25 must have targeted many people and I knew he was
83
1 a private detective. Whether there were PIN numbers
2 involved or whatever. But I took the view, rightly or
3 wrongly, that more evidence against Mulcaire would
4 actually take us nowhere at all. He was never going to
5 stand trial again for phone hacking. He had been dealt
6 with, sentenced and that process had been complete.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But did you know about the corner
8 names of other journalists with mobile phone numbers of
9 journalists?
10 A. No, I was aware of the "for Neville" bit.
11 MR JAY: Of course the briefing note from Mr Williams, which
12 he prepared on Sunday, 12 July, three days after your
13 press statement, does make reference in paragraph 14 to
14 the corner names. I don't think you have that --
15 A. And the only --well, if you could confirm -- if his
16 Lordship would just help me with the tab.
17 Q. I don't think it's in that bundle. Oh, it is.
18 A. The only one I can --
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It may be behind --
20 MR JAY: Tab 14, thank you. Yes, it is.
21 A. The one that stands out is awareness and a clear
22 recollection is the "for Neville" bit, because that's
23 the bit which has caused concern. It may well be in
24 this briefing document about others, but it didn't hit
25 home in that way.
84
1 Q. Maybe the reason why it didn't hit home is that you'd
2 already made your decision, as it were, three days
3 before, and that when you got to read this briefing note
4 it was of little interest to you because the facts had
5 been established. Is that fair?
6 A. No, I don't think it is fair. I maintained a very close
7 and continuing close oversight and almost constant
8 review, if you want to use that word, of how this was
9 developing over many months and if not well over a year,
10 until it was handed over, so I don't think that's fair
11 at all.
12 Q. So reading paragraphs 14 and 15 of this briefing note of
13 12 July carefully, did you adhere to the view that there
14 was no evidence that other journalists were involved?
15 A. The point at 15 is the point I highlighted, and it was
16 the evidence, the evidential threshold. That was
17 exactly the same evidential threshold that was the
18 problem with the "for Neville" stuff in terms of the
19 knowledge of how they would have known how the
20 information was obtained.
21 MR JAY: There's a difference --
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's a rather interesting issue,
23 that, isn't it? A journalist gets hold of a private
24 detective and wants some information, then gets that
25 information back quite quickly in a specific form, which
85
1 he could then use. It's rather unlikely that the
2 journalist would have personal links with the celebrity
3 or person about whom information is being given. The
4 inferences aren't bad, are they?
5 A. Sorry? Can you --
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: The inference that this is likely to
7 have come from some sort of interception are not bad.
8 I'm not saying they're solid, but they're not bad.
9 A. Oh, not bad, sorry, I get -- who knows what techniques,
10 lawful or unlawful, private detectives use and how they
11 get the information, you know, I can't be the judge.
12 What we were worried about was is there any evidence
13 around this, and the view I was given was: no, there
14 wasn't.
15 MR JAY: Just --
16 A. Even the "for Neville" email, which was closely analysed
17 by the DPP and counsel, came to the same view on that.
18 Q. Just the formulation "no evidence", there are certainly
19 different levels of evidence or its absence. At the
20 very bottom, of course, there is literally no evidence.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Higher up the food chain there is some evidence. Then
23 there's some evidence plus circumstantial, inferential
24 evidence, which may or may not be sufficient to raise
25 a prima facie case in a criminal court, and then there's
86
1 evidence which my satisfy a jury. But to say there is
2 "no evidence", which is a term you consistently used
3 before Select Committees, is putting it far too baldly,
4 isn't it, Mr Yates?
5 A. I suspect you may, on what has happened since, I think
6 you're right, Mr Jay.
7 Q. But on what was available, information available to you
8 on 12 July 2009, that was putting it too broadly, wasn't
9 it?
10 A. I think you described the word "evidence" in a very
11 legalistic way, as you would do. There is a different
12 syntax -- if I can finish. There's a different syntax
13 put on it in police work, and that's where the
14 difference is.
15 Q. I understand. So you're telling us that in police
16 circles, "no evidence" is really another way of saying
17 "insufficient evidence to bring before a criminal
18 court"?
19 A. Insufficient evidence to take forward, yes, to develop.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: We have to be a bit careful about
21 that, because the one thing Deputy Assistant
22 Commissioner Akers has done is take forward what was
23 there in quite a far way.
24 A. Yes, I completely accept that and that's entirely
25 proper.
87
1 MR JAY: It might have been safer to say, Mr Yates, back in
2 July 2009, really the same thing that we heard from
3 Mr Clarke, namely the resources which it would require
4 to bring this to a successful conclusion would be
5 immense. That would be unjustified in the public
6 interest, given competing priorities on the police.
7 Rather than saying there's simply no evidence. Because
8 there's a big difference between those two propositions,
9 isn't there?
10 A. I accept your point, but from what I was told, what
11 I was briefed, on a matter that had gone some four years
12 out of date or had happened four years ago, that's what
13 I was briefed, so that's -- again, that's what I said.
14 MR JAY: Well, that's, I think, as far as that can ...
15 In relation to the victims, which was a matter you
16 left open in a limited way at the end of your press
17 release, were further victims notified?
18 A. We went through a fairly torturous exercise, actually,
19 which was not satisfactory on a number of levels, over
20 many months. And with the very best intentions that the
21 appropriate people should be notified. It was not
22 a successful exercise and I accept the responsibility
23 for that. It's a matter of great regret that didn't
24 take place as it should have done.
25 Q. Of course you did revisit the issue at least
88
1 consequentially on Monday, 13 July, which is tab 16, the
2 minutes of the Gold Group meeting on 13 July. It's our
3 tab 21.
4 A. My 16, is it?
5 Q. It's your 16.
6 A. 13 July, yes. I didn't just revisit it then.
7 I revisited it on numerous occasions over the following
8 months and went through a series of, as I say, torturous
9 exercises to try and get this right. Regrettably, that
10 failed, but it wasn't just 9 July and doing what I did.
11 It was a continuing exercise and attention to this
12 matter for about 18 months to try and get it right.
13 Q. But on this occasion you weren't carrying out any
14 further establishment of the fact exercise, were you?
15 A. No, this was to do with all about the victims, actually,
16 all about the victims.
17 Q. It was all about consequential matters including sending
18 letters to the Guardian, and indeed we note at the
19 bottom of this page, it's page 06581:
20 "DCS Williams' update from informing Andy Coulson
21 and others from 10 July onwards. PW informed Coulson
22 and no issues. He took it well."
23 I say nothing about that.
24 A. No, in terms of he was one of the individuals that was
25 contacted and we tried to contact several others with
89
1 limited success.
2 Q. He was being contacted in his capacity as communications
3 director at Number 10, wasn't he? No, he wasn't at that
4 point, sorry. He was advising the Conservative party.
5 He wasn't being contacted in his capacity -- he'd left
6 the News of the World, hadn't he?
7 A. Clearly the focus was on him, and him not to be aware
8 that he was a victim himself would have been
9 intolerable, really.
10 Q. Oh, so he was being contacted only in his capacity as
11 victim, not in any other capacity?
12 A. Yes. Clearly he would have been making -- the focus of
13 the article was very much inferenced around him, so as
14 he was a victim and we knew he was a victim then, then
15 it was clearly appropriate that he should be made aware.
16 Q. Sorry, the article was suggesting that he might be one
17 of the conspirators, not that he was a victim.
18 A. The article -- yes, the article --
19 Q. Isn't that a better way of putting it?
20 A. Well, maybe, yes.
21 Q. I'd better move on from that point.
22 Further material came to you, including the note
23 from Mr Perry, and we've looked at that and other
24 matters. You've summarised the Gold Group meetings at
25 paragraph 120 of your statement. But it's fair to say
90
1 though Mr Yates that at no stage did you carry out any
2 further analysis of the evidence, did you?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Because the die had been cast with or by what you'd said
5 in your press statement on 9 July 2009, hadn't it?
6 A. In some sense yes, but the reason why I say I thought it
7 was in the statement that if any further evidence came
8 to light we would consider it is because I have said
9 that in -- on the six or seven Select Committee
10 appearances I did, I think I must have said that on
11 every occasion, so that's why it was on in my mind.
12 I said it. So the die hadn't been cast in that sense
13 because we are always alive to the possibility that new
14 evidence would come to light, be it in the New York
15 Times or be it through our efforts or be it through of
16 course News International eventually co-operating and
17 producing some material which was relevant.
18 Q. You see, what happened in relation to the New York
19 Times -- this is paragraphs 115 and 116 of your
20 statement -- was that they wrote a lengthy and detailed
21 piece in I think it was September 2010.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. You, as a result of that, caused letters to be written
24 to 19 current and former reporters and desk staff of the
25 News of the World. You say in paragraph 16:
91
1 "As I recall, many of these letters were ignored and
2 no relevant replies were received."
3 So another --
4 A. You've missed a significant chunk of work in between
5 that. So the article comes out and raises a number of
6 issues. We then set up a small team to scope and review
7 that with the CPS. A number of people were interviewed,
8 some under caution, some not. A full scope took place.
9 It went to the Crown Prosecution Service and they
10 considered it with their independent hat on and came to
11 the view that none of this constituted new evidence.
12 Part of that exercise was to write to those people.
13 Q. You tell us in paragraph 130 that you believe that you
14 yourself were a victim of phone hacking?
15 A. Yes, and I've explained that, I think, in a Select
16 Committee.
17 Q. What evidence do you have for that, Mr Yates?
18 A. The modus operandi of the effect on your own phones.
19 I was abroad, a particularly difficult weekend for the
20 Met, where I was doing a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with
21 both Dick Fedorcio and the Commissioner's office and
22 every time a voicemail was left on my phone, I couldn't
23 access it, I had to reset my password, probably the PIN
24 number. So knowing that the MO was in use, I surmised,
25 99 per cent certain, that my phone was being hacked.
