Thursday 1 March 2012

If I May Borrow A Phrase From The Angry Exile…

….’What a bunch of sooky la las!’:
News International staff intimidated and obstructed police officers trying to search its Wapping headquarters during the original phone-hacking inquiry in 2006, the Leveson Inquiry heard yesterday.
Intimidated? Really?

A group of four police officers who entered the News of the World in an attempt to seize evidence from the desk of the royal editor, Clive Goodman, feared violence would break out in the newsroom as they were surrounded and photographed by News International staff, a senior officer said.

The officers backed down and left without all the evidence they wanted….
Christ on a bike!!
Detective Chief Inspector Keith Surtees, investigating officer for the first hacking inquiry, Operation Caryatid, said there was "real difficulty" carrying out the search, with only four officers allowed into the building.

He said: "My officers were confronted with photographers summonsed from other parts of News International and were taking photographs of the officers. A number of news editors challenged the officers around the legality of their entry. They were asked to go to a conference room until lawyers could arrive to challenge the legality."
Awww, diddums! They took your photograph! What, did you think they were stealing your soul?

It leaves a very bad taste in the mouth that this disgraceful scene gets reported on the day one very brave officer, who faced a real threat, goes to his grave.

Hand back your warrant cards, you aren’t fit to be policemen…

10 comments:

Tattyfalarr said...

On the subject of PC Rathband I have only sadness and sympathy for his nearest and dearest left behind. Despite all his problems the only life he extinguished was his own. No shotgun rampage for him ...just as quick and dignified an escape from them as he felt able to achieve. Tragic.
...

As for the other...Perception is all.

Take a Fact and twist it firmly, add a pinch of Reason, a smattering of Common Sense, a smidge of Empathy then stir in lot of Convolution and... ta-daa...you end up with Belief. Supposedly.

I don't think they actually felt intimidated but it's obvious there was concerted effort to at least try and make them feel that way.

Where there was question of the legality of the search and an evidently hostile presence the sensible thing to do was leave.

I think the claim that they actually did feel intimidated has far more to do with padding out the reason why they didn't simply go back after the legalities were clarified. With more officers if absolutely necessary.

The shame of it is expecting to be believed and excused. They should know better than any of us that that only ever works for those on the other side of the law.

JuliaM said...

To Ciaran - I don't (as a rule) delete trolls, but you just crossed the line with that one.

Take a hike, chum.

JuliaM said...

"Where there was question of the legality of the search and an evidently hostile presence the sensible thing to do was leave. "

This wasn't a Newcastle pub at chucking-out time - this was an office full of journalists!

Anonymous said...

RIP David.

Should have gone in mob-handed and cleared the area where they were searching to prevent any attempt at disposal of evidence. They should have videod the search and told any hack to back away or they would be arrested for obstruction of an officer in the execution of his duty.

Spineless leadership, the lower ranks are more than used to it from their superiors.

jaded said...

This whole phone hacking scandal/police getting payments is making me very uncomfortable. I wonder if these police were withdrawn so evidence could be destroyed?Perhaps a conspiracy theory too far...

The trouble is when these high profile cases happen the flack gets thrown at normal plod like me as I have contact with the public all day every day.The real culprits are senior officers hiding at HQ. (Allegedly).

Frankie said...

Sad... I agree with Julia - a proper cop took his own life today, having had a couple of years of real hell thrust upon him from out of nowhere. By contrast, the buffoons who carried out the raid on the newspaper offices are unfit to do the job. Period. If they were 'intimidated' they should have called for reinforcements. After all the police have one of the biggest gangs there is...

To the supporters (and there are some, amazingly)of the cretinous Raoul Moat, I say that he was scum and taking own life did the world a favour, whereas, and it was horrible to hear that by some coincidence, or parallel, PC Rathband chose to take the same route to assuage the torment that Moat inflicted upon him.

Life dealt him a very harsh hand of cards recently.

R.I.P.

JuliaM said...

"Spineless leadership, the lower ranks are more than used to it from their superiors."

Sadly true.

"This whole phone hacking scandal/police getting payments is making me very uncomfortable."

You're not alone there, and the constant stream of 'Everyone does it!' and 'It's always gone on!' is making things worse. No-one likes to look under the rug...

" If they were 'intimidated' they should have called for reinforcements. After all the police have one of the biggest gangs there is... "

Spot on!

Tattyfalarr said...

"This wasn't a Newcastle pub at chucking-out time - this was an office full of journalists!"

I get your point but you're missing mine.

If the search warrant isn't legally watertight any evidence collected is invalid.

Why they gave any other reason for leaving I don't know but I've taken a wild guess.

JuliaM said...

Tatty, I know you shouldn't base anything on reality tv shows, but I've seen the police challenged on the legality of their actions many times, and you know what?

Not once did they ever stop what they were doing, have a discussion, go wait in another room and then leave. Not once.

So why did they do this here? Please don't tell me it's because they left their office without being fully prepared and knowledgeable about what their warrant entitled them to do and see?

And please don't tell me this is a regular occurrence!

Tattyfalarr said...

Julia I've given but one wild guess which would have been perfectly valid, is all I'm saying.

Another totally wild guess is that perhaps maybe they were a little bit scared of how the whole shebang would end up being regurgitated in the media.

There are loads more, I'm sure. ;)