Hackgate - Varec Revisited - Dissent In The Ranks

The latest from my regular contributor.

Operation Varec is a little fuzzy round the edges.  It has its own formal 2010 inception date and terms of reference, but in some senses, it pre-dates that and grew out of John Yates' response to The Guardian article on the News of the World (NOTW) phone hacking, published July 8th 2009. This was Yates' 'Ratner moment' - undertaking a hasty fact-finding, presenting a same day, televised press statement, and later pronouncing on his own actions as "crap".

Lord Justice Leveson took the view that Yates could have, perhaps should have, excused himself from quasi-review of the phone hacking investigation - given his longstanding friendship with former NOTW executive, Neil Wallis.  Yet, even though his premature 'no new evidence, no re-investigation' press announcement was dismissive, should Yates accrue a little more credit?  After all, he didn't just let it drop there.

A series of meetings was convened by Yates over the next few months to establish if there were still skeletons in the closet of that original 2006 Goodman/Mulcaire investigation (Operation Caryatid).  Amongst those attending were DCS Phil Williams and DS Keith Surtees (investigating officers from 2006 operation), Steve Kavanagh (now sucessor to Sue Akers overseeing Operations Weeting, Elveden, Tuleta), DS Dean Haydon (Staff Officer to John Yates) and Sara Cheesley (Specialist Operations Press Desk, MET Directorate of Public Affairs).  The minutes of many of these are included as Exhibits to John Yates evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.  They seem characterised by a hyper-defensive mindset and a focus on presentational issues rather than evaluating the 2006 investigation.  Much effort was dedicated to developing responses to criticism of the Met from victims, government departments and Select Committee - reputational risk priortised perhaps at the expense of a more rigourous scrutiny of Operation Caryatid.  There is extensive background here in Sara Cheesley's witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry.

Recently, insights into those meetings have emerged which show a distinct lack of agreement on what action was needed - dissent in the ranks.  Tom Watson MP (3rd Dec 2012) raised this issue in the House of Commons:

May I draw his attention to a very late submission to the Leveson inquiry from Detective Chief Superintendent Surtees, which appeared on the (Leveson) website this week? He states that in July 2009, he argued internally that there was enough intelligence to warrant reopening the investigation into phone hacking. The hon. Gentleman will know that at no point was that raised with the Culture, Media and Sport Committee during its inquiry. That might be something that he and the Committee want to look at.  

Surtees 2nd Leveson witness statement (here) clearly spells out his trenchant view that the phone-hacking Investigation SHOULD be re-opened.  He says that he also suggested that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) be called in.

Surtees assertions are echoed by Phil Williams (here).

Both submissions appear to be tardy attempts to mitigate criticism of the investigating officers contained in the Leveson Report. Presumably, these MET-sanctioned statements were prompted by Section 13 letters.

On 1st September 2010, the New York Times published their exposé ' Tabloid Hack Attack on Royals, and Beyond'.  On the face of it, the article included new information, new informants, and new victims of phone hacking - including Andy Coulson who was then Director of Communications at 10 Downing Street.  Obviously, a disinterested and objective consideration of NOTW phone-hacking was again necessary.  This was a crucial point at which John Yates had another chance to step back, recuse himself, and request that the Commissioner task a different senior officer team without the baggage and closeness to NOTW.  However, Yates chose to have oversight of the new enquiries - Operation Varec - himself.  His own Staff Officer, Dean Haydon, was appointed Senior Investigating Officer (SIO).  Haydon had been closely associated with the 2009 scrutiny as a member (and minutes taker) of the Gold group meetings.

Started formally on 2nd September 2010, Varec's primary objective was

To assess whether allegations being made in the media since 1st September 2010 provided any new evidence of criminal offences, namely unlawful interception of communications, at News of the World, in 2005/6 

It has been alleged that, within ten days of Varec commencing, a senior MET officer contacted NOTW offering to supply information. (Daily Telegraph) The media stories addressed by Operation Varec covered the New York Times story, Guardian follow up, and the Channel 4 Dispatches October 2010 documentary 'Tabloids, Tories and Telephone Hacking'.  When Dean Haydon contacted The Guardian for information, Alan Rusbridger replied in a scathing email

Nick Davies was further able to reveal incontrovertible evidence of the involvement in phone hacking of other NoW reporters and executives: the material is sitting in your own files,... Seeking to obtain evidence from the Guardian should, it seems to us, be a matter of last resort for the police... But the fact that three separate news organizations have been able to uncover this story must give you hope that you, too, could get to the bottom of it without too much trouble   

Twenty one strands of inquiry by Operation Varec were followed, including:

• Asking the New York Times to supply names of their anonymous sources.  They declined.
• Interviewing ex-NOTW's Sean Hoare.  Contraversially, he was interviewed under caution and so refused to answer any questions. Another ex-NOTW journalist simply refused to speak with the police - let alone attend an interview.  
• Other NOTW executives and journalists were questioned about Operation Caryatid and refused to answer, denied any knowledge, or (on legal advice) submitted pre-prepared written statements.
• Anonymous allegations were received by the MET, implicating three NOTW journalists in phone hacking. Each was written to by Operation Varec requesting information. None of the three responded.
• Colin Myler, NOTW Editor, was asked to provide a list of journalists still employed since 2006 (in addition to those above).  Myler did so.  Every one of the list of 19 journalists was individually written to by Varec to ask for cooperation and interview.  Not a single one of the 19 even replied.