92
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes.
2 MR JAY: The irony of this I don't think has been lost on
3 many in this room. You're applying a different
4 evidential standard to yourself than you applied to
5 victims who were not yourself. Isn't that right,
6 Mr Yates?
7 A. Well that certainly (inaudible).
8 Q. Well, you are, aren't you, because according to the
9 standards you were rigorously applying earlier on, this
10 is no evidence.
11 A. I hadn't listened to the voicemail messages, Mr Jay.
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That may not matter, but that's
13 another point. All right.
14 MR JAY: Media coverage of you, paragraph 130 and following,
15 6509.
16 A. Sorry, those numbers don't mean anything to me.
17 Q. No, paragraph 130, on the internal numbering it's
18 page 40.
19 A. Yes, I have it.
20 Q. You feel, to use the term victim again, that you're
21 a victim of unfair or were a victim of unfair press
22 coverage and media intrusion; is that right?
23 A. To some extent. I mean victim in that sense is a bit
24 too strong a word, actually, on reflection. Some of
25 it's the rough and tumble of senior life, but certainly
93
1 there was some intrusion and certainly there was some
2 inaccurate reporting around me.
3 Q. I've been asked to put to you certain points which bear
4 on paragraph 132 and then 135 and 136 of your statement.
5 I'll do so, if I may.
6 You refer to two members of the MPA Professional
7 Standards Committee, who you say clearly decided you
8 were guilty of misconduct, called for your resignation
9 publicly on several occasions, not only --
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. -- before the committee met to discuss the case, but
12 also and even worse during the meeting itself.
13 You've seen the minutes of the meeting, haven't you,
14 which indicated that they left the meeting before your
15 case was considered; is that right?
16 A. Absolutely right, yes, yes, but they're members of the
17 committee, and they recused themselves and then decided
18 to go out both before the meeting met and knowing the
19 meeting was in progress and called for me to resign.
20 Q. So the reference to during the meeting itself isn't
21 intended to be a reference to anything which happened at
22 the meeting but it was contemporaneously --
23 A. No, no, no.
24 Q. Just wait, Mr Yates -- contemporaneously with the
25 meeting but outside it. Is that what you're intending
94
1 to convey?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. I understand.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You say:
6 "This added to the media frenzy, placed additional
7 pressure on those left on the committee."
8 Of course, those left on the committee wouldn't know
9 what was happening outside, would they?
10 A. I strongly suspect they did.
11 Q. What basis have you for saying that the remaining
12 members of this committee were biased against you apart
13 from pure speculation?
14 A. I mean in terms of -- well, one only has to look at the
15 evidence they considered and the way they considered it
16 to know that they cannot possibly have reached the
17 conclusions they did without that bias being there.
18 Q. All right. You infer bias from the decisions they made
19 rather than from any anterior facts, but it's true,
20 isn't it, that in relation to what they were doing, they
21 weren't making a decision on the merits, they were
22 merely determining whether there should be an
23 investigation by the IPCC; is that right?
24 A. Yes, and I -- let me be clear. I have absolutely no
25 issue with that. What I have the issue with is the fact
95
1 they didn't consider salient facts which they had before
2 them, and they took a decision to suspend on the basis
3 of not a lot, and, you know, both those matters they
4 referred to or they referred to the IPCC, on neither
5 matter was I -- on neither matter was I even
6 interviewed, as a witness or anything, so --
7 Q. But to be fair to the MPA, the Amy Wallis matter, which
8 was one of the matters which were before them and which
9 was referred to the IPCC, was a misconduct referral to
10 the MPA by the Deputy Commissioner on behalf of the
11 Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, wasn't
12 it?
13 A. Yes. And they had a range of facts which they could
14 have considered which would have fully explained the
15 position, and which they declined to do so. That is the
16 bit I took issue with.
17 Q. But the Commissioner clearly thought that there was
18 something which needed to go to the MPA, at least for
19 a preliminary ruling. You have to accept that, haven't
20 you?
21 A. No, no, no, I completely accept that and that is
22 absolute due process, but it was the process they
23 followed thereafter and the matters they could have
24 considered, which they didn't, which they had before
25 them, that's the bit I have an issue with.
96
1 Q. And the Shami Media issue was again a misconduct
2 referral by the Deputy Commissioner and the --
3 A. Not for me.
4 Q. And the MPA on 18 July didn't refer it to the IPCC but
5 said it needed to be investigated further, didn't they?
6 A. With no -- but my name was not -- that doesn't involve
7 me at all.
8 Q. What happened was that you resigned before you were
9 suspended, weren't you?
10 A. Say again, sorry?
11 Q. You resigned before any decision was made to suspend
12 you?
13 A. Yes. My sort of resignation statement makes that clear.
14 Q. Do you think, looking back on this, Mr Yates, that at
15 the very least there is a perception of improper
16 inference on your judgment by your contacts with
17 News International?
18 A. No, I don't accept that.
19 Q. Not even a perception?
20 A. The perception -- I can't fault perception, because
21 that's such a broad phrase, but I absolutely know and
22 I guarantee that none of that played any part in my
23 decision making. That's -- my conscience is completely
24 clear on that.
25 Q. Mr Fedorcio has put a statement to the Inquiry. In
97
1 paragraph 84 of that statement, he says this:
2 "I was aware that John Yates and Neil Wallis knew
3 one another through work, but did not understand them to
4 have any significant contact outside of work."
5 Was that awareness in Mr Fedorcio based on anything
6 that you told him?
7 A. I wouldn't have seen to discuss it with Dick. Why would
8 I? Dick certainly knew that I knew Neil Wallis and that
9 he was a friend. Whether he knew that we went to the
10 football together on the odd occasion we did, I don't
11 see the relevance of it.
12 Q. Well, it goes to the Shami Media issue, and possibly
13 other issues. Just the basis of Mr Fedorcio's
14 knowledge -- of course we're going to be in a position
15 to ask him soon, Mr Yates, but one possible source of
16 his knowledge was what you told him. Do you follow me?
17 A. Yes, and I -- I would have thought he did know, to be
18 honest, but I can't -- if he says he doesn't know, he
19 doesn't know, but in terms of the Shami Media contract,
20 that was let a million miles away from me, and I made
21 that absolutely clear.
22 Q. When you said you would have thought that he would know,
23 you're basing that on presumably your personal
24 knowledge, and you may be suggesting that you told
25 Mr Fedorcio of your contact with Mr Wallis outside work,
98
1 and it was because you told him that you would have
2 thought that he would know. Is that what you're telling
3 us?
4 A. You have to rephrase that in a slightly less wordy way,
5 Mr Jay. Sorry.
6 Q. Too many words?
7 A. It's three hours into this and that's defeated me,
8 sorry.
9 Q. The basis of his, Mr Fedorcio's knowledge might have
10 been what you told him, in other words he knew --
11 A. Yes, I would absolutely know that Dick would know that
12 Neil and I would be fighting about football and that
13 would be absolutely in his knowledge, I would have
14 thought.
15 Q. And all these dinners? Do you think he knew about that,
16 from what you told him?
17 A. I'd imagine so, yes.
18 Q. You imagine so?
19 A. There's nothing I'm trying to hide around it. It's in
20 my diary, even a private appointment.
21 MR JAY: Yes. Well, thank you very much, Mr Yates.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Mr Yates, I understand why challenges
23 to your decision-making may be seen by you also as
24 challenges to your integrity, and I understand --
25 A. Yes.
99
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- why you feel that. But I would
2 like your observations on how one deals with what may be
3 legitimate perception.
4 So we now know -- and we knew at the time --
5 News International are raided by the police, the
6 Mulcaire notebook has emerged, with lots and lots of
7 names, lots and lots of details. A decision has to be
8 taken in 2006, which is entirely understandable, given
9 what is happening in the country at the time.
10 A. Yes.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Then there is clearly a return to it,
12 there is a big civil case. There is a very substantial
13 payment made. There are documents that reveal other
14 material. Then the Guardian article, Sir Paul
15 Stephenson is up in some other meeting. You view it and
16 there is the suggestion of senior executives. You take
17 the view that your knowledge of Mr Wallis is well-known
18 that nobody could impugn you. But then when one is
19 reviewing the matter on 13 July, at your Gold meeting,
20 I think this is -- you have two meetings on 13 July.
21 This is the one at 4.30, which is your divider 16.
22 A. Yes.
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And it's reported there's been some
24 press coverage, and you've heard there are two
25 newspapers have spoken about backhanders and that this
100
1 was the reason why the investigation was not being
2 reopened, and that's because Rebekah Wade had apparently
3 said to a Select Committee that she paid the police.
4 Did it occur to you then, in the light of all this, that
5 the reputational risk to the Metropolitan Police was not
6 such that you really did have to go back to be seen to
7 be absolutely 120 per cent clear that there was nothing
8 in the original investigation?
9 A. Sir, I absolutely take your point, my Lord. It's just
10 that at that point in time -- forget what's happened
11 since --
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, I agree, I agree with that,
13 I agree.
14 A. At that point in time, it was just -- there was nothing
15 there that would say would I put 40 detectives, because
16 that's what it would have taken, for several months if
17 not years, to do that exercise, when there was no
18 evidence to support that as a resource decision? We --
19 you know, the public sector cuts were kicking in, your
20 Honour, the challenges around what you devote your
21 resources to were immense. To say I'm going to do that
22 on something where two people had gone to prison, all
23 those things had happened, it just wouldn't have
24 occurred to me and I deeply regret it now. In terms of
25 what's happened --
101
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I understand that you say in the
2 scale of serious behaviour, this doesn't rank anywhere
3 near all of the other --
4 A. No.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- work that you were engaged with,
6 but this isn't just about criminality.
