Today Sue Akers, the deputy assistant commissioner spoke to
Lord Justice Leveson to tell him of the “culture of illegal payments” by Sun
journalists to police officers and other public officials. What she spoke of
threatens to engulf the Metropolitan Police with many more arrests likely to
come, it will be the most devastating issue for the Met since the organisation
was branded institutionally racist by the MacPherson inquiry. It is horrifying
to think that some of those who are meant to uphold the law and make our
streets safe were performing illegal activities themselves. It is absolutely
sickening and every police officer who took payments should be sent to prison.
Yet nobody really knows the full story yet, both the Leveson
inquiry and the investigation by Sue Akers will continue for many more months
and delve further into both the cosy relationship between the police and the
press and other illegal activities. Most notably at Murdoch’s big names, the
News of the World and the Sun. My only hope is that this time the investigation
will produce meaningful results and that both the press and the police will
complete the necessary reforms to give us a free but law abiding press.
Only an idiot would believe Rebekah Brook’s or Andy Coulson’s
statements that they did not know about phone hacking or other illegal
activities as well as denials coming from senior journalists at the Sun or
NOTW. There is much evidence that take apart Brook’s and Coulson’s lies, Jeff
Edwards was the crime correspondent at a Murdoch paper between 1980 and 1985
and says he lost his job because he was uncomfortable paying police officers.
This isn’t a simple hunch that Mr Edwards has come up with, he was actually
told that he’d lost his job because of his ethics.
Nobody really knows that will happen over the next year but
it will be an important one for this country in terms of both the press and
policing, I just hope both institutions can reform.
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| Sue Aker at the Leveson Inquiry today |
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