Unsurprisingly, Operation Varec came to the conclusion that they were unable to obtain any admissible evidence to warrant re-investigating phone- hacking at the News of the World. For details of the 21 investigatory strands, see here.

The genesis of Operation Varec still leaves some key questions unanswered:

• On the first opportunity to recuse himself from the 2009 quasi-review, why did John Yates not do so?
• On the second opportunity to recuse himself from the 2010 investigation, Operation Varec, why did John Yates not do so?
• Given the obduracy, obstructiveness and disregard shown by such a large number of former and serving NOTW journalists, why did the MET continue to collude with News International's thin veneer of cooperating with the police?

Assistant Commissioner Yates resigned on 18th July 2011.

Related Articles
Hackgate - Dacre's Dodgy Dossier - War Of Attrition 
Hackgate - Sue Akers' Swansong
Hackgate - "Newsdesk Here, Kelvin Speaking..."
Hackgate - Andre Baker - A Hackgate Footnote?
Hackgate - Ten To Watch For
Hackgate - Dear Surrey Police


You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Hackgate - The John Boyall Files

The latest piece from my regular contributor.

You win some, you lose some.

Following a four-day hearing last week, the large group of phone-hacking civil claimants won the right to see 9 key Glenn Mulcaire emails. On the downside, Justice Vos said they have enough disclosure material for the current cases so they lost on one issue -

The phone-hacking claimants were seeking further disclosure in relation to Mulcaire's activities before 2001 in an effort to establish whether voicemail interception had taken place earlier than admitted by News International during the course of the civil litigation proceedings

So, restricting the disclosure window  to post-2001? Narrowing the parameters? Isn't that one of the strategies that drew criticism to Operation Caryatid - the original phone hacking 2006 investigation? Has nothing been learnt?

It is to be hoped that an arbitrary 2001 date in the civil cases is not taken as a precedent for ongoing and future police investigations or Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) charging decisions into journalist/private investigator 'dark arts'.  Clearly, the phone hacking victims are not the only ones needing to know the genesis and extent of the 'dark arts' - it is in the wider public interest.

Irrespective of Mulcaire having or not having a direct contract with News International pre-2001, it is in the public domain that he was undertaking investigative work for them.

All through the late 1990s, the paper had been hiring an investigator called John Boyall, who, among other services, specialised in acquiring information from confidential databases. He had a wiry young man working as his assistant, named Glenn Mulcaire. In the autumn of 2001, John Boyall fell out with the News of the World's assistant editor, Greg Miskiw, who had been responsible for handling him. Miskiw replaced him by poaching Glenn Mulcaire and giving him a full-time contract.

John Boyall - at the time that he was employing Mulcaire - came to police attention.  Devon and Cornwall Constabulary scoped intelligence that a nationwide network of private investigators was illegally obtaining information from the Police National Computer (PNC).  That scoping led to an investigation called Operation Reproof.  In turn, Operation Reproof led to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) investigation Operation Motorman into data offences, and a Metropolitan Police (MET) investigation - Operation Glade.  For more information, see 'Revisiting Operation Reproof and Other Police Operations'

Devon and Cornwall police organised a raid of business premises outside London associated with Boyall.  ICO investigators were invited to accompany, to deal with suspected Data Protection breaches. Material was seized which indicated corrupt DVLA sources, plus a wealth of other incriminating documentation including commissions from Steve Whittamore (see Alex Owens' evidence to Leveson).

What is less clear is what happened to the wealth of evidentiary material.seized in the Boyall raid.  This of course begs questions - what time period do the 'Boyall Files' cover? Do they include material that may shed light on Boyall and Mulcaire's pre-2001 'dark arts' activities for journalists? Were their specialist corruption and blagging skills commissioned and deployed for other private investigators? Is there material relevant to other contemporaneous police investigations, for example, Operation Nigeria?

Given the MET's past record of effective searches of 'unused material' and their vague, hazy explanation of how long they keep it safe after convictions (five, six, seven years..?) one could be pessimistic. If it weren't for Nick Davies' reports in the Guardian, the Mulcaire material in bin bags may well have found their way into a MET incinerator.  But the best place to start may be via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Information Commissioner's Office itself.  As the entity responsible for ensuring FOI compliance, doubtless they would welcome the opportunity to answer a few questions - in the public interest:

Where are the Boyall Files and unused material?

Were the Boyall Files passed on or copied to the MET for use in Operation Glade?

Did Devon and Cornwall Constabulary retain the Boyall Files and unused material for use in the abortive Operation Reproof prosecutions?

Were the Boyall Files incorporated into the spreadsheets of the more-famous Motorman Files?

Where is the unused material from Operation Motorman, given that the earliest data relate to 1996?

Were copies of the Boyall Files and unused material provided to the MET for use in Operation Caryatid?

Have the ICO been asked, or given, permission for the destruction of any or all of the Boyall Files and/or related material?

At least two allegations of pre-2001 phone hacking were given in evidence to Lord Justice Leveson:

• James Hipwell's evidence asserted phone hacking at The Mirror 1998-2000
• Dominic Mohan described how newspapers, in 1998, hacked into the mobile phones of members of the Irish Government to expose lax security.

Therefore there seems to be an argument for locating and preserving pre-2001 material - especially relating to Mulcaire - before it is lost, destroyed or compromised.  The clock is ticking to get it preserved fast.

