Westminster Blog

This live blog was published on Tuesday July 12th.

MPs on the home affairs select committee questioned senior members of the Metropolitan police service about phone hacking. This morning, John Yates and Andy Hayman were both questioned. Sue Akers, in charge of Operation Weeting, the current investigation into hacking, was the last to testify.

14.25: Akers has now finished. She had a much smoother ride than Hayward or Yates – unsurprisingly given her investigation is ongoing.

Here is the final roundup of what happened today:

• Yates admitted he spent only eight hours reviewing the 11,000 documents collated by the first investigation when deciding not to review it. He admitted “there was an element” of doing the bare minimum of work when making this decision;
• Yates refused to bow to calls for his resignation, saying he played a “tiny part” int he whole affair;
• Hayman rebutted claims he refused to push his investigation further because News International journalists had details of an affair he was having, calling the allegation “terribly grubby”;
• Hayman said his role as a columnist for The Times did not reflect on his role as a policeman, saying it had been a “boyhood dream” to be a journalist;
• Operation Weeting, the current investigation into hacking, will contact all the 4,000 people who appear in the notebook of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator previously used to hack phones by the News of the World. But only 170 have so far been contacted.

That’s the end of our live blog

14.23: Akers: “I haven’t before been involved in an inquiry like this where our every move is being reported by the press even before we make it.” She says some of those reports are accurate, some are speculative.

14.21: Akers will look beyond News International if it is warranted. Her investigation could get very wide indeed.

14.19: Of the 3,870 total names, 5,000 landlines and 4,000 mobiles gathered, only 170 have so far been contacted. Akers admits “There’s an awful lot to be done.”

14.14: Akers appeals to journalists sitting on material about hacking to come forward with it.

14.12: The News International executives cooperating with the Met on Operation Weeting are Will Lewis, group general manager, and Simon Greenberg, corporate affairs director.

14.03: Here’s an update of this morning’s revelations:

• Andy Hayman, who led the Met’s investigation into phone hacking in 2006, and John Yates, who decided not to reopen that investigation in 2009, have been testifying to the public affairs committee;
• Yates admitted he spent only eight hours reviewing the 11,000 documents collated by the first investigation when deciding not to review it;
• Yates refused to bow to calls for his resignation, saying he played a “tiny part” int he whole affair;
• Hayman rebutted claims he refused to push his investigation further because News International journalists had details of an affair he was having, calling the allegation “terribly grubby”;
• Hayman said his role as a columnist for The Times did not reflect on his role as a policeman, saying it had been a “boyhood dream” to be a journalist;
• Operation Weeting, the current investigation into hacking, will contact all the 4,000 people who appear in the notebook of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator previously used to hack phones by the News of the World.

14.00: Unlike the previous investigation, Akers and her officers will visit everyone named in Glenn Mulcaire’s notebook – some 4,000 people.

13.57: Akers begins by saying that a list of hacking victims published by the Guardian is not an official police document, and contains mistakes.

13.54: Sue Akers is in charge of the current investigation into phone hacking, called Operation Weeting.

13.52: Hayman reacts badly to a question about whether he ever received money from the News of the World. “Good God!” he exclaims. “Absolutely not.” “That’s an attack on my integrity!” he protests. But Keith Vaz, the committee chair, lets the question stand.

13.47: Hayman wrote a piece for The Times insisting his original investigation was robust. He says that at that time (in 2009) he knew of no one else who had been hacked apart from the members of the royal family. He can’t say whether he knew that Gordon Taylor, the head of the Professional Footballers’ Association, had been hacked and was agreeing compensation with News International.

13.45: Hayman refuses to apologise, saying “I want to know what it is I’m supposed to have done wrong before apologising.”

13.40: Hayman says the situation now is a “horror story”. “We must have a judge-led public inquiry,” he insists. He also makes an apology in absentia to John Prescott, whom he previously ridiculed for “ranting” about allegations his phone was hacked.

13.36: Why wasn’t there a full analysis of the 11,000 documents gathered in 2006 when John Yates decided not to reopen the investigation in 2009? Hayman says he was not involved in that decision at all.

13.34: Hayman says it would have been “more suspicious” if he had not had dinner with journalists under investigation. He adds it would have been “ridiculous” to have discussed details of the phone hacking investigation with News International journalists or executives over dinner.

13.31: Referring to attacks on his aspirations to be a journalist, Hayman pleads with MPs: “Don’t beat me up for being honest.”

13.29: Hayman says he can’t think of anything he’s done wrong or line he’s crossed as a result of being employed by The Times.

13.27: Hayman describes allegations that he held back on investigating the News of the World because he was worried about damaging personal allegations being published as “terribly grubby”.

13.24: Hayman says he “didn’t see it that way” when asked about why he joined a paper that was in the same stable as the News of the World.

13.19: Andy Hayman is now in front of the committee. He was in charge of the original investigation into hacking at News of the World. He has since joined News International as a columnist for The Times, something he says was a “boyhood dream”.

13.13: Here is a roundup of what has happened so far this morning:

• Ian Blair faced criticism for distancing himself from the original investigation into phone hacking, which happened while he was Met commissioner;
• John Yates has defended his decision not to reopen the case in 2009, saying allegations published in the Guardian contained nothing new;
• Yates admitted it took him only eight hours to reach the decision not to reopen the hacking inquiry;
• Yates said it would be “unfair” to call for his resignation, saying he played a “very small part” in the whole story;
• Both Yates and Peter Clarke have said News International was uncooperative with the police

13.03: This is Kiran Stacey now taking over live blogging duties.

13.01: Why didn’t Clarke or his team look through the evidence to find the names of other News of the World journalists that could be involved in hacking? “I’m not sure that skimming 11,000 pages is an exercise that can be undertaken,” he says.

