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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
Doocey challenges the Mayor and Met Commissioner over the Phone Hacking Scandal
July 15, 2011 5:47 PM
Dee said: "It is shameful that John Yates found time to have a five lunches with the News of the World and News International, but after just a few hours decided there was no additional evidence to justify a further investigation into phone hacking. John Yates has failed literally hundreds of victims of phone hacking. While he remains in post as Assistant Commissioner of the Met its reputation will not recover. He must take responsibility for this pitiful review and accept that he has lost all credibility. It is time for him to go."
Both Dee and Caroline Pidgeon then also attended the Metropolitan Police Authority's Strategic & Operational Policing committee meeting on Thursday which discussed with the Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson the fact that senior officers of the Metropolitan Police regularly met journalists and executives from News International and accepted hospitality from them whilst the newspaper was under investigation. Both Caroline and Dee gave interviews after the meeting to ITV and the BBC and the Independent newspaper reported on the meeting here.
Today (Friday July 15th) Dee Doocey wrote to the Met Police Commissioner asking him to introduce a completely transparent system to register all meetings between senior police officers and the media, so that such meetings are systematically recorded and the record made available for public inspection.
The system would operate along the following lines:
· All officers of ACPO rank and above should record all meetings and hospitality (including receptions, lunches and dinners) with journalists or media executives - who, when and where.
· There should be a system (similar to that used by the GLA) whereby all hospitality of a value above £25 accepted by senior officers is recorded.
· Such information to be recorded in a register, updated every month and publicly accessible via the Internet.
Dee told the Commissioner that until a transparent system is established, the police's conduct will remain open to misinterpretation which in turn will have a corrosive effect on the Met's reputation. "It is vital that we restore and maintain trust, so I am sure you will agree that a new transparent system needs to be put in place as soon as possible," said Dee in the letter to the Commissioner.
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