Related Articles
One Rogue Email And The Indestructible Archive 

John Yates And Neil Wallis - A Mutual Understanding
Alex Marunchak - Presumed Innocent
News Corp - Diplomatic Immunity?
The Cook-Hames Surveillance : A Watched Kettle...
Alastair Morgan On The Latest Hackgate Revelations

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

The Milly Dowler Hacking - Part 2: Discrepancies And Delays

Part 1 provided contexts up until just after Milly Dowler's disappearance.  Part 2 looks at when evidence and suspicions of NotW hackings could - perhaps should - have been unearthed.

May 02  Seven weeks after her disappearance, Bob and Sally Dowler were stalked by NotW whilst they quietly re-traced missing Milly's last known steps. Their 'grief walk' became a major story in NotW, with surveillance photo.  Sally told her police Family Liaison Officer that NotW could only have found out their plans from their phone conversation or a police source.

SURREY Police therefore had an opportunity to connect their knowledge of NotW phone hacking and suspicions that it was still continuing, with Milly's parents as targeted victims.  Adjoining force, Sussex Police, were requested to start a review of the SURREY Dowler enquiry. It is not known if SURREY's knowledge of NotW hacking was disclosed to Sussex officers.  Another missed opportunity.

16th July 02  A major discrepancy here.  According to a SURREY Police statement in 2012 (page 13), this date was when NotW met with SURREY Police detectives Craig DENHOLM and Stuart GIBSON of the Miller Dowler investigation team.  This contradicts The Independent's report  (also cited in Part 1) that two face-to-face meetings had taken place weeks before, in April. The July 16th timing is debatable however as Stuart GIBSON had already been replaced on the Dowler investigation in late June.

Aug 02  The Soham murders, Cambridgeshire.  In 2011, the victims' parents were informed by police that their phone numbers had been found in Glenn MULCAIRE's notebooks.

Sept 02  Milly Dowler's body found.

Nov 02  Devon and Cornwall Police's Operation REPROOF planned with ICO their first raid on suspect premises.  As per good practice REPROOF informed, liaised with and secured necessary support from the relevant geographical constabulary - SURREY Police.  REPROOF and ICO then raided the business premises (Guildford, SURREY) and home (Caterham, SURREY) of John BOYALL. As a result of material seized, ICO commenced OPERATION MOTORMAN, their investigation into widespread data offences.

Mar 03  Raid on Steve WHITTAMORE's Hampshire home and the business premises of 'JJ Services' , registered address Sutton, SURREY - on the SURREY/MET border. Evidence was found of illegal access to the Police National Computer (PNC) and two other suspects were investigated - one was a civilian worker at a MET police station. The other, retired MET officer Alan King, had his private investigator premises in London searched and his home in Coulsdon, SURREY.

Apr 03  OPERATION MOTORMAN investigators briefed MET officers on their evidence that PNC information had been accessed by WHITTAMORE associates.  The MET then started preliminary investigations, prior to establishing their own formal Operation GLADE.  Also in April 03, Bob QUICK left the MET for his new appointment as Deputy Chief Constable of SURREY Police.

May 03  ICO investigators gave the MET further detailed update presentations on OPERATION MOTORMAN and evidence uncovered for use in Operation GLADE. The unsorted MOTORMAN Files continued to be organised and compiled into an electronic database.

Aug 03  OPERATION GLADE officially commenced - this MET investigation was restricted to only some of the PNC offences uncovered by MOTORMAN.

2003 - 04 Controversially, OPERATION MOTORMAN refrained from interviewing any journalists.  OPERATION GLADE interviewed only seven journalists; none were prosecuted.  More missed opportunities.

Oct 04  Bob QUICK promoted to Chief Constable, SURREY Police.

Apr 05 OPERATION GLADE investigation concluded in convictions of John BOYALL, Steve WHITTAMORE, ex-MET officer Alan King and MET civilian worker Paul Marshall after guilty pleas.  Via prosecutions preparations, copies of the MOTORMAN Files remained in the possession of the MET and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The ICO retained their own MOTORMAN database and the original hard copy evidence.

Just a few weeks later, members of the royal household began to suspect their phone messages were being intercepted by NotW.  Their suspicions were raised with MET Counter-Terrorism/Royalty Protection - the command headed by Andy HAYMAN. Dec 05 the resultant covert investigation started - OPERATION CARYATID.

Apparently, the MET failed to make any connection between CARYATID and the MOTORMAN or GLADE investigations, despite NotW featuring so largely in all three operations.

8 Aug 06  OPERATION CARYATID raided the London home and attempted to raid the NotW Wapping office of royal correspondent Clive GOODMAN. Simultaneously, Glenn MULCAIRE was also arrested and a large quantitiy of material seized from his London home and from business premises in Sutton, SURREY.

CARYATID established extremely narrow parameters solely to inform 4 priority categories of people named in MULCAIRE's notebooks and defined as victims - royal, politicians, police and national security.  Even so not all were informed, including Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.  MULCAIRE's information gathered about the Dowler family was undiscovered in his notebooks, and stored by the MET in bin bags.  Yet another opportunity missed.

Nov 06  GOODMAN and MULCAIRE convicted.

