A police and crime commissioner, who was formerly a senior police officer, has called for the investigations into Fleet Street journalists to be called off. It is “time to stop the witch hunt”, he says.
Kevin Hurley describes the resources devoted by the Metropolitan police on three operations - Elveden (payments to public officials), Weeting (phone hacking) and Tuleta (computer hacking) - as “utter nonsense”.
Hurley, Surrey’s police and crime commissioner and previously a Met police commander, said the money would have been better spent on extra police staff.
He told Press Gazette: “There’s murderers, rapists and people who defraud major corporations out there who need to be caught - not some journalists who crossed the line in what was reasonable behaviour on privacy a few years back”.
But the Met’s chief, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was having none of it. During an interview on LBC with Nick Ferrari, he said:
“I think Kevin needs to look after Surrey before commenting on other people’s police forces. When I took over three-and-a-half years ago, the Met was being criticised for not investigating this [the hacking of phones by journalists].
“It has not stopped us investigating murders. To suggest by investigating hacking we are not investigating murders is nonsense”.
Hurley’s comments, and Hogan-Howe’s response, come against a background of failed Elvedon prosecutions. Last month, at Kingston crown court, a jury cleared two journalists and failed to reach a verdict on four others.
The Crown Prosecution Service then announced that the four must face a re-trial later this year.
Two separate trials of other Sun journalists are currently taking place at the Old Bailey.
People claiming to have been hacked by the Sunday Mirror, Daily Mirror and Sunday People are also pursuing those newspapers through the civil courts.
Sources: Press Gazette/Press Association
