Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve. I should declare three interests. First, I was a police officer for more than 30 years, retiring with an exemplary record in 2007 as a deputy assistant commissioner, the equivalent of a deputy chief constable outside London. Secondly, I was a victim of phone hacking. Thirdly, I was party to a judicial review of the Metropolitan Police Service in 2011. This review concluded that the police had failed in their duty to protect my and others’ Article 8 rights to a private and family life under the Human Rights Act, because they had failed to tell us that we were the targets of phone hacking by the press. I was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police at the time of the phone hacking. The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, another party to the judicial review, was the Deputy Prime Minister at the time his phone was hacked To take up the point of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I accept the question of proportionality but the difference here is that the Government promised the victims of phone hacking that Leveson 2 would take place. The former Prime Minister promised that this inquiry would take place and that, I am afraid, rather trumps the noble Viscount’s arguments around proportionality. The inquiry was set up to explore and resolve a number of areas but, in the interests of brevity, as no doubt these points will be covered by other noble Lords, I will focus on just one element I discovered that I had been the subject of interest to the private detective employed by News International to carry out phone hacking, Glen Mulcaire, when I was told through my solicitors by the Guardian in 2011. My solicitors contacted the Metropolitan Police, who said that there was no record of my having been the victim of phone hacking. The Guardian sources insisted that I was and the Metropolitan Police eventually admitted that I had been involved as a target. They subsequently disclosed pages from Mulcaire’s notebook which had my name, details of my then partner, our home address and phone numbers and other personal details and that these documents were in their possession and had been in their possession since before 2006. The police also subsequently disclosed an internal memo which indicated that "Commander Paddick" was a target of phone hacking. I was a commander from 2000 to 2003, when I was promoted My point is that the Metropolitan Police knew that there was widespread phone hacking and did nothing to investigate it or to warn the victims that their phones were being hacked, even when one of those victims was the Deputy Prime Minister and another was one of its own senior police officers, who was working in the same building as the detectives who had uncovered the scandal. At around the same time, it appears that members of the press whose phones were being hacked by rival newspapers were warned that their phones were being hacked. There has been no satisfactory explanation of why the police behaved in this way—we need to know why. Leveson 2 should be initiated to find that out. I say that there has been no satisfactory explanation of the police conduct because it has been suggested that the initial investigation, where the Royal Family had been among the victims and which had been carried out by the Counter Terrorism Command as a result, had other priorities. We can imagine that the counterterrorism branch did have other priorities. If that was the reason for not taking the matter further, there was no reason why the police could not have informed other victims to take precautions against using their mobile phones and that no further action would be taken. Indeed, that was the conclusion reached by the judge who heard the judicial review Once the royal connection had been dealt with, the case could, and should, have been transferred to the Specialist Crime Directorate of the Metropolitan Police, the most appropriate department at Scotland Yard to investigate such matters, where a scandal of such proportions could have been given the resources required to investigate matters properly. Instead, it was only after the Guardian discovered the extent of the scandal that the Metropolitan Police acknowledged that an investigation was needed and applied the resources required. We have not got to the bottom of the relationship between the Metropolitan Police and the media at that time. That is why we need the inquiry proposed by this amendment If a public inquiry is needed and the Government have promised one, it should take place. The sudden deployment of a wholly unnecessary consultation is, or appears to be, a device to give cover to the Government reneging yet again on a promise made regarding the phone hacking issue. If I am wrong and the Government decide after all to recommit to Leveson 2, I am sure this House will simply agree to the later removal of the amendment. In the meantime, it is our insurance policy against the Government letting us down again, and we on these Benches will support it if the noble Baroness divides the House.