2007  Gordon Taylor negotiations on his settlement with NotW.  His lawyer, Mark Lewis, gained a crucial court decision ordering diclosure of all relevant material held by:
MET (from MULCAIRE and OPERATION CARYATID)
CPS Crown Prosecution Service (limited material from OPERATION CARYATID)
ICO (from OPERATION MOTORMAN)

It seems that all evidence of the Dowler hackings was still left overlooked in this disclosure search process.

Mar 08  Bob QUICK left SURREY Police for new post at the MET as Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations (Counter-Terrorism, Cabinet and Royal Protection).  It is not apparent if he was briefed on OPERATION CARYATID and its implications for royal, national security and senior politicians' protection. And if not, why not.

Apr 08  Craig DENHOLM left SURREY Police for his new post as MET Commander working directly with Assistant Commissioner John YATES.

June 09  Craig DENHOLM left MET and returned to SURREY Police for promotion to Deputy Chief Constable.

July 09  John YATES did his one-day assessment to decide that re-examining OPERATION CARYATID unused evidence was unnecessary.  Questions are still unanswered as to whether or not DENHOLM informed YATES what he knew, and his '02 meetings with NotW when they had admitted Milly Dowler's mobile phone was hacked.  And if not, why not.

Also in July, the CPS undertook its short, parallel consideration of its limited CARYATID material and supportively agreed with YATES that no re-investigation was justified.

The Dowler evidence in bin bags of MULCAIRE material continued to be overlooked.

Aug 09  YATES instructed CARYATID material to be collated and (for the first time) entered into a searchable database.  This work took months

2010  Civil litigations, Select Committee evidence and other revelations increasingly rendered NotW's 'one rogue reporter' defence untenable.

Jan 2011 MET announced the start of the OPERATION WEETING investigation into phone-hacking.

Apr 2011  Sally and Bob Dowler are finally informed by OPERATION WEETING that their (and their murdered daughter's) phone mesages had been intercepted. 

Apr 2012  The Culture, Media & Sports Select Committee reported that John YATES "told us that the eventual number of additional victims who were contacted as a result of the supposedly more vigorous investigation in 2009 was just eight." (para 259)

Inexplicably - and unforgivably - this was more than nine years after SURREY Police knew of the Milly Dowler phone hacking.

There may yet be legal repercussions for SURREY.  They are mentioned twice in court rulings of the 'Mobile Telephone Voicemail Interception Litigation'.  The Generic Particulars of Claim (the agreed basis for all current and future litigation) states that NotW journalists  "had admitted to Surrey Police in April 2002 that the First Defendant (News Group Newspapers) had unlawfully accessed Milly Dowler's voicemail messages."

Plus, Mr Justice Vos has adressed another ruling to the MET on processes for disclosures to claimants.  Vos ordered the Met to disclose to claimants relevant documents, computer data and other material - including that of

the Respondent (The Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis), the First Defendant (News Group Newspapers),  Clive Goodman and the Surrey Police.

Grouped together in this way, they look a motley crew...

Related Posts
The Milly Dowler Hacking - Part 1: Questions Still Unanswered
The Milly Dowler Hacking - Part 3: A Short Postscript
Hackgate for Beginners
Surrey Police and the Hacking of Milly Dowler's Phone
Bloggerheads - News of the World: 110% certainty, the remainder fact

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Glenn Mulcaire And His Money-Laundering Charges

Another piece by a regular contributor.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) statement on Tuesday on Operation Weeting charging decisions repays careful reading.  Beneath the headline-grabbing decisions to charge eight people, there are details which are quite telling - particularly regarding Glenn MULCAIRE.

All, with the exception of Glenn Mulcaire, will be charged with conspiring to intercept communications without lawful authority, from 3rd October 2000 to 9th August 2006.

Two things here are of note:-

• Firstly, Mulcaire appears to be the sole exception because he has already been convicted of the relevant offences of conspiracy to intercept - as has Clive Goodman.  Mulcaire is however charged with other alleged offences for which he has not previously been convicted, in relation to Milly Dowler, Andrew Gilchrist, Delia Smith and Charles Clarke.
• Secondly, the lengthy span of time defined also covers the period of illegal activity uncovered by Operation Motorman (c. 1999 to early 2004).  This appears to be a clear signal that the Motorman Files are also NOT ruled 'out of court' as being too historical to pursue.  Sue Akers' evidence on Monday to the Leveson Inquiry seemed to concur.  She made reference in her update to quantities of evidential material which have been collated 'from previous enquiries'.  These are likely to include, amongst others, Operations Glade and Caryatid as well as Operation Motorman.  At least three of those now charged by the CPS under Operation Weeting are also named in the leaked and redacted Motorman Files 'Blue Book'.

Giving her evidence to the Inquiry the day before the CPS charging statement, DAC Sue Akers was careful not to name them in advance of the CPS Announcement.  At the time of her evidence, she identified as pending charging decisions 11 current or former journalists, plus 1 non-journalist (para 13).  The only non-journalist in the batch now charged by the CPS is Glenn MULCAIRE.  Akers' statement continued

The non-journalist referred to at paragraph 13, together with a further non-journalist, is on pre-charge bail in relation to money laundering offences till 24 July 2012. A preliminary file is currently with the CPS for advice in respect of this matter.