7 A. I know.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: This is about reputational risk to
9 the Metropolitan Police, and I wasn't suggesting that
10 you put 40 police officers on for a year. I'm just
11 wondering whether it didn't require somebody to go back
12 to the original detective sergeants and the detective
13 inspectors who really were at the root of all this and
14 say what would a scope look like and what do you think
15 with your feet very firmly on the ground, rather than me
16 from my Olympian height -- and I'm not suggesting that's
17 a word you would use, but you understand the point I'm
18 making --
19 A. Yes.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- what would it look like?
21 A. I mean, in fairness -- in fairness to me --
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, I want you to do that.
23 A. -- on 23 July or whatever it was, I asked all this
24 thing -- I was so concerned about our inability to
25 analyse the material in any shape or form that I asked
102
1 for it to be put on the HOLMES system. You have that
2 email in your pack, where I've said as a matter of
3 priority I took people off counter terrorism operations
4 to put all the material on the HOLMES system.
5 Now, if during that exercise run by detectives who,
6 you know, would have a detective outlook, I would have
7 expected, if concerns began to be raised about what's
8 actually in that material, stuff that's come out, that
9 I would have been told, but that didn't happen. So
10 I was sufficiently exercised, as a critical incident in
11 the Met parlance, to put the stuff on a computer, to
12 invest I think it was ten detectives for three or four
13 months working long days to put all this material on
14 a system so I could search it, so I could actually with
15 confidence say -- when people wrote in, I could say
16 you're either on the system or not on the system. Now
17 unfortunately that exercise wasn't done as thoroughly as
18 it should have been.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But that was to do with victims.
20 That wasn't to do with --
21 A. Yes but --
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I take your point.
23 A. Okay.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm just concerned that the very,
25 very best person to have answered quite quickly what
103
1 looking further would cost, what it would involve --
2 A. Yes.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- what it would lead to might have
4 been the DSs -- and I'm talking about sergeants here,
5 who were actually doing the job.
6 A. But --
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm not suggesting you should have
8 asked them, I'm not suggesting there weren't chief
9 inspectors and superintendents who could have all
10 allowed it to flow down the chain of command, but --
11 A. But that's what happened, by the way. The person that
12 was in charge of putting it all on the system was the DS
13 that was in charge of the original inquiry, so that
14 absolutely was what happened.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Okay. We're talking about
16 Mr Maberly?
17 A. Yes.
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Are we?
19 A. Yes. And others. I mean, others who had been involved
20 in the operation, I think. I can't say that for
21 certain.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right. Mr Yates, thank you very
23 much indeed. Thank you.
24 A. My Lord, thank you.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right. I think we need another half
104
1 an hour, then we have had our lunch hour.
2 (2.51 pm)
3 (A short break)
4 (3.20 pm)
5 MR JAY: Sir, the next witness is Mr Andy Hayman, please.
6 MR ANDREW CHRISTOPHER HAYMAN (sworn)
7 Questions by MR JAY
8 MR JAY: Mr Hayman, first of all, your full name, please?
9 A. It's Andrew Christopher Hayman.
10 Q. Thank you. You provided a statement to the Inquiry
11 dated 14 February of this year. You signed and dated it
12 and there's a statement of truth. Is this your formal
13 evidence to the Inquiry?
14 A. Yes, it is.
15 Q. I hope you have a copy of your statement --
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. -- and a couple of exhibits in front of you. In
18 relation to your career, you started at Essex Police in
19 1978. You worked your way through the ranks. You were
20 Chief Constable in Norfolk between 2002 and 2005, and
21 then you transferred back to the MPS as an Assistant
22 Commissioner in charge of specialist operations, and so
23 it follows then for Operation Caryatid you were in
24 charge in the sense that you were responsible, although
25 you didn't have day-to-day conduct of operations; is
105
1 that right?
2 A. It's a small point, but just worth clarifying, really,
3 that you're right in saying that day-to-day
4 responsibility was taken by others, but I remained
5 accountable for not only that operation but everything
6 else that's going on. The buck stops with me.
7 Q. Yes. We will deal more precisely with what you did or
8 did not do in relation to Operation Caryatid in
9 a moment.
10 You announced your retirement from the police
11 service in December 2007 and left in April 2008.
12 In terms of the relationship between the MPS and the
13 media, you deal with this in paragraphs 11 and
14 following, our page number 02224, just how would you
15 define, Mr Hayman, what you describe as a healthy
16 collaborative working relationship; what are the
17 incidents of that relationship and the purposes of that
18 relationship?
19 A. I think to understand that maybe go to the other side of
20 the coin and one that's unhealthy and one that's not
21 helpful to reduce crime, to make sure the public are
22 well informed and then unaccurate reporting, and also
23 that not only bad news but good news gets out. I think
24 it may be seen as a bit of a generalisation, but I think
25 it's not just about the Met, it's also about the rest of
106
1 the country in UK policing.
2 Some years ago there was a reserve position which
3 very much kept the press and the media at arm's length,
4 and I don't think that that is a tenable position. And
5 I certainly, after 7/7, felt that that was an impossible
6 position, because the hunger for information was such
7 that if you did not share information then there was
8 massive speculation, and so the balance needs to be
9 struck between on the one hand making sure that there is
10 a clear division between what the roles of the media are
11 and the police, and on the other, making sure that there
12 is a collaborative relationship which has developed over
13 time when there's no crisis, non-extremist, so that
14 actually when you now need to use the media to ask for
15 witness help or to put suspects' pictures out onto the
16 press for trying to arrest people, you're not just
17 making that one phone call out of the blue, actually
18 there's a relationship already developed, which
19 hopefully will give you the co-operation and support
20 that I think the wider community would look for.
21 Q. Thank you. In paragraph 16 --
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That reflects, presumably, your view
23 as the ACPO lead on media?
24 A. Yes, sir. Thank you for that point. What happened --
25 I forget the exact timing of it, but it was shortly
107
1 after I returned back to the Met and I was -- no,
2 actually it was before that, I was a Chief Constable in
3 Norfolk. The then ACPO president, Sir Chris Fox, was
4 concerned that actually nationally the relationship and
5 co-operation between the police and the media could be
6 improved. I competed against I think one other
7 Chief Constable to pledge to try and improve it and in
8 one of my exhibits we managed to retrieve my
9 presentation, which sets out exactly how I thought we
10 could work over the next sort of couple of years as part
11 of a development plan. I haven't got it literally to
12 hand here, but it's certainly in the bundle.
13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes. I think it's probably in that
14 little file there.
15 A. Oh, okay.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And it's probably behind divider 2.
17 A. Thank you, sir. Maybe just for those who haven't got it
18 in front of me perhaps if I just read out a few points
19 that I think might be pertinent.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: 2197.
21 A. This was the start of a strategic plan, with action
22 plans underneath it, and it had a national footprint, so
23 I was looking to get the co-operation from other
24 chief constables going to ACPO -- Association of Chief
25 Police Officers -- meetings. I wanted to develop
108
1 communications, which I thought would be focused on the
2 citizen, neighbourhood policing, trying to understand
3 the enhanced profile of ACPO and its work, increase the
4 awareness of communications, what role we would play in
5 that. Basically trying to professionalise the service
6 and improve the reputation.
7 I considered that the benefits of that was it would
8 be a better use of resources, it improved efficiency.
9 We were using our communication people better because
10 I think some of our professional staff in the media, as
11 it were, worked for us, were not given the support they
12 should have done, and there was a professional
13 communications advice with greater influence.
14 There's quite a weird sort of diagram there which
15 I won't go to try and explain here because it might be
16 more difficult, but that's really the headline of it,
17 sir.
18 MR JAY: Thank you.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
20 MR JAY: Paragraph 16, towards the top of 02226 on the
21 internet numbering page 6, you say you concluded that
22 there was benefit on both sides to having a professional
23 relationship but the terms of engagement between the two
24 had to be clearly understood. How would you define the
25 terms of engagement, as it were?
109
1 A. I came to this work with the background -- and I've put
2 this in my statement -- of being very reserved towards
3 the media. I didn't feel I needed to engage, because
4 I felt that sometimes that kind of relationship was
5 difficult. There was some -- if you went and speak with
6 colleagues, there were probably experiences where it
7 wasn't particularly positive on either side. So I saw
8 that at worst there could be the media's objective to
9 try and get exclusives and cross a line, and on the
10 other side at worst, from the police side, the danger
11 would be that maybe people would cosy up and start
12 leaking inappropriately information to the media.
13 But I didn't feel that that was necessarily an
14 obstacle to embark on this work. That was just
15 something that we needed to manage.
16 I have to say, trying to drive this nationally was
17 difficult, because I think people always went to their
18 default position of this is just too difficult, I'm not
19 going to do it.
20 Q. You told the Select Committee, I think, that your career
21 choice was always between police and journalism. It
22 might be said that very statement indicates that you
23 might be close, if not overly close, to people in the
24 media. Is that a fair interpretation or not?
25 A. I would say that up until 2005, July 2005, that was not
110
1 the case. That was a -- I shared that with the Home
2 Affairs Select Committee. It was a private thought, and
3 I did it to illustrate a point at the time and I stand
4 by that. That's not something I paraded elsewhere.
5 I had a wake-up call on the post -- the attacks on
6 7 July when suddenly the international media were there
7 and I realised that this was just an untenable position
8 to keep that amount of distance between the
9 international media and we had to do something about
10 that. Now, the fact that there may have been personal
11 aspirations and interest in writing is a side issue as
12 to what professionally we had to do to make sure the
13 police service was well equipped and well positioned to
14 deal with extremists on a scale we'd never dealt with
15 before.
