I'm posting a link to a news story about what may have been phone hacking in the Thames Valley Police area. See Journalist fears she is "smokescreen" in Sadiq Khan bugging scandal.
The Guardian reports that the case was later thrown out by the judge. See Thames Valley police leak case against Sally Murrer thrown out
The case, at least on the surface, seems to constitute quite a different set of circumstances about the relationships involving the press, the police and politicians.
The decision to prosecute appears to have taken place while Sara Thornton was Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police (having been appointed to that post in January 2007).
Maybe Lord Leveson should look at such cases too, if he is to reach a valid and balanced conclusion.
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The case seems to be that Police accused Murrer of paying police officers for information that she had sold on to national newspapers which she strongly denied.
ReplyDeleteNotice the connection with Derek Webb here who was charged along with Murrer and ex-Thames Valley Policeman Kearney.
"[Private]Eye claims that the detective-turned-private-investigator Derek Webb had been carrying out surveillance operations for the tabloid press against a number of high-profile public figures suspected of having affairs..."
As reported in Eye 1204
Ordinarily, this nasty tale of oppressive policing wouldn't have had wider consequences. But with a gratifying poetic justice rarely encountered outside Hollywood movies, Thames Valley police must now answer for inadvertently letting loose havoc in Whitehall, infuriating MI5 and forcing a shaken justice secretary to the despatch box.....
If Sara Thornton, chief constable of Thames Valley, thinks she is going to have a hard time explaining to ministers how an hysterically disproportionate operation against a local journalist. triggered a national scandal, she should look at the press bench at Murrer's pre-trial hearings and realise that her life is only going to get worse.
The Murrer presecution failed the day after the Damian Green arrest.
Full Private Eye saga here
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