So it seems the only 'non-journalist' is additionally awaiting ANOTHER CPS charging decision - not under Weeting-style data interception - but for alleged money-laundering. Hmmmmm.... wasn't that how Al Capone was tripped up?  It really doesn't do to mess with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) through aliases, numerous questionable companies or undeclared income.  In February 2012, Tom Watson raised a relevant query with HMRC regarding the tax arrangements of those in receipt of cash payments from News International

....some of which are reported to run into tens of thousands of pounds, failed to declare this on their Self Assessment tax returns. The company failed to take appropriate measures to ensure the recipients were paying tax...  I would ask you to investigate whether a true record of cash payments was kept by the company, and whether any records have been destroyed...

...Although I appreciate there are currently three ongoing police investigations into criminal wrongdoing at News International, I think it is imperative that reassurance is given from HM Revenue and Customs that these important issues are being investigated in cooperation with the Metropolitan Police. I am sure you will agree that no company, or individual, should be allowed to get away with what amounts to possible tax fraud by paying too little tax and acting in a dishonest manner.

As noted in this Brown Moses blog post, 'Where Now for the Motorman Files', Glenn MULCAIRE (alias 'Paul Williams', alias 'Alexander') ran a company called 'Nine Consultancy Ltd' which was dissolved in Feb '06, according to Companies House records.  He also owned another company called 'Nine Consultancy UK Ltd', dissolved in 2007.  It is to be hoped that he was efficient enough not to get invoices and remittances muddled up in the accounts of these two similarly named businesses.

Another MULCAIRE company 'Eight Consultancy UK Ltd' (Company No. 06280986) wasn't dissolved until 2009. And yet another MULCAIRE company, 'C & E Intelligence Services Limited', employed the non-journalist Alison MULCAIRE (resident at the same address) as Company Secretary.  Glenn MULCAIRE was re-employed by News International when he was released from prison for phone-hacking. At this time, Alison MULCAIRE owned two more businesses: 'Global Intel Services Limited' and 'Euro Research & Information Services Limited'.

No doubt invoices and remittances for any work undertaken will all marry up with payment records of News International Trading Ltd, the company formerly-known-as, until June 2011, News International Supply Co Ltd.

All terribly complex, isn't it. But with the help of electronic records, most business acounts these days are an awful lot better organised than Al Capone's were, aren't they?

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Hackgate for Beginners - Controversial Cops and News Corp.

[Back to The Leveson Inquiry]

During the Hackgate Scandal there have been a number of police officers linked to News Corp.  Here’s a few key names you might see popping up when following the Hackgate Scandal:

Andy Hayman – A former Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary and Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations at London's Metropolitan Police, resigning in December 2007 following allegations about expense claims and alleged improper conduct with a female member of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and a female sergeant.  After his resignation he would face criticism, along with Sir Ian Blair, from the press and Independent Police Complaints Commission over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

During Operation Caryatid, the investigation into the interception of phone messages at Clarence House by journalists from the News of the World, the officer in charge of the investigation reported to Andy Hayman.  Hayman told the Home Affairs Select Committee in July 2011 that he had met with News International executives during the investigation, something he considered as not unusual as it would have been odd if he had cancelled the dinner.

The Guardian reported that some police sources said it was “unfortunate” that Andy Hayman went on to work for News International as a columnist for The Times, where even with his knowledge of Operation Caryatid he wrote that there were “perhaps a handful” of hacking victims.

John Yates - A former Assistant Commissioner in the London Metropolitan Police Service, who resigned in July 2011 over criticism of a July 2009 review of Operation Caryatid, in which he decided in one 8 hour sessions that there was no fresh material that could lead to convictions. 

John Yates began to receive criticism when the House of Commons home affairs committee began to look into the way in which the review had been carried out, with a number of statements made by John Yates about the review were contradicted by the evidence of the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer.  He received further criticism when it was revealed that he, Sir Ian Blair, Andy Hayman, and Paul Stephenson had attended a number of meals with representative from various News International newspaper titles around the time of the review. 

In a July 9^th 2011 interview with the Sunday Telegraph he expressed “extreme regret” for failing in the initial phone hacking inquiry, but dismissed any suggestion of corruption or improper relationships on his part.  On July 18^th 2011 he announced his resignation in a brief statement.

In May 2012 a report into phone hacking by the House of Commons select committee found that John Yates and Keri Starmer were culpable for failing to properly investigate evidence of phone hacking when it was first brought to their attention during the Operation Caryatid investigation.  The report concluded: "The police at that time had no interest or willingness to uncover the full extent of the phone-hacking which had taken place."

Paul Stephenson – The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who resigned after questions were asked about his relationship with former News International journalist Neil Wallis, who was arrested in July 2011 as part of Operation Weeting.

Paul Stephenson first met Wallis in 2006 during his time at the News of the World, and hired Neil Wallis to provide “strategic communication advice and support” to the Metropolitan Police on a part time basis from October 2009 to September 2010 while the Met's Deputy Director of Public Affairs was on extended sick leave.  Among other things this involved advising the assistant commissioner at the time, John Yates, who had recently reviewed Operation Caryatid in July 2009.

Questions about Neil Wallis’s relationship with the Metropolitan Police began went it emerged that he had worked for the police.  It was revealed that Paul Stephenson had met or dined with Neil Wallis on eight separate occasions between 2006 and 2010, more than any senior executive or journalist on any other newspapers, and that he had accepted £12,000-worth of hospitality at a health spa for which Wallis worked as a PR consultant, and where Rebekah Brooks’ husband Charlie Brooks runs an alternative medicine "kriotherapy" centre.