16 Q. In paragraph 32, page 02231, you say you would "like to
17 think that the media saw their contact with me as an
18 opportunity to gain a better understanding of the
19 challenges the police were facing", et cetera.
20 Now, maybe that was a careful choice of words, you
21 would "like to think". It suggests that perhaps the
22 media saw the purpose of their contact with you more
23 broadly or differently. Is that what you're trying to
24 say or to avoid saying?
25 A. No. That's a very astute observation. What I'm trying
111
1 to diplomatically say, I think if you look at the media
2 in its broadest sense, which just doesn't include the
3 written media, it includes radio and TV, is that there's
4 not one type, there's all different styles and
5 approaches, just as there are with senior police
6 officers or junior police officers. It would be a lot
7 easier, wouldn't it, if everyone was operating in the
8 same way, but they don't, and therefore I think what I'm
9 trying to say there diplomatically is there may be --
10 I would like to think that the mainstream would see it
11 for what it is, that relationship, but I hope I'm not
12 naive to realise that there may be other agendas playing
13 which people might seek to exploit.
14 Q. What was your attitude in relation to social encounters
15 with members of the media? Particularly dinners I'm
16 referring to.
17 A. Yes. I think we would describe the relationship in the
18 Met, which it certainly wasn't my idea and I put that in
19 my statement, I can't remember whether I inherited it or
20 not, but there was a structure in place where with this
21 Crime Reporters Association there were regular lunches
22 which my colleague, Peter Clarke, would go to, and when
23 I joined the Met, that's something that I did as well.
24 And it's on as regular basis.
25 The purpose of those lunches was to develop and
112
1 foster the relationship I tried to describe earlier
2 where you just didn't pick the phone up when you wanted
3 something.
4 Of course I was operating here with two hats on, and
5 I was trying to do the same nationally with the ACPO
6 media group hat on, and therefore what I felt there was
7 an awful lot of benefit in probably going the extra mile
8 with that ACPO hat on, because I wanted to get traction
9 not just in London but also elsewhere, and I wanted to
10 support the media officers within each force
11 accordingly.
12 So that would extend beyond a lunch, and I would
13 have meetings in the evening at dinner, not necessarily
14 in London, it could be elsewhere. And I remember one
15 event which I put in my statement was with the Society
16 of Editors where I think I spoke at their conference, so
17 it would be beyond just those CRA lunches, but I would
18 want to make sure everyone understood that the social
19 scene of interacting was businesslike, but it was also
20 to develop the relationship which hopefully I could have
21 built on around that plan I set out.
22 Q. So entirely businesslike and always within proper
23 bounds, is that the way you would characterise it?
24 A. I hope so, yes.
25 Q. What is your reaction to page 237 of Lord Blair's book
113
1 in relation to you where he says that something went
2 wrong:
3 "I began to pick up that Andy seemed to be spending
4 a great deal of time with the press. Quite early on
5 there were rumours that he was briefing in a careless
6 and sometimes disloyal manner, although I never had any
7 proof."
8 He's making two points there. Can we deal with the
9 first point, an implied criticism, spending too much
10 time with the press and inappropriately.
11 A. If you viewed it as my primary role in the Met, I can
12 understand why he might say that, his opinion. But if
13 you put my other hat on as well, I would argue that that
14 was a proportionate amount of time being spent. He's
15 expressed a view there about information that was being
16 shared. I completely disagree with that and I think
17 it's important that he does qualify that at the end.
18 Q. He does. Then he says, page 240:
19 "So what happened? Perhaps Andy got carried away by
20 the power and prestige of his job. Burned the candle at
21 both ends, developed a lifestyle of late evenings and
22 could not see the danger to his professional standing."
23 Well, the lifestyle of late evenings may well be
24 intended to accommodate, in that sentence, late evenings
25 with members of the press; is that right?
114
1 A. That's not right. I am not saying that there weren't
2 meetings in the evening with the press. I'm sure that
3 they could be found. What I will say is that the hours
4 that were being worked through that period between 2005
5 and beyond, even after I retired, were on a scale that
6 no other -- none of us in our team had experienced
7 before, to the point where fatigue across the team, both
8 junior and senior levels, was a regular facet of work.
9 Q. May we look at some entries in relation to you and the
10 gifts and hospitality register, the first page of which
11 is 6382. This is the formal register, of course,
12 which --
13 A. Would you direct me on the papers here, please?
14 Q. Well, I think you have printed out only the pages which
15 relate to you for the period March 2005 to April 2007;
16 is that correct? This is in the register. If not, it's
17 going to come up on that screen.
18 A. Oh, okay.
19 Q. I'm not quite sure whether that --
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, that's Mr Hogan-Howe.
21 MR JAY: Yes.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I think in order that you make
23 progress, let Mr Hayman have my copy. (Handed).
24 MR JAY: I also have your personal diary, in the sense that
25 the Metropolitan Police have transcribed for me, as they
115
1 have done in relation to the previous witness, Mr Yates.
2 There was a dinner, 8 November 2005, with
3 Lucy Panton, who of course was with the News of the
4 World, and that does feature in the register.
5 A. Yes, I have it.
6 Q. On the third page. The register doesn't tell us,
7 because strictly speaking it's right, the offer, as it
8 says, comes from the News of the World. It's to you in
9 your capacity as ACSO; is that right?
10 A. Yes, it is.
11 Q. Described as a working dinner. What sort of things
12 might have been discussed at that dinner with
13 Lucy Panton?
14 A. There was another, on my recollection, I've put it in my
15 statement, I can't be 100 per cent sure about this, but
16 what I can -- so I'm in a way speculating, but given the
17 timing of this and it was shortly after the attacks, we
18 were keen -- sorry, the News of the World were keen to
19 run campaigns to help tackle the threat from terrorism.
20 They had some rough ideas of what they wanted to do, and
21 I recall trying to guide and give advice on that.
22 A good example of that was when the airline plot was
23 discovered and we had a very graphic reproduction of
24 a plane -- a pressurised plane being exploded with the
25 types of explosive that were going to be smuggled onto
116
1 the plane and we wanted to run an article in the paper
2 about that, and then put on the website the
3 reconstruction of the video.
4 So when we talk about working dinner, I can't
5 accurately remember what that was about, but it was
6 certainly in line with my recollection that the paper
7 was being proactive about trying to tackle the whole
8 issue of this unfolding home-grown threat from
9 terrorism.
10 Q. Three days later there's a meeting at the News of the
11 World offices, it's not in the gifts and hospitality
12 register because there may well not have been any
13 hospitality, because it's only between, according to the
14 diary, 12.30 to 13.00 hours, and Lucy Panton was going
15 to meet you at the entrance. Can you remember what
16 that --
17 A. I haven't got that in front of me. It's very difficult
18 to remember that, Mr Jay, but I'm trying to be helpful.
19 Not knowing you were going to ask that question, that
20 does fall in line with my recollection which I've just
21 rehearsed to answer the previous question. I can only
22 guess that it was something to do with a campaign. That
23 working dinner would have been probably because it was
24 very busy during the day, that was the only time to get
25 it, and it was a precursor before going to their
117
1 building maybe to develop the conversation further, but
2 I'm guessing.
3 Q. 25 April 2006, which is on the internal numbering page 5
4 of the hospitality register, it's:
5 "Dinner, editor and deputy editor of the News of the
6 World."
7 A. Mm-hm.
8 Q. And the location we don't know from that document but
9 probably do from the diary.
10 A. I think I can help you on that. I believe that it was
11 Soho House, I think.
12 Q. Correct.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Well, it's all correctly recorded in the hospitality
15 register, as we can see. The editor and deputy editor,
16 editor at the time was Mr Coulson. The deputy editor,
17 I believe, was Mr Wallis, but I'm not 100 per cent sure.
18 Maybe you could help on that.
19 A. I think it was, yes.
20 Q. What was the purpose of that dinner?
21 A. I can't remember, but what I do remember from that was
22 it -- ordinarily that would be not some -- those people
23 would not be someone from professional life that I would
24 be on a daily contact with. That dinner was not
25 arranged by me, my recollection is it was arranged by
118
1 the Met's director of public affairs, and it was --
2 I imagine it was to meet these two people, because
3 I didn't know them beforehand, and I -- so I'm half
4 guessing but I think it's just to meet them.
5 Q. Well, it's clear from the diary that Mr Fedorcio is
6 there as well, so again that chimes with your
7 recollection.
8 A. To reinforce that point, sir, I -- it would just be
9 inappropriate given who was in contact with who at the
10 Met at that time and I wouldn't even know what to do in
11 terms of contacting those two individuals, having not
12 met them before. I don't think I'd met them before,
13 anyway.
14 Q. Fair enough. At that stage, what -- well, presumably
15 you did know about Operation Caryatid; is that correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. But the scope or possible scope of Operation Caryatid
18 was not known to you; is that right?
19 A. No, it wasn't, not in the detail that many think was the
20 case.
21 Q. Okay. The diary entry, just to clear up one doubt in my
22 mind --
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: We will be returning to that, will
24 we?
25 MR JAY: Yes.
119
1 There's an entry in the diary for 22 August 2006.
2 I only mention it so you can clear this one up. This is
3 in the afternoon:
4 "Rebekah introductory meeting following
5 Lucy Panton's maternity leave."
6 What was that a reference to?
7 A. My recollection is -- I don't know the surname --
8 certainly all the events that are going on, people need
9 to know was that Rebekah Brooks, I guess. That was not.