13.00: The reading of all the documents wasn’t justified because of the breadth of other life-threatening situations that had to be investigated, Clarke says.

12.55: Clarke is criticised for not making a search of all the evidence. Why didn’t he ask his team with whether they had read all the documents? Clarke relplies that his task was not to conduct an analysis of all the material available. “The evil we were trying investigate and obstruct was interception of messages”, he said.

12.50:He adds that counter-terror resources were taken up in 2006 with pressing issues such as the murder of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.

12.47: Clarke says that victims of crime whose phones had been hacked did not receive the support they deserved, following the imprisonment of News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. “The system did not operate as intended”, he says.

12.43: Clarke is embarking on an exhaustive timeline of his actions alongside the anti-terror unit, who were involved in the hacking issue on the basis that members of the royal family were being targeted.

12.42: Asked whether News International co-operated in the investigation, Clarke says: “News International were not cooperative at the time.”

“If they were cooperative, we would not be here now”, he says.

12.40: Clarke expresses shock at the “depths to which the media has sunk” in hacking into Milly Dowler’s phone.

12.36: Yates has finished his evidence and Peter Clarke, former Met deputy assistant commissioner takes the chair. He says he was approached by royal protection officers with concerns about hacking in 2005.

12.33: Keith Vaz says the evidence given today by Yates is “unconvincing” and that he should expect to be called for questioning at the committee again.

12.31: Yates says his conscience is clear. “I passionately believe in doing right thing…I hold my hands up to fact that I could have done better,” he says.

12.29: Asked how he will deal with the damage done to public confidence in the police, Yates says that “regrets are always a good start to restoring confidence”. He adds that the public should be feeling reassured about the current investigation.

12.27: Yates says however it is “highly probable” though that other Met officers have taken payments from journalists.

12.25: Yates says that he has “never ever ever” received any payments for information given to police officers and suggests it was “amazing” that the committee asked whether he had done.

12.23: Committee chair Keith Vaz asks whether Yates has offered his resignation. “If you are suggesting that I should resign for what happened and my very small part in it then that is unfair”, Yates says.

12.21: Yates says he wishes he could turn the clock back and look again at the evidence from News International.

12.20: “The difficulty here is that you don’t sound like the dogged determined sleuth we would expect”, Labour MP Steve McCabe tells Yates.

12.18: Ben Fenton reports from the hearing that Yates has his hand on his chin and his voice is a bit shaky. He’s up against it here.

12.16:The 2006 evidence, largely from Glenn Mulcaire, was “reviewed for relevance by counsel”. Yates said. “So that gave me some assurance that it had been looked at”.

12.14: Yates says that “it may well be the case” that there was evidence in 2006 that should have been reviewed at the time. “That is a matter of regret” he says.

12.12: From my FT colleague Ben Fenton who is in the hearing: Yates admits there was ” probably an element” of being seen to do the minimum possible. Wow.

12.07: In relation to News International withholding information, Yates says that in order to file a production order, you have to be “absolutely certain” that an organisation is obstructing you. He implies that he could not be sure of this given the wording of the letters from News International.

12.03: Did Yates only take 8 hours to decide not to reopen the hacking enquiry in 2009, and was this long enough to look through 11,000 pages of evidence? Yates says the time estimate is correct and that he did not take new legal advice on the issue.

12.01: Yates says that his own phone was hacked during 2005/06. He adds that he doesn’t know who by.

12.00: We “honestly believed” that hacking allegations just affected two people at News International during 2009 and up to that date, Yates says.

11.58: Yates says if he has “unwittingly misled the committee” then that’s a matter of regret.

11.57: Yates says he accepts some of the responsibility but keeps going back to “carefully crafted letters” from News International which did not explain the full situation. There is laughter when he is asked whether he would expect accused criminals to co-operate.

11.55: Yates adds that News of the World has failed to co-operate in the investigation as it should have done.

11.53: Yates says there was nothing in the Guardian article about hacking in 2009 that he did not know – this is the usual defence about why the investigation wasn’t reopened.

11.45: Yates says in an opening statement he has never lied and that any information given to this committee or others was given “in good faith”. He says “more could have been done” to help the victims and those affected by hacking.

11.41: John Yates takes to the chair. Keith Vaz reminds him that giving misleading information to the committee counts as contempt of the House of Commons.

11.37: Lord Blair denies knowing about payments made to police by journalists under his watch. “Had I suspected that I we had any evidence [of that] no stone would have been left unturned”, he said, adding that the allegations involve 5 officers in a force of 53,000. He says that corruption was very limited.

11.33: MPs accused Ian Blair of trying to “distance himself” from the phone hacking investigation that took place in 2006/7 while he was still Met Commissioner. “I remember being told of an investigation in 2006 that concerned members of the royal family”, Lord Blair said, before going on to say it was “a tiny fragment” of an event in a wide breadth of events occuring in London at the time.

11.31: Former Met Commissioner Ian Blair says that while his mobile and home telephone numbers were found among the phone hacking files, there is “no evidence” that either phones were hacked.

11.27: Tory MP George Eustice says ahead of John Yates’ evidence that there are some “very serious questions to ask”. He wonders whether the first investigation was “genuinely a cock up” or whether the police “went easy” given that there was a major news organisation involved.

11.20: While we wait for John Yates to appear, it’s worth noting that the home secretary Theresa May gave him her unequivocal support at a department briefing this morning. Asked whether she had confidence in Mr Yates – who has admitted to the Telegraph that he feels his investigation into hacking by News of the World let the victims down – Ms May said he was doing a “very good job” in his current role as the Met’s head of specialist operations, including terrorism. “I have confidence in John Yates”, she said.