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17:19 Rugby : tirage au sort de la Coupe du monde 2011

Acting Met chief could step aside in Damian Green leak row

Guardian Unlimited

- 22 hours and 38 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/81951?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Acting+Met+chief+could+step+aside+in+Damian+Green+leak+rowch=Politicsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Damian+Green%2CPolitics%2CUK+news%2CConservatives%2CPolice+%28politics%29%2CLondon+politics%2CLondon+%28News%29c5=Unclassified%2CPolicy+Society%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CLocal+Government+Societyc6=Sandra+Laville%2CNicholas+Watt%2CAndrew+Sparrowc7=2008_12_01c8=1126763c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Damian+Greenc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FDamian+Green" width="1" height="1" //divpThe man tipped to become the new Metropolitan police commissioner was last night understood to be considering whether he should apply for the job, after a barrage of criticism from politicians on all sides over the arrest of the shadow Home Office minister Damian Green. /ppSir Paul Stephenson, as acting head of the Met, ultimately sanctioned the arrest of Green over his role in publishing documents allegedly leaked to him by a mole in the Home Office. /ppHis decision, described by one senior officer as "totally catastrophic", has led to a furious reaction from the Conservative party leader, David Cameron, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and members of the cabinet, who are understood to be divided over the issue. /ppThe deadline for applications for the top job at the Met is noon today and Stephenson is understood to be wondering whether the post is worth the flak. /pp"He is a man who does angst over things quite a lot and he will be thinking very hard about this," said one source. /ppSenior members of the cabinet have expressed deep disquiet over the treatment of Green, who was detained by police for nine hours last Thursday and forced to give a fingerprint and DNA sample. /ppSome ministers voiced unease on the margins of a cabinet meeting in Leeds on Friday. They believe the police's behaviour was heavy-handed and gave the impression that the state was attempting to block the opposition from holding the government to account. Other ministers said that the police had good grounds to question Green. /ppHarriet Harman, the leader of the Commons, admitted yesterday that she was "very concerned indeed" about what had happened, although the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, refused to apologise and insisted the police were independent. /ppToday Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said that Smith was right not to apologise for what had happened to Green. /pp"If any home secretary had offered an apology, there would have then been a huge furore about the fact that the home secretary was prejudging the actions and activities of the police without an investigation," Straw said in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. /ppStraw said that if the Tories were unhappy about what had happened, they could complain to the independent police complaints authority. /ppHe also said that he was "pretty certain" that, once the affair was over, parliament would review the procedures that led to Green's office at the House of Commons being searched by police. /ppThe Tories intensified pressure last night by revealing further details of the police questioning of Green, who was arrested on suspicion that he had procured leaked documents from Chris Galley, a 26-year-old junior civil servant. Police allegedly accused the MP of "grooming" the young civil servant, in what was seen as an attempt to prove that Green had broken the law by offering inducements to procure leaked documents. /ppA Tory source said that Green was furious at the use of a word with such horrendous connotations. "This was clearly designed to provoke Damian. This is typical of the cack-handed way the police have handled this." /ppSuch revelations will add to the pressure on the Met, and specifically Stephenson, who was seen as the favourite to succeed Sir Ian Blair as the new commissioner. He is understood to have had a furious row with Johnson on Thursday after telling him of the impending arrest. /ppA Scotland Yard source yesterday denied that anyone had been bugged as part of the inquiry, after speculation that the police had listened in to calls between Green and the civil servant accused of leaking documents to him. Police sources stressed that they were investigating whether Green had aided, abetted and encouraged the civil servant to procure the information. /ppSenior officers were split over whether the MP should have been investigated or arrested at all, it emerged yesterday. Some within Scotland Yard viewed the issue as a disciplinary one for the civil service, and not a criminal matter at all. /ppPublicly the Met is defending its actions, saying there was nothing unusual about the use of 20 officers to carry out searches and the arrest of Green. "There were four addresses, five officers for each address," the source said. /pp"The investigation is ongoing. That is all we are saying." /ppThere was also a row brewing between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. The Guardian has been told that the CPS was involved in the decision by Bob Quick, the Met's assistant commissioner of specialist operations, to arrest Green. But the CPS angrily denied it was party to the decision to arrest, saying: "We were involved only in the preliminary stages of the investigation." /ppIt emerged that the arrest had not been sanctioned by the new director of prosecutions, Keir Starmer. A spokesman for the CPS said that Starmer had only been informed shortly before detectives swooped. /ppThis is crucial to another growing row â€“ the decision by the Commons serjeant at arms, Jill Pay, and the Speaker, Michael Martin, to allow police to search Green's office. Pay reportedly gave the go-ahead after police told her that the DPP had given his approval to the arrest. Martin is due to make a statement on Wednesday. /ppDominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said the police might have misled Pay. "One way of reading the contradictory explanations between the sergeant at arms and what the DPP has said is that the police misled her. That's a very serious issue which needs to be looked into," he told Sky News. /ppA spokesman for Martin said: "The Speaker will be speaking to the house when the house returns."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/damian-green"Damian Green/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/conservatives"Conservatives/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/police"Police/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/london"London politics/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london"London/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/P846BVswauKzn6Pw_Rq3OM_e-4M/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/P846BVswauKzn6Pw_Rq3OM_e-4M/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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allegedly,investigations,top job,suspicions,detained