On July 14^th 2011 Neil Wallis was arrested as part of Operation Weeting, and on July 17^th 2011 Paul Stephenson made a lengthy statement announcing his intention to resign as commissioner, saying that questions surrounding his integrity would otherwise become detrimental to the Met as a whole.

Ray Adams – A former Metropolitan police commander who left the Metropolitan Police and joined the News Corp owned subsidiary NDS UK Ltd after a brief stint at Kroll. 

In July 1987 Adams was being interviewed by police corruption investigators when his close associate DC Alan “Taffy” Holmes shot himself.  DC Holmes was the corrupt police officer who Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn claim in their book on police corruption “The Untouchables” had been working with the recently murdered Daniel Morgan to expose claims of police corruption that possibly involved passing information to the News of the World.

Later on Ray Adams would be involved with the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry, and the Macpherson report into the Lawrence murder detailed suspicions held by the Lawrence family about Adam’s alleged links with Clifford Norris, the father of one of Lawrence’s murderers David Norris, and Kenneth Noye, also noting that Adams’ evidence had “strange features” to it.

In March 2012 BBC Panorama claimed that Ray Adams had worked closely with a hacker, Lee Gibling, to set up the website The House of Ill-Compute (THOiC), which was intended to gather cable and satellite hackers to one site run by Lee Gibling, and therefore under the control of Ray Adams.  Lee Gibling claimed that Ray Adams provided him with software and instructions to hack their major rival ONDigital.  Those claims were supported by documents passed on to Panorama.

Later Lee Gibling would also allege that Ray Adams used information from the THOiC website to strong arm a number of cable and satellite companies into giving up internal operational security to NDS UK Ltd, claiming that hacks on THOiC showed those companies weren’t providing adequate security to protect BSkyB’s revenue, and that unless they handed over their operational security operations to NDS BSkyB would remove their channels from those companies.  Once NDS took over operational security they used the information from THOiC to arrest various individuals hacking those companies.

[Index]

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Hackgate for Beginners - Past Police Operations

This is part of a series of posts intended to help newcomers to the Hackgate scandal to understand the many different elements that make up the scandal.  With so much of the focus being on the Leveson Inquiry it’s easy to lose sight of some of the other aspects of the scandal, something this series of posts will hopefully correct.

In this first article I will be covering a number of past police operations that are relevant to the current hacking scandal.

Previous Operations

There have been a number of previous police operations relating to the current Hackgate scandal that met with varying levels of success, for a variety of reasons.

The most significant investigations were Operation Motorman and Operation Glade in 2003.  These Operations were the result of the ICO discovering the scale of the problem when documents were found on the premises of Surrey private investigator John Boyall that revealed the misuse of data from the Police National Computer, and this led to the two operations.

As an interesting side note, until the autumn of 2001 the News of the World was a regular client of John Boyall, but when News of the World's assistant editor, Greg Miskiw fell out with Boyall, Miskiw poached Boyall's assistant Glenn Mulcaire, who would go on to hack the voicemail messages of public figures at the behest of the News of the World.

Operation Motorman

A  2003 investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office into allegations of offences under the Data Protection Act by the British press led by ICO Senior Investigator Alec Owens triggered by discoveries at the premises of Surrey private investigator John Boyall.

The discoveries at John Boyall’s premises led to the search of the Hampshire offices of the private detective Steve Whittamore, where a huge cache of documents were revealed.  These documents revealed, in precise detail, a network of police and public employees illegally selling personal information obtained from government computer systems, which were passed onto over 300 journalists working for various British newspapers, including nearly every national newspaper.

In 2006 the Information Commissioner’s Office released a report, What Price Privacy, which closely examined Operation Motorman and which was followed in the following year by What Price Privacy Now, which including a table detailing transactions with Steve Whittamore by the number of requests per paper, and number of journalists requesting jobs per paper.  The top five included the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Sunday People, Daily Mirror, and News of the World.  However, it’s impossible to know if the jobs requested by the papers were illegal as Steven Whittamore did a mixture of legal and illegal jobs, so it’s possible that certain papers were more prone to requesting illegal jobs than others.

Therefore it’s believed by some that the release of the Operation Motorman files could uncover a scandal much larger on scale than the current News of the World focused scandal, involving many news organisations, and in March 2012 the Hacked Off website started to a campaign to have the Operation Motorman files published by the Leveson Inquiry and in April 2012 blogger Paul Staines of the Guido Fawkes blog published a redacted version of data taken from the document known as the Blue Book, containing jobs requested by staff at News International titles, including jobs requests by Rebekah Brooks (then Wade).  The ICO strongly condemned the release, and Paul Staines was summoned to appear before the ICO. 

Since then unredacted versions of the Blue Book have appeared online for brief periods of time, and an eventual leak of the unredacted files seems inevitable.

For further reading I’d recommend this article by Nick Davies of the Guardian, Operation Motorman: the full story revealed.

Operation Glade

An operation that ran alongside Operation Motorman, and investigated the way in which the information from the Police National Computer was being obtained.  Glade discovered that Whittamore's ultimate source was a civilian worker at Wandsworth police station, south London, Paul Marshall, who was logging phoney 999 calls in order to justify accessing the computer records of public figures that were of interest to newspapers. Marshall was passing the information to a former police officer, Alan King, who passed it to a private investigator, John Boyall, who supplied it to Whittamore.

