Public Confidence in the Media and Police

The Home Affairs Committee commenced its report on a cross-party basis 10 months ago. That report shows that the relations between the police and the media, particularly News International, are too close. Indeed, there were so many lunches and dinners that I am surprised that senior police officers had time for anything else. Despite that, I do not incline to the view that there is high-level corruption or conspiracy at the top of the police. Given the evidence that I have seen, as far as the police are concerned, I think that this is more about cock-up and perhaps incompetence in some places, although Lord Leveson might find otherwise. I take that view because of the evidence that our Committee saw on the role of the Crown Prosecution Service and the way in which it clearly let down the police. I asked John Yates yesterday whether he thought that blame had been fairly ascribed between the police and the CPS, and he said that he most certainly did not. He felt that he had been bumping his head against the proverbial brick wall in trying to get people to understand the role of the CPS. It might be more interesting for the media to look at the relationship between the media and the police, but it is the relationship between the police and the CPS that gets us to the heart of this matter. We must ask why those 11,000 pages of Mulcaire's documents were not looked at and why the police did not do anything about them, but we must also ask why the CPS did nothing. Even yesterday, Kier Starmer was not quite clear as to whether the CPS had seen them all; he said that it had seen only the ones up to August 2006. We have now heard from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), however, that, on 8 August, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General were notified of the existence of what was described as a"““vast array of offending behaviour””" and the material to back that up. What happened? They do not seem to have done anything about it. The current DPP looked at this issue in July 2009. He was new to the job. He went through all the materials and tried to find out what happened at the time. He concluded that nothing happened because of the law:"““To prove the criminal offence of interception the prosecution must prove that the actual message was intercepted prior to it being accessed by the intended recipient.””" It was on that basis that the CPS constrained the police investigation. Whether the noble Lords Goldsmith and Macdonald were asleep on the bridge, just gave incompetent legal advice, or in some way prevented this police investigation are very serious questions. I am delighted that the Prime Minister has revised the terms of reference of his Lord Leveson inquiry, and that it will look at the role of the prosecuting authorities and why the CPS gave this in my view extraordinary and clearly wrong advice that it had to be proved that the message was intercepted before it was listened to. Section 2(7) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is clear on this issue. Parliament made our intentions clear. We said that a communication remains in transmission while a system is"““storing it in a manner that enables the intended recipient to collect it or otherwise have access to it.””" So, there is no basis for the CPS saying that the police had to prove that the message was intercepted before it was listened to. However, it seems that that is what stopped the investigation back in 2006. The noble Lords Macdonald and Goldsmith have to answer for themselves on that: why did they give that advice, which is clearly wrong in the light of section 2(7)? Keir Starmer of the CPS is acting loyally, and as far as I can see acted properly in trying to look into this matter in July 2009. He has now recanted from the evidence that I just quoted, which he gave to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. He is saying at best, ““Well, perhaps it is uncertain. Perhaps there could be a prosecution.”” However, even that would have hugely constrained the police, because it made matters much more difficult for them. The advice of the CPS was much clearer at the time: it said that prosecution was not possible on that basis. That is the problem we are left with, and I want to know why the CPS did that. The CPS needs to be more accountable, and I look forward to seeing stage 2 of these elected commissioners—and not just for the police. As with police, the Royal Commission in 1981 said that the CPS should be put under elected control and oversight.