10 That was a member of staff that was going to take over
11 Lucy Panton's role when she went off on maternity leave,
12 and I think that -- I'm more than sure that was an
13 introductory meeting to say, look, this is the person
14 taking the job over and this is as a mutual sort of
15 handshake thing.
16 Q. Because Lucy Panton was your contact at the News of the
17 World, and whilst she was away, you needed a different
18 contact; was it as simple as that?
19 A. Yes, she was the CRA rep from the News of the World,
20 yeah.
21 Q. She was someone, like the previous witness, who you saw
22 on a number of occasions. There was, for example,
23 8 March 2007. This is just for half an hour, though, at
24 about lunchtime. Lucy Panton comes to 556 New Scotland
25 Yard to meet you. It's not in the hospitality register,
120
1 it's in the diary, and she's coming alone. Is that when
2 she's back from maternity leave and you're picking up
3 contact with her?
4 A. I don't know.
5 Q. 24 October 2006. There's an evening meeting with
6 Neil Wallis, but it's between 1700 and 1900 hours and
7 it's with him alone. Can you help us with that entry?
8 A. No, I can't. The trouble with relying on the diary is
9 sometimes the diary might -- hopefully the diary is as
10 accurate as it possibly can, but I'm not -- sometimes it
11 becomes dated, the meetings don't happen, or if they're
12 in there and there's no other note beside it to remember
13 what that meeting was about or indeed if it happened is
14 very difficult.
15 Q. Okay. 29 March 2007, only in the diary, not in the
16 hospitality register:
17 "Lunch. Working lunch at Santini's", Lucy Panton
18 and Neil Wallis this time.
19 A. What was the date, sir?
20 Q. 29 March 2007.
21 A. Yes. I can remember that.
22 Q. What was the purpose of that meeting?
23 A. I can't remember the purpose. I can remember the lunch.
24 I can't remember the purpose of it. But it would not be
25 anything different to what I've described earlier, which
121
1 is the ongoing support that that paper was trying to
2 give to the terrorism campaign, as it were.
3 Q. The conversations didn't extend further than that; is
4 that right, Mr Hayman?
5 A. Absolutely not.
6 Q. Again it's not in the register. What probably happened
7 on this occasion, but tell me if this is right, is that
8 you paid for that lunch with your MPS Amex card. Might
9 that be right?
10 A. If the records show that, that -- my instinctive answer
11 to that, sir, is that -- and I've made the point in my
12 statement, that the CRA lunches -- and I'm using this as
13 a comparator to try and describe my thinking on that --
14 were always under the basis for I think when
15 Peter Clarke went, and maybe my successors, were on the
16 basis that the CRA were actually paying for things, and
17 I over time did feel uncomfortable about that, and on
18 two occasions I paid the bill for the lunches to the CRA
19 and I would imagine the same principle, if it shows
20 I paid for that on the Amex, if the Amex shows that,
21 then that would be under the same arrangement, but
22 I can't remember paying for it but I wouldn't dispute
23 any record that's there.
24 Q. Your expense claims were investigated at a later stage,
25 as you know, and there are two entries for 1 February
122
1 2007 which are not in the hospitality register. The
2 first is at Shepherd's Restaurant, lunch for nine.
3 Page 4 on your Amex card, which again is the MPS Amex
4 card. £566, of which £181.50 was spent on alcohol.
5 What was the purpose of that lunch?
6 A. It was the regular practice -- I don't know whether
7 other people do it, but I certainly did it in Norfolk as
8 the Chief Constable there and also in the Met -- that
9 when people were leaving, their departure, whether it's
10 on retirement or promotion, would be marked as a thank
11 you. That in this instance in my view would be too
12 extravagant. So it was -- that was one of the reasons,
13 one of the colleagues on our top team was leaving to
14 another force on promotion. Coincidentally that was at
15 a force where we were building a new detached counter
16 terrorism unit.
17 But more importantly, the reason for taking my top
18 team out there was that we would normally have away days
19 where we would go to different venues for planning
20 meetings for the whole day, but these were people that
21 had sacrificed holidays since 2005, and had really
22 worked their socks off for nearly two years, and I did
23 that as a Metropolitan Police gesture of gratitude
24 because of the fact that their families and them had
25 gone through what they had, and also to mark the
123
1 colleague's promotion.
2 Q. Okay. There was a business dinner -- this is a Crime
3 Reporters Association business dinner -- later that same
4 day. I gave 2 February, in fact it's 1 February, both
5 of these occasions. But it ended up in the -- or maybe
6 it started in the Oriel Wine Bar and Bistro and just
7 before 10 o'clock you spent £47 on a bottle of champagne
8 on your Amex card, and when asked about it you stated
9 that you recall that this was a Crime Reporters
10 Association representative, possibly from the News of
11 the World. It could have been a female whose name you
12 did not know.
13 A. Mm.
14 Q. Is that right?
15 A. Yes, I think the only thing I'd put right there, sir, is
16 that it wasn't a function or a dinner. I can't remember
17 the event. If that's what I said in interview, then I'm
18 going to rely on that from that interview.
19 Q. Just who that representative might have been, might it
20 have been Lucy Panton or possibly Rebekah? Can you help
21 us?
22 A. I can't remember, sir. But if I've said in interview
23 that it -- and I think I've re-looked at that and I was
24 cautioned against guessing, I think, by the interviewer.
25 Q. But if it's Crime Reporters Association, if it's News of
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1 the World, the number of candidates, I think, are
2 reducing logically. It's only going to be Lucy Panton,
3 or maybe if she was on maternity leave, it would have
4 been Rebekah. It can't have been anybody else.
5 A. No, I'm -- no, I'm not arguing that point. All I'm
6 saying is I remember at the time -- I tried to be
7 helpful but the interviewer said, "If you don't know,
8 don't guess".
9 Q. Would you accept, if I can put this gently, that this is
10 possibly an example of going a bit too far in
11 entertaining a member of the press? Or not?
12 A. My judgment was at the time the work it was producing
13 was worth the investment of the time.
14 Q. I'm not going to labour the point on these registers,
15 but in the diary there are two further working lunches
16 with Wallis, Mr Wallis, these are both in the register
17 as well, 5 September 2007 and 16 November 2007. And
18 also there's a CRA lunch both in the diary and register
19 for 31 August 2007, and Lucy Panton was there. So some
20 involvement in your case continuing with the News of the
21 World into 2007; is that right?
22 A. Yeah, and I've never -- and the reason why they're in
23 the diary and in the register is because I've always
24 wanted to declare as best I can everything that was
25 going on.
125
1 Q. Okay. May I go back to your witness statement and
2 paragraph 42, which deals with your writing for the
3 Times.
4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Just before we move on, I understand
5 your judgment at the time, but do you think it creates
6 or runs the risk of creating a perception of
7 a relationship which goes beyond that which is
8 appropriate?
9 A. In hindsight, sir, I totally see the point you're making
10 and I think when we go on to the discussion about the
11 Times, the same point could be levied at that as well.
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, I deliberately -- before you
13 got onto the Times, I just wanted to section that little
14 bit off.
15 A. On reflection and I want to go back and think, well,
16 what was my thinking at the time. I was very
17 enthusiastic about the whole national build for counter
18 terrorism. We wanted to be much better than we were in
19 2007, 2005. That meant building a national picture,
20 counter terrorism units, both covert and overt, across
21 the country from scratch. What had to go hand in glove
22 with that was a media strategy, and inevitably a lot of
23 that was centred in London because that's where the hub
24 of the media was. So it was nothing but enthusiasm and
25 a bit of a -- bit hasty, because we didn't know when the
126
1 next attack was going to come. But the point you're
2 making in hindsight as we pore over this, at the time it
3 was absolutely well intended, honourable, but on
4 reflection I can see what people can see.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Nobody was to know what was going to
6 happen, but -- well, you've got the point. Yes?
7 MR JAY: Maybe we can take the evidence in relation to the
8 Times quite shortly. You leave the Metropolitan Police
9 in April 2008 and your contract with the Times starts,
10 I think, in August and continued through until July
11 2011. You were paid £10,000 per annum, not the sort of
12 figures we've seen bandied around in some place.
13 In hindsight in your own words, what is your view
14 about this?
15 A. Would you mind, sir, if I just spent a couple of minutes
16 just building the picture on this? Because I think it's
17 important that people understand how this came about.
18 I will be brief.
19 Once I'd retired, I didn't do an awful lot, just
20 tried to sort of make the transition into retirement,
21 and so effectively on paper I wasn't entering the Yard
22 from December 2007, and it was towards the beginning of
23 the summer I was approached not by a News International
24 outlet, but by someone else, another paper, and also TV
25 outlets who were interested to sign me up, as it were.
127
1 In hindsight I think probably because there were a lot
2 of activities going on with trials around terrorism and
3 they would want someone to perhaps offer an opinion on
4 it.
5 This was something that I'd never really thought
6 would happen, and I therefore went to an agent to get
7 some advice and help, and I let the agent deal with all
8 the negotiations.
9 The point that I now find out is that
10 News International, the Times, and I think this has been
11 put in statement, is -- got wind of the other person's
12 interest and then that's how we ended up having two
13 outlets, as it were, wanting to sign me to write.
14 Now, I did give this long thought, and I thought
15 what is the difference here -- set phone hacking aside
16 just for one minute, if we may. What is the difference
17 here between a retired police officer, of which there
18 are others who have written, doing commentary and
19 hopefully working alongside a journalist who can do
20 a factual journalistic reporting, but a police
21 commentator can give more of an insight to the reader,
22 and working hand in glove, that could actually produce
23 some good reportable material, which would also enhance
24 this profile and contact with the police as well.