Tirs mortels dans l'Oise : un gendarme mis en examen et laissé libre

Met's acting chief could step aside in Tory leak row

Guardian Unlimited

- 1 days and 7 hours ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/6641?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Met%27s+acting+chief+could+step+aside+in+Tory+leak+rowch=Politicsc3=The+Guardianc4=Police+%28politics%29%2CDamian+Green%2CJacqui+Smith%2CConservatives%2CPolitics%2CUK+news%2CBoris+Johnson%2CLondon+politics%2CLondon+%28News%29c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CPolicy+Society%2CLocal+Government+Societyc6=Sandra+Laville%2CNicholas+Wattc7=2008_12_01c8=1126678c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Policec13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FPolice" width="1" height="1" //divpThe man tipped to become the new Metropolitan police commissioner was last night understood to be considering whether he should apply for the job, after a barrage of criticism from politicians on all sides over the arrest of the Conservative shadow Home Office minister Damian Green. /ppSir Paul Stephenson, as acting head of the Met, ultimately sanctioned the arrest of Green over his role in publishing documents allegedly leaked to him by a mole in the Home Office. /ppHis decision, described by one senior officer as "totally catastrophic", has led to a furious reaction from the Conservative party leader, David Cameron, the London mayor Boris Johnson and members of the cabinet, who are understood to be divided over the issue. /ppThe deadline for applications for the top job at the Met is noon today and Stephenson is understood to be wondering whether the post is worth the flak./pp"He is a man who does angst over things quite a lot and he will be thinking very hard about this," said one source./ppSenior members of the cabinet have expressed deep disquiet over the treatment of Green, who was detained by police for nine hours last Thursday and forced to give a fingerprint and DNA sample. Some ministers voiced unease on the margins of a cabinet meeting in Leeds on Friday. They believe the police behaviour was heavy-handed and gave the impression that the state was attempting to block the opposition from holding the government to account. Other ministers said the police had good grounds to question Green./ppHarriet Harman, the leader of the Commons, admitted yesterday that she was "very concerned indeed", about what had happened, though the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, refused to apologise and insisted the police were independent. /ppThe Tories intensified the pressure last night by revealing further details of the police questioning of Green, who was arrested on suspicion that he had procured leaked documents from Chris Galley, a 26-year-old junior civil servant. Police allegedly accused the MP of "grooming" the young civil servant, in what was seen as an attempt to prove that Green had broken the law by offering inducements to procure leaked documents./ppA Tory source said that Green was furious at the use of a word with such horrendous connotations. "This was clearly designed to provoke Damian. This is typical of the cack-handed way the police have handled this."/ppSuch revelations will add to the pressure on the Met, and specifically Stephenson, who was seen as the favourite to succeed Sir Ian Blair as the new commissioner. He is understood to have had a furious row with Johnson on Thursday after telling him of the impending arrest. /ppA Scotland Yard source yesterday denied that anyone had been bugged as part of the inquiry, after speculation that the police listened in to calls between Green and the civil servant accused of leaking documents to him. Police sources stressed that they were investigating whether Green had aided, abetted and encouraged the civil servant to procure the information. /ppSenior officers were split over whether the MP should have been investigated or arrested at all, it emerged yesterday. Some within Scotland Yard viewed the issue as a disciplinary one for the civil service, and not a criminal matter at all./ppPublicly the Met is defending its actions, saying there was nothing unusual about the use of 20 officers to carry out searches and the arrest of Green. "There were four addresses, five officers for each address," the source said. /pp"The investigation is ongoing. That is all we are saying."/ppThere was also a row brewing between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. The Guardian has been told that the CPS was involved in the decision by Bob Quick, the Met's assistant commissioner of specialist operations, to arrest Green. But the CPS angrily denied it was party to the decision to arrest, saying: "We were involved only in the preliminary stages of the investigation."/ppIt emerged that the arrest had not been sanctioned by the new director of prosecutions, Keir Starmer. A spokesman for the CPS said Starmer had only been informed shortly before detectives swooped./ppThis is crucial to another growing row - the decision by the Commons sergeant at arms, Jill Pay, and the speaker, Michael Martin, to allow police to search Green's office. Pay reportedly gave the go-ahead after police told her that the DPP had given his approval to the arrest. Martin is due to make a statement on Wednesday. /ppDominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said the police may have misled Pay. "One way of reading the contradictory explanations between the sergeant at arms and what the DPP has said is that the police misled her. That's a very serious issue which needs to be looked into," he told Sky News./ppA spokesman for Martin said: "The Speaker will be speaking to the house when the house returns."/ph2What the papers say/h2p"If he was a drug dealer or people trafficker the tactics deployed by the police might be defendable. As more details emerge however it is clear their actions were a disgrace." /ppstrongThe Mail on Sunday/strong/pp"This is an appalling, indeed criminal, inversion of priorities. Damian Green is not a threat to the security of this country." /ppstrongThe Sunday Telegraph/strong/pp"The leaks made public by Mr Green embarrassed the government, but that does not constitute a threat to national security." /ppstrongThe Observer/strong/pp"For new Labour, there are leaks and leaks; those that are politically advantageous and those that are politically embarrassing." /ppstrongThe Sunday Times/strong/pp"Just what heinous crime is he suspected of? Espionage, terrorism, high treason? At worst he may be guilty of inciting a civil servant to pass on information." /ppstrongThe News of the World/strong/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/police"Police/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/damian-green"Damian Green/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/jacquismith"Jacqui Smith/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/conservatives"Conservatives/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/boris"Boris Johnson/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/london"London politics/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london"London/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iw-6QJUmPLgPWQmWBXW4X2mWDYo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iw-6QJUmPLgPWQmWBXW4X2mWDYo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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