In April 2005 Whittamore, Boyall Alan King, Paul Marshall appeared at Blackfriars crown court and pleaded guilty to procuring confidential police data to sell to newspapers, with all four receiving a suspended sentence.  The News of the World was named as one of their buyers, and the judge at the trial questioned why no-one from Fleet Street titles had been prosecuted, a question that appears to have remained unanswered. 

DCI Brendan Gilmour, who worked on Operation Glade, appeared at the Leveson Inquiry on May 9^th 2012, and stated that seven journalists were interviewed under caution in 2004 after evidence suggested they had been commissioning private investigators to obtain information illegally, and said they were unable to establish if the journalists were aware of the methods used to gather the information requested were illegal.  Robert Jay QC, inquiry counsel, pointed out the journalists were sent written invitations to attend places to be interviewed under caution, and had legal advice, meaning answers could have been orchestrated in advance.

Operation Varec

A September 2010 police operation that investigated claims made in a New York Times article by former News of the World journalist Sean Hoare that Andy Coulson, the then editor of the News of the World, had encouraged him to hack phones.  It also looked into claims by Kelly Hoppen that News of the World journalist Dan Evan had hacked her phone.  Sean Hoare was interviewed but according to the police report provided no information, and no actionable evidence was found in the Kelly Hoppen case either, so it was decided no further action would be taken.  A more detailed examination of the case can be read here.

Sean Hoare died in 2011.

Operation Millipede 

A 2008 Serious Organised Crime Agency led investigation into the practice of blagging which resulted in the prosecution and jailing of Daniel Summers, Philip Campbell Smith, Graham Freeman, and Adam John Spears. 

Philip Campbell Smith was later investigated by Operation Kalmyk, part of Operation Tuleta, into accusations that he hacked the computer of the former army intelligence officer Ian Hurst aka Martin Ingram, who was involved with the alleged spy Stakeknife.  Philip Campbell Smith was accused of hacking the computer in an attempt to get information on the alleged spy for the News of the World.

Operation Caryatid

A 2006 police operation overseen by Peter Clarke that investigated the interception of phone messages from the official residence of The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry Clarence House after two entries in Clive Goodman’s column for the News of the World raised suspicion with Royal Household staff that Goodman had access to the Royal Family's voicemails.

Clive Goodman was imprisoned for four months in January 2007 along with his co-conspirator Glenn Mulcaire.  Clive Goodman was sacked by the News of the World that same month, but would later receive a £240000 settlement from News International as according to News International his dismissal was unfair as they had failed to "follow statutory procedures" in sacking Goodman.

Andy Coulson, who was News of the World editor at the time, resigned as a result of the court case, and both Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman were arrested in on July 8th and released on police bail in connection with new phone hacking related charges.

The narrowness of the investigation has been questioned, especially with the recent revelations about hacking at the News of the World, and The former commissioner of the Metropolitan Sir Paul Stephenson was asked at the Leveson Inquiry why phone hacking was not investigated further in 2009 when Assistant Commissioner John Yates was asked to review Operation Caryatid, ruling that there was no fresh material that could lead to convictions.  Sir Paul Stephenson said there had been a “flawed assumption” that the original investigation had been sufficient, and the force felt it couldn’t expand its resources without further evidence, especially at a time when the priority was investigating terrorism.

Operation Reproof

A 2002 to 2004 Devon and Cornwall Police operation examining how confidential information was being leaked and obtained by various individuals and groups. 

It discovered a network of individuals being passed on by current and retired police officers to a number of individuals.

A more detailed examination of Operation Reproof and related operations can be found here.

Operation Nigeria

The police surveillance of Jonathan Rees run private investigation company South Investigations between May and September 1999.  The operation was run by the Metropolitan police's anti-corruption squad CIB3, and ended when evidence was uncovered that Jonathan Rees was involved with a plot to plant drugs on a woman so her husband could win a custody battle.  This resulted in Rees and a serving detective, Austin Warnes being jailed.

Transcripts from the operation recorded reports from a variety of newspapers, including the News of the World, Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, requesting jobs and revealed collusion between private investigators and corrupt police officers.

This post contains more information about links between Operation Nigeria and other police operations, particularly the links between the News of the World and Southern Investigations.

Operation Russia

A 1987 investigation led by John Yates into police corruption in South East London by a number of officers, including Ray Adams, who went on to work for the News Corp owned NDS UK Ltd.  It’s believed there’s a number of links between the officers involved with the police corruption and the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and the murder of the private investigator Daniel Morgan, which has also been linked to News International.  A more detailed examination of the case can be read here.

In the next part of Hackgate for Beginners I'll be looking at the current police operations into various aspects of the hacking scandal.


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You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Revisiting Operation Reproof and Other Police Operations

Following on from their earlier Milly Dowler related contribution one of my readers has contributed another piece, this time relating to the various police Operations surrounding various hacking accusations.  Well worth a read in light of tomorrow's appearances at the Leveson Inquiry:

REVISITING OPERATION REPROOF

Two police officers were scheduled to have their written witness statements 'read in' (though not to appear) at the Leveson Inquiry on April 2nd, 2012. In his opening housekeeping remarks that morning, Lord Leveson made a brief reference to these two officers:

"I am giving further considerations to the status of those witnesses, therefore they will not be put into the record of the Inquiry this afternoon."

No explanation was given as to who might have raised objections to their status, or evidence, or why.