25 I made the comparisons in my mind, albeit they're
128
1 not directly comparable, between sportsmen who retire,
2 maybe politicians and maybe financiers, and I honestly
3 did not make the connection that I was embarking, if
4 I made that choice rather than that choice, into
5 a stable that was part of the News of the World. I just
6 didn't make that connection. I didn't know the people,
7 didn't know the editor, the deputy editor. I was
8 formally interviewed. Never met them before.
9 Throughout the whole relationship, never any hint of
10 trying to exploit what may be my contacts, what may be
11 a relationship there. My experience was it was
12 completely above board.
13 However, going to the point of your question, if
14 I had my time again and I was able to make that link,
15 presentationally that is difficult and it's difficult to
16 people to probably in a way believe that account, but
17 that is the account as it happened and there are many
18 people who were involved in those negotiations that
19 I think can corroborate what I've said.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's all a perception thing, isn't
21 it?
22 A. Yes.
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Although presumably if you walked
24 into -- were the Times then working in Wapping?
25 A. Yes, sir.
129
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Then they're in the same building,
2 different floors of the same building, aren't they?
3 A. I used to walk past the News of the World entrance and
4 go down the road to the Times. The editorial -- even
5 when I went to the office, as it were, you know, there
6 was no feel of -- I don't mean this in a disrespectful
7 way -- of the red tops. It was the broadsheet writing
8 and commentary and everything was around that.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I think one of the witnesses from one
10 of those journals gave evidence that actually there was
11 no real connection between the Times on the one hand,
12 the Sunday Times on the other, the Sun and the News of
13 the World. They were all very, very different and very
14 competitive.
15 A. To the point where --
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That's what somebody said, anyway.
17 A. To the point I can honestly say I can't ever remember in
18 that building bumping into anyone that I had
19 professional contact with when I was in the police
20 service.
21 MR JAY: We'll go back to the issue of one piece you wrote
22 in the Times on 12 July 2009 fairly soon, but can I go
23 straight now, Mr Hayman, to Operation Caryatid? The
24 other parts of your statement which we're not dealing
25 with specifically we're going to take as read, if you
130
1 follow me.
2 A. Okay sir.
3 Q. It's been absorbed fully into your formal evidence. But
4 I've taken the view it doesn't need to be tested today.
5 I'm sure you would wish to develop paragraph 89 of
6 your statement, which is our page 02253. It's the
7 distinction between being accountable for Caryatid,
8 because you were the Assistant Commissioner at the top
9 of SO13 at the material time on the one hand, and being
10 involved in the day-to-day running of Operation
11 Caryatid, which of course you weren't, on the other
12 hand. Is that right?
13 A. Yes, sir.
14 Q. Can I just understand, though, and this is possibly of
15 some importance, we know that you had regular briefings
16 from DAC Clarke as to what generally was going on in
17 S13, and I think probably on a daily basis when you were
18 both there; is that right?
19 A. I wouldn't -- no, that's not right. Daily would not be
20 the case, no.
21 Q. About how often would you speak to Mr Clarke?
22 A. We'd have contact daily, but on that particular
23 operation --
24 Q. No, I wasn't suggesting you had daily contact over
25 Operation Caryatid.
131
1 A. Oh, sorry, then what you said is right, sir.
2 Q. Can I just understand, though, in relation to Operation
3 Caryatid, how much contact was there between you and
4 Mr Clarke? First of all, how frequently was it?
5 A. On one hand, I would say, sir. The whole life of it.
6 I think it was -- yes, on one hand.
7 Q. Can we just see at what stages, counting out by five
8 occasions, Mr Hayman, this might have been? Might you
9 have been involved at the very start, because it was an
10 investigation into the security of the royal household?
11 A. Would it help if I just spent a very brief time
12 positioning not only that operation but others that were
13 going on -- not the detail of those, but the style of
14 working? Because I think again on reflection there is
15 some learning that comes out of this.
16 If you -- my span of command was not only looking
17 after specialist operations which had something like,
18 I don't know, 150 investigations, maybe more, going on
19 at one time. I also had my corporate responsibility of
20 running the Met, and then the national build
21 responsibility, which we've already heard about.
22 I don't think any colleague chief constable can
23 honestly say that when there's investigations going on
24 in their command in the counties they have all the
25 details to hand. I think you always remain accountable
132
1 as being the person who's the chief constable, but the
2 day-to-day responsibility you empowered us to do because
3 they're the best people to do it. And what is really
4 difficult is that if you start allowing yourself to get
5 drawn down into too much detail, you're actually
6 neglecting your role which I believe is to create the
7 environment where all these investigations can flourish,
8 so you're putting an umbrella over the investigation and
9 protecting day-to-day operations from the intrusion
10 maybe of senior people and maybe outside stakeholders.
11 It was very regular for me to understand the general
12 scope of it, to try and create that environment and give
13 resources and empower people.
14 Now, the real nub of this operation, which I think
15 what hacking has elicited here, is that in the widest
16 sense of what else was going on, you're making the
17 judgment is this as important -- and I don't mean to
18 minimise the terrible impact this has had on the victims
19 about the threat to life or what hacking represents, and
20 that will be a dictation as to the decisions made by the
21 SIO. But had we known -- my job would be to make
22 a judgment: how much do I intervene and take a notice of
23 what's going on in that operation? And the more I give
24 to that, I'm neglecting that one over there.
25 I have to say, sir, at that time with the threat of
133
1 a future attack around the airline plot, and then six
2 weeks after the airline plot we arrested 12 more people
3 in Operation Overamp, all of the intrusion from me, if
4 ever, was on the terrorist rather than that job, and the
5 danger would be more effort putting into something that
6 doesn't endanger life means that you're neglecting
7 something that does.
8 A long-winded way of answering the question, but
9 what I'm trying to put here is some flesh on the bones
10 of something that says you're accountable but you're not
11 responsible for day to day, but when you do empower
12 people to do the day-to-day responsibility, occasionally
13 you would have to intervene and it's a judgment as to do
14 I intervene a lot or not? On this one, the briefings
15 I were getting was enabling me to brief above and
16 protect them and allow them to get on would be their
17 job, but I had a deputy that I would rate very, very
18 highly and he had a team which he would rate very, very
19 highly and, as far as I was concerned, it was light of
20 touch and that's why I left it very much to them.
21 Q. Can I just understand what you were told by Mr Clarke as
22 Operation Caryatid progressed. Maybe in your own words,
23 Mr Hayman, presumably at the start you were told
24 possible security risks to the royal household. Were
25 you told who the perpetrators were or might be, who the
134
1 main suspects were?
2 A. No. My recollection is, in my own words, it originally
3 was identified by the royal command, who have particular
4 functions which does not include specialist
5 investigations. They haven't got the skills and
6 experience. They're very good at what they do but this
7 would be beyond their experience and capability, with
8 all due respect, and that therefore I allocated that to
9 Peter, Peter Clarke, said, "Can you please look at this
10 and come up with an investigation strategy and an
11 operation?"
12 So I was actually allocating that to Peter, and my
13 recollection is that Peter would brief me on exemption,
14 ie when there was something in his judgment was
15 significant that I needed to brief up or that he needed
16 more people with.
17 I think it's very significant, sir, that I didn't
18 know when the arrests were going to be made, I didn't
19 know when the search warrants were going to be executed;
20 indeed, I wasn't in the country when that happened.
21 That illustrates the empowerment that Peter was
22 given by me and the detachment that I had, because
23 I felt that at that time -- I mean this -- I say this
24 term graphically to make the point -- you could have
25 eaten that on what we knew at that time. What we now
135
1 know, we didn't know then, and of course we would have
2 had a completely different approach.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, that raises a couple of
4 interesting issues, but what I take from that is that
5 your exercise of command was to allocate it to the
6 Deputy Assistant Commissioner and then effectively to
7 leave him to get on with it, to come back to you (a) if
8 he felt there was something you needed to report up to
9 the Commissioner, or (b) if from within his own resource
10 he had a problem coping with demand. Is that --
11 A. That's a fair summary.
12 But I do allude to what we would do differently,
13 because clearly there needs to be something done
14 differently in the light of how things unfolded. It's
15 about making clearer in strategy terms about that level
16 of intrusion intervention, and I don't know how you
17 would solve that, but there needs to be the check and
18 balance that strikes the balance between the boss
19 getting in the way of people who know how to do it
20 better than he or she does, but at the same time the
21 boss not find themselves completely isolated.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm just not quite sure -- I'm not
23 sure I understand precisely what you're suggesting.
24 "Make clearer in strategy terms about the level of
25 intrusion into intervention"? Sorry, could you
136
1 elaborate, please?
2 A. What -- it's the -- what you're trying to do, sir, is
3 give people their space by creating that environment
4 that they can succeed, hopefully, in their endeavours,
5 and what you're doing is you're making a judgment as to
6 how much latitude -- and that's just not me, that's all
7 senior people and that probably goes down to supervisors
8 as well -- you give that individual, and the question
9 would be that they deserve the checks and balances so
10 they have something to have their own decision-making
11 checked against.
12 MR JAY: Are we to derive this message from your evidence,
13 Mr Hayman, and tell me if we're not, that if you knew
14 then what we know now, you would have wished the
15 investigation to have been expanded?
16 A. There's only one proviso on that, is that the decision
17 always must be about the threat to life, and I --
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: In 2006, the terrorism issues were
19 such that you were sucking people into the Met to help
20 cope with them.
21 A. Sir, it was unprecedented. There's again examples to
22 try and illustrate the point. If you imagine New
23 Scotland Yard, the incident rooms for the attacks on 7/7
24 stretched right the way around two floors and when you
25 compare a typical incident room for a murder would be
137
1 a room something like this, that's the scale of the 7/7
2 attack.
3 Then we had the other plots that were going on that
4 we were trying to thwart, and of course running in
5 parallel with this operation, the phone hacking
6 operation was going to probably dwarf 7/7 and be, as
7 many commentators have said, the sort of 9/11 for the
8 UK, and that was also the other operation, Operation
9 Overamp, which was the 12 people arrested in Sussex.
10 They were the ones that were, you know, grabbing all the
11 attention and close management, and it was -- I'm --
12 I feel terrible for the impact for the victims of phone
13 hacking, it must be absolutely awful and I wouldn't
14 minimise that, but at the same time I'd rather be facing
15 questions around that than I would be about more loss of
16 life, which 7/7 was awful.
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That's entirely understandable and
18 you may not have heard what I said to Mr Clarke this
19 morning that, as a use of resource, the decision-making
20 is perfectly understandable, and it's nothing to do with
21 me, it's the police decision not mine, but I would have
22 thought inevitable. The question then is what you do
23 about the work that you can't do and how you
24 characterise the state of that investigation. The issue
25 for me may be just as much that, what was said, what was
138
1 done, what was not said and what was not done, not
2 merely in 2006 but thereafter, and it's important in the
3 context of this Inquiry because of the perception of
4 a relationship which might have meant that the police
5 did not go as hard into this particular problem not
6 because of resource implications of terrorism, but
7 because of a relationship issue. That's effectively
8 what I think I am required to think about, and you've
9 picked up yourself, as you've given evidence this
10 afternoon, strands of material which would allow
11 somebody -- you would say: quite wrongly and
12 inaccurately -- to draw an inference about that, and
13 that's the issue.
14 A. I'm totally with you on that. Just a couple of -- three
15 points to help.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Please do. It's your evidence, not
17 mine.
18 A. Firstly, the number of police officers that were being
19 brought in from around the country was unprecedented.
20 You know, the -- without making any sort of alarmist
21 statements here, the pot was actually running dry, so we
22 had nowhere really to go. Within the Met, that was
23 exactly the same. We see the number of resources that
24 are now being used as events have unfolded. That would
25 have had a massive impact on counter terrorism, those
139
1 numbers.
2 I can absolutely accord with your point around
3 perception, but I can tell you that the team that were
4 on it are ferocious, they have a reputation of being
5 ferocious, and if, let's say, there is a scenario, which
6 some people have argued around the conspiracy that there
7 was a not such ferociousness around because of
8 a perceived relationship, it was impossible, in my view.
9 If you wanted to be disproportionate towards those
10 alleged perpetrators, or you wanted to dilute down the
11 investigation, the security and parameters that were set
12 by the SIO would make that impossible. And if
13 I personalise that, if there was an agenda from me or
14 any other person, Assistant Commissioner, who wanted to
15 dilute or disproportionately ramp up that operation, it
16 would be impossible for that to happen without the SIO
17 calling foul or asking for that individual to record why
18 they want something done in that decision log.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, it's not specifically an
20 Assistant Commissioner going in and saying, "I don't
21 think I want you to do this any more." It would be much
22 more subtle than that. Somebody would say, "Well, this
23 isn't terribly important and that seems more important
24 and I have to balance all these resources." It doesn't
25 specifically arise in this case in relation to 2006
140
1 because of the enormity of the problems that you were
2 facing, but that may not be quite so easy to explain
3 away in connection with all the later decisions. That's
4 the point.
5 A. I accept that.
6 MR JAY: Were there any discussions between you and
7 Mr Clarke as to the possible widening of the
8 investigation? By which I mean not merely to embrace
9 other victims, but more importantly other journalists?
10 A. I can't recall any conversation on that.
11 Q. Was there any conversation about -- with Mr Clarke about
12 the quality of the evidence? Not merely in relation to
13 Goodman Mulcaire but more generally?
14 A. I can't recall that, no.
15 Q. Were you aware at any stage that there was a -- there
16 were potential security issues here because Members of
17 Parliament, cabinet ministers, members of the military,
18 policemen, even, were suspected to have been victims of
19 this operation?
20 A. No, sir.
21 Q. When the issue comes back in 2009 in July, you, of
22 course, wrote a piece in the Times on 11 July, which
23 I hope you have to hand, do you, Mr Hayman? You
24 probably remember it. In the bundle which has been
25 prepared for you, it's tab 4.
141
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. First of all, so we can be clear about this, when you
3 wrote this piece in the Times, did you have reference to
4 any documents or were you writing this just from your
5 memory?
6 A. Absolutely no reference to any documents. Indeed, when
7 I left the Met, that would be absolutely inappropriate
8 for me to either try and elicit that or have any
9 conversation about that. This was on what I understood
10 from my recollection, my general broad recollection, of
11 how events were.
12 Q. Fair enough, but can we look at what you said? The
13 third paragraph, the Guardian has said that it
14 understands that:
15 "... the police file showed that between 2,000 or
16 3,000 individuals had their mobile phones hacked into,
17 far who than was ever officially admitted during the
18 investigation and prosecution of Clive Goodman. Yet my
19 recollection is different. As I recall the list of
20 those targeted [and we'll come to that in a moment],
21 which was put together from records kept by
22 Glenn Mulcaire, ran to several hundred names. Of these
23 there was a small number, perhaps a handful, where there
24 was evidence that phones had actually been tampered
25 with."
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1 So, pausing there, Mr Hayman, it appears that you
2 were shown -- this was a point which came out through
3 the Select Committee --
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. -- a list of those targeted which your reaction before
6 the Select Committee was along the lines that it was
7 eight to ten pages; is that right?
8 A. I can remember it distinctly, sir. I think Peter was
9 away, Peter Clarke. The late John McDowall was standing
10 in as his deputy, and the conversation probably only
11 lasted less than, I don't know, four or five minutes
12 when he -- I was in my office, he came to my office and
13 it was along the lines of, "Just so you're aware, the
14 investigation team appear to be creating a list and
15 here's a list of names, we don't know what the status
16 is, haven't got a clue where this is going, but we just
17 want you to know there's a list emerging", and I didn't
18 think any more of it and I remember that being -- on the
19 numbers I've come to here -- and, sorry, there was --
20 also within that conversation he described where the
21 investigation may be able to identify if someone went
22 beyond just having an address book into having more than
23 the telephone number, but that's my recollection.
24 Q. The list that's being referred to can only be tab 94 of
25 the first file. Now, it's going to be probably one of
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1 those files over there. I don't know what that file is.
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's at the end of volume 1 of files
3 disclosed. Somebody will find it for you.
4 MR JAY: I'm going to ask you to look at it and see whether
5 this chimes with your recollection now.
6 A. I will obviously, sir, but the way the interaction went,
7 it was a flying of the sheets of paper. You know,
8 I don't remember pouring through it and looking as to
9 who was on the list at all.
10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You won't see much on the list here
11 because it's been redacted, but --
12 A. Without -- again, sir, with respect, it was a colleague
13 coming in and sort of flying in, flying out, "There's
14 a list here that's emerging"; "Okay, thanks very much".
15 MR JAY: But you're writing here in the Times that your
16 recollection was that this list ran to several hundred
17 names, which is not actually far from our -- we think
18 there are probably 419 names on the list. Of these --
19 well, you say a small number, perhaps a handful, where
20 there was evidence that the phones had actually been
21 tampered with. That's your interpretation of what the
22 evidence showed, presumably?
23 A. Of what was said to me, yes.
24 Q. Can we just see? It won't take very long. Look at
25 tab 94 of that bundle, which is towards the very end of
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1 it. The list we have runs to 25 pages or 24 pages.
2 This is the only one I think --
3 A. I don't -- my first reaction is I don't remember grids
4 and matrices; I remember just a whole sheet of list of
5 names.
6 Q. Can you recall why the late commander came to you with
7 this list?
8 A. No. John was a sort of guy who would just turn up to
9 the office, and if I wasn't either busy or in a meeting
10 he would probably then literally say "good morning",
11 "good afternoon". He was a very sort of sociable guy,
12 and he also kept me -- I suppose in his mind -- I don't
13 know what he was thinking, but I guess he thought he's
14 been told that and he's briefing me but it wasn't
15 anything substantial.
16 Q. Well, is that right, Mr Hayman? Can we just think
17 through this? From your perception you knew about the
18 arrests on 8 August 2006, didn't you? You had in your
19 mind an operation which was very narrow. It involved
20 two men and it involved the mobile phones of members of
21 the royal household. Yet what this list showed, or
22 might have showed, is that the operation of Mulcaire and
23 perhaps others went far wider. Instead of there being
24 five victims or nine victims, you had hundreds of
25 victims. Maybe that was information which he felt quite
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1 rightly he needed to share with you because of its
2 importance. Don't you think that's a possibility?
3 A. I can see why you wouldn't want to say that, but having
4 remembered what that interaction was like, if he wanted
5 more and it was something more substantial, he would
6 have asked for it. He didn't ask for that.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It obviously made an impact on you
8 because three years later you remembered it and even
9 remembered it was a list targeted running to several
10 hundred names, with only a small handful of phones
11 actually tampered with.
12 A. Yes.
13 MR JAY: The ordinary common sense of this, or the sense of
14 one's understanding of the human interactions here,
15 you're the Assistant Commissioner, you're leaving this
16 to DAC Clarke to run, quite rightly. He's in charge.
17 You deal with the more Olympian issues. Yet here is
18 the -- Clarke is away so he's in command for the time
19 being, he's coming to you with something important,
20 something exciting, to share with you. That must be
21 right, mustn't it, Mr Hayman?