Whatever considerations he gave to the 'status' of the two police officers - and to their written submissions, they seem to have galvanised Leveson into thinking their submissions should not simply be 'read in' - they have now both been required to give evidence in person. The two police officers concerned are Temporary Assistant Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, Russell Middleton (OPERATION REPROOF) and Detective Chief Constable, Metropolitan Police Service, Brendan Gilmour (OPERATION GLADE). They are both called to give evidence on 9th May 2012.

The number and complexity of named 'Operations' in the evolution of press 'dark arts' is often confusing. The following is an attempt to consider that there may be one continuous narrative that can be discerned from several, spuriously separate, 'Operations'. That narrative contains a strikingly repetitive cast of characters too.

OPERATION REPROOF was a two year Devon and Cornwall Police investigation into corruption of police and public officials, started in 2002.  It seemed that 'private investigators' may have been using bribery to obtain information illegally.
"In all, Devon and Cornwall detectives investigated 37 people, with the final evidential file focused on 100 alleged breaches of data related to 93 individual "victims", including then chancellor Gordon Brown and Labour MPs Martin Salter and Nick Brown." "...But the case collapsed after nearly two years in the courts, with Judge Paul Darlow commenting it was "not a proportionate use of valuable resources to prosecute these matters".
One of the 5 defendants was a private investigator called Christopher DEWSE.

Among the 32 suspects investigated but not charged was Paul "Taff" JONES, he was a highly skilled blagger, ex-soldier and biker.
Another, investigated but not prosecuted, was John BOYALL. Devon and Cornwall Police organised a raid on Boyall's business, Data Research Ltd, accompanied by Alex Owens of the Information Commissioner's Office. This was the genesis of the ICO investigation, OPERATION MOTORMAN, with DEWSE, JONES and BOYALL directly linked with Operation REPROOF.

The illegally obtained data found by Alex Owens led to a subsequent raid on JJ Services, the business of Steve Whittamore. The ICO pursued evidence on breaches of data protection and 'harvesting' of mobile numbers, whilst a simultaneous investigation into police corruption was launched by the Metropolitan Police - OPERATION GLADE. The Motorman Files 'blue book' (controversially released and partially redacted by Guido Fawkes) reveal the names of other information 'getters' in addition to Whittamore himself -
Christopher DEWSE, 'Taff' JONES and a John GUNNING. One of those commissioning information gathering from Whittamore was the News of the World's Greg Miskiw. OPERATION GLADE led to the convictions of four men, including Whittamore and BOYALL.

John GUNNING and John BOYALL were names already known to Scotland Yard.  Both were implicated in the earlier OPERATION NIGERIA, the covert bugging of Jonathan REES  and Sid FILLERY 's Southern Investigations in connection with the Daniel Morgan murder.  BOYALL's assistant at the time was Glenn MULCAIRE.

News of the World's Alex Marunchak and Greg Miskiw had close links to Jonathan REES. When David Cook of the Met was re-investigating Daniel Morgan's murder, Marunchak and Miskiw apparently organised surveillance of Cook and his family. " It is now known that at that time, the News of the World's investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, succeeded in obtaining Cook's home address, his internal payroll number at the Metropolitan police, his date of birth and figures for the amount that he and his wife were paying for their mortgage. All of this appears to have been blagged by Mulcaire from confidential databases, apparently including the Met's own records."

It's worth summarising that
Operation NIGERIA - resulted in no specifically 'dark arts' prosecutions
Operation REPROOF - the judge stopped the trial
Operation MOTORMAN - all prosecutions were dropped
Operation GLADE - four convictions all resulted in conditional discharge

This begs the question - did Scotland Yard fail to notice the recurring same names cropping up again and again in OPERATION NIGERIA, OPERATION REPROOF, OPERATION GLADE and the Information Commissioner's OPERATION MOTORMAN?  And all this prior to the Goodman/ Mulcaire scandal which led to the Met investigation OPERATION CARYATID?

When OPERATION CARYATID led to the arrests of Goodman and Mulcaire, Alex Owens later made the connection with OPERATION MOTORMAN. The reason for the sheer quantity of mobile phone numbers 'harvested' by Whittamore et al became apparent to him:

"...my personal feeling was that Steve Whittamore was gathering the numbers - he wasn't hacking... we found no evidence of that.  But he was then passing them to the papers and possibly those numbers were being passed to people who hacked. I mean the names of people like Milly Dowler, the numbers,... of the names that have now come out in the hacking Inquiry."

In 2008, the Serious Organised Crime Agency produced a confidential report, submitted to the Home Office, entitled "Private Investigators: The Rogue Element of the Private Investigation Industry and Others Unlawfully Trading in Personal Data".  It reviewed ('Project Riverside') five un-named 'dark arts' investigative operations, up to September 2007. They included evidence of corrupt police officers deleting criminal intelligence reports from the Police National Computer and "rogue private investigators "providing organised crime groups with counter-surveillance techniques" and attempting to discover the identities of informants and witnesses under police protection."

This SOCA report has been given to Lord Leveson, and may shed some light on the peculiar prevarication around the appearances of Russell Middleton and Brendan Gilmour as witnesses.

Is it possible 'Project Riverside' - in reviewing 5 operations - might have noticed investigative failures in not connecting the same names and usual suspects in OPERATION NIGERIA, OPERATION REPROOF, OPERATION MOTORMAN, OPERATION GLADE, and OPERATION CARYATID?

Somebody, somewhere needs a Reproof.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com