22 A. I think that's probably the accurate way, yes.
23 Q. Yes. And what he was trying to share with you was at
24 least this much: look, this extends far more widely than
25 the Royal Family, it extends to a range of victims in
146
1 different walks of life. Isn't that the message of it?
2 A. No, that's not. Because I think the distinction was
3 being drawn at the time between what's the difference
4 between a journalist or someone who works for
5 a journalist having telephone numbers, which is sensibly
6 an address book, versus it going beyond just an address
7 book into something more sinister. And my recollection
8 was this is a number of people who could just be part of
9 the address book as opposed to something that had been
10 more sinister or attacked.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well ...
12 MR JAY: But why bother the Assistant Commissioner with that
13 prosaic piece of information?
14 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: He's got an address book!
15 A. I don't know, I don't know.
16 MR JAY: Well --
17 A. If the judgment there is that that could have been
18 a trigger that should have been acted upon, I hear what
19 you say.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Let me just take the next sentence in
21 your --
22 MR JAY: Well, that's what I was coming to.
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Mr Jay, you do it, you do it.
24 MR JAY: I'm sorry, I was just setting it up a little bit.
25 Had there been evidence, you say in the Times, of
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1 tampering in the other cases, that would have been
2 investigated, as would the slightest hint that others
3 were involved do you stand by that?
4 A. I didn't -- say that again, please?
5 Q. Just read it for yourself. It's your own words.
6 A. Yes, I see the point now.
7 Q. But what's the answer then, Mr Hayman?
8 A. Well, they weren't investigated and I don't
9 understand -- you know, I've written that as part of an
10 article, and to go back to in that office and that
11 interaction to remember why things were or weren't done,
12 I just can't do.
13 Q. Maybe this is to help you out a bit, if I may say so,
14 journalistic licence. Are you reacting perhaps
15 peremptorily to something which you saw in the Guardian,
16 you thought was nonsense -- wrongly, as it happens --
17 and you fire off from the hip with this when in fact you
18 don't mean this, do you?
19 A. I can see how you can -- others and you could have that
20 view.
21 Q. Well, that's helping you out, because if you do mean
22 this, it probably works in a different --
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I have another alternative
24 suggestion, which is to the one which Mr Jay says is the
25 alternative.
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1 Would you agree that if there was a list not merely
2 of a mobile phone number, but also the private PIN
3 number that could be used by the owner of that mobile
4 phone to access their own private voicemails, and that
5 access to the private voicemails itself constitutes an
6 offence under the Computer Misuse Act, and might also,
7 depending upon your view of the law, which I won't
8 trouble you with now, constitute an offence under RIPA,
9 that is evidence of tampering in other cases?
10 A. Yes, I would take your learned view on that. If that
11 was known at that time, then --
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, there's no learned view here at
13 all. I'm merely asking you -- well, you can take my
14 view on what the Computer Misuse Act says and what RIPA
15 says, and I don't think that's contentious, but if there
16 is evidence on a piece of paper that somebody like
17 Mulcaire has not merely the phone number but the PIN
18 number, would you agree that would be evidence of
19 tampering in another case, in that case?
20 A. I think it's persuasive, yes.
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes. And if there was a reference in
22 the corner to a name which could be linked to
23 a journalist, that would at least be the slightest hint
24 that somebody else was involved?
25 A. Yes. That's persuasive, yes.
149
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So your view is that in the normal
2 course of events, if there's evidence such as we've just
3 described, or the hint such as we've described, you
4 would expect that to be pursued and to be investigated?
5 A. Yes.
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes. Now, that may be overtaken by
7 events because of the terrorist threat.
8 A. Yes, yes.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I agree, I recognise that. So far
10 from it being journalist spin, which is one possibility,
11 one Mr Jay has just offered to you, the other is that
12 what you are here setting out is accurately your
13 understanding of how the police investigate material
14 which comes into their hands?
15 A. Right. What I can definitely say is that the way you've
16 set that out was not known to me.
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Oh no, no, no, no, no. Of course it
18 wasn't. I understand that. You've described very
19 carefully how much you knew and how involved you were,
20 and I understand that. I'm actually trying to get to
21 think about what others have said about the quality of
22 the material that actually was available in the Mulcaire
23 documents.
24 A. Right.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Do you see the point?
150
1 A. Yes.
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Because what you're saying to me is
3 that material of the type that I've just described to
4 you would itself be sufficient to justify carrying on,
5 of course, all other things being equal, and if there
6 are terrorist --
7 A. I see the point.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- problems then that's very
9 different. Now, is that fair or not?
10 A. I think that's -- what you said there with those caveats
11 is fair.
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you.
13 MR JAY: Because what you told the Select Committee, Home
14 Affairs Committee, on 12 July 2011, dealing with the
15 Commander McDowall evidence, was that you can look at it
16 if you like, but I'll paraphrase it I'm sure accurately
17 that you were shown foolscap or A4 pages, you think they
18 were in the region of eight or nine. There were three
19 groups of names. There was ostensibly a contact list,
20 which in itself you wouldn't expect from anyone, it's
21 like an address book of numbers of people. Then you
22 said:
23 "I believe that the second column or list was a
24 shorter number where I think my recollection was that
25 they might have been PIN numbers that were known."
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1 That was your best recollection on 12 July 2011,
2 which of course was more or less two years to the day,
3 bar one day, after the piece you wrote in the Times, so
4 your recollection had -- well, it may not have improved,
5 it may be that you just didn't set that out in the Times
6 article?
7 A. Sure.
8 Q. But is that your best recollection?
9 A. Absolutely.
10 Q. And then the third column, the third category of person
11 where they had technologically proved that they'd used
12 the PIN number and the telephone number to access the
13 voicemail, so this was, as it were, the people you are
14 referring to in the article, and you say perhaps
15 a handful, where there was evidence that the phones had
16 actually been tampered with?
17 A. Mm.
18 Q. I think Lord Justice Leveson's questions were directed
19 to the second group of person, if your recollection is
20 right, and possibly even the first group of persons?
21 A. Sure.
22 Q. Had all of this been explained to you by DAC Clarke or
23 by anybody else, would you then, as you say in the
24 Times, have taken the investigation further, or would
25 you have accepted DAC Clarke's decision not to broaden
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1 the investigation?
2 A. I would go on the judgment of the people who are
3 weighing up the competing demands. I mean, the danger
4 with the -- just holding onto the article is that the
5 much bigger picture, the finesse of the bigger picture
6 just would not get included in that and therefore that
7 gets lost, the full understanding gets lost. But again
8 it's Peter's and the team's decision weighing up against
9 the threat to life, et cetera, the things that have
10 already been said.
11 Q. Yes. I'm not going to go through all the evidence you
12 gave to the Select Committee save to note that you were
13 severely criticised by the Select Committee. Do you
14 accept their criticisms or not?
15 A. I respect their view and they have expressed their view.
16 MR JAY: Okay. Unless there are other matters, I'm going to
17 leave it there.
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'll just ask one more question.
19 Just looking at the Times article again:
20 "The obvious way of getting to the bottom of whether
21 more could have been done by the police is to conduct
22 a review ..."
23 Now, a review means going through the whole thing
24 again.
25 A. Yes, sir.
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1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: "... as suggested by the CPS. This
2 route will bring closure by either endorsing the
3 original investigation or demanding further work be
4 completed. In retrospect the speed with which the Met
5 came out and said it would not be reopening its files
6 might have been a mistake."
7 Do you endorse that view even more so today?
8 A. Yes, sir.
9 MR SHERBORNE: Sir, can I rise just to ask one question? As
10 you may be aware, the core participant victims have
11 provided Mr Jay with a line of inquiry in relation to
12 all of the witnesses, the police witnesses who have come
13 to talk about the phone hacking scandal. Mr Jay has
14 covered pretty much most if not all of them but there is
15 one in relation to Mr Hayman which I would like to ask.
16 It's simply one question, sir. I hope it won't detain
17 us very long.
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
19 Questions by MR SHERBORNE
20 MR SHERBORNE: You were asked about socialising with the
21 News of the World. You referred in particular to an
22 event in February 2007, which is on page 186 of the
23 transcript. And specifically, Mr Hayman, you may recall
24 Mr Jay asked you if you were going a bit too far in
25 entertaining a member of the press. Do you remember
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1 being asked that question?
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. And your answer was that:
4 "My judgment was at the time the work it was
5 producing ..." from News of the World, that is, was
6 worth it, in effect.
7 Can I just ask you this. In terms of the work that
8 the newspaper was producing, which made it worth it, did
9 that work include the provision of information to you?
10 A. No, sir. This was -- can I clarify what I meant by
11 that?
12 Q. Yes, of course.
13 A. This was about trying to get accurate balance,
14 responsible reporting, in an environment where in some
15 quarters people were sceptical about the degree of the
16 threat, and more importantly, one thing that was a real
17 shock to the authorities was that we were always
18 planning for a threat of terrorists coming into this
19 country from abroad as opposed to home grown. My
20 recollection, sir, is that to try and get those messages
21 out, that was very, very important to try and garner
22 support to get that reported.
23 Q. But it didn't involve the provision of information from
24 the News of the World to the police?
25 A. Not to my recollections. I never did, no.
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1 MR SHERBORNE: I'm very grateful. Thank you.
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much, Mr Hayman.
3 Thank you.
4 Right. A rather unusually ordered day today, but
5 thank you very much for co-operating to allow us to hear
6 the evidence of Mr Yates from whichever part of the
7 world he was.
8 Monday morning, 10 o'clock; is that right? Thank
9 you very much.
10 (4.40 pm)
11 (The hearing adjourned until 10 o'clock
12 on Monday, 5 March 2012)
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