Head Of Met Resigns

Met Police Commissioner Resigns

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned.

The head of the Met has left his post.
More follows..

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Metropolitan-Police-Commissioner-Sir-Paul-Stephenson-Resigns-Amid-Phone-Hacking-Inquiry/Article/201107316032138?lpos=Home_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_16032138_Metropolitan_Police_Commissioner_Sir_Paul_Stephenson_Resigns_Amid_Phone_Hacking_Inquiry

You know, Bonny, was wondering last night if he would do that. Wow.

Follow up

Met Police Chief Quits Amid Hacking Claims


Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned amid claims relating to the phone hacking scandal.

Breaking News

8:10pm UK, Sunday July 17, 2011
Met Police Chief Quits Amid Hacking Claims

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned amid claims relating to the phone hacking scandal.

Leaving his post, Sir Paul said:

"I've taken this decision as a consequence of the ongoing speculation and accusations relating to the Met's links with News International at a senior level and in particular, with relation to Mr Neil Wallis who as you know was arrested as part of Operation Weeting last week."

Sir Paul had been criticised after Mr Wallis, a former deputy editor of the News Of The World, was hired by the Met in a public relations role. He said:

"In 2009 the Met entered into a contractual arrangement with Neil Wallis, terminating in 2010. I played no role in the letting or management of that contract."

He also emphasised he had no reason to suspect Mr Wallis had any knowledge of phone hacking:

"I have heard suggestions that we must have suspected the alleged involvement of Mr Wallis in phone hacking. Let me say unequivocally that I did not and had no reason to have done so. I do not occupy a position in the world of journalism; I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice and the repugnant nature of the selection of victims that is now emerging; nor of its apparent reach into senior levels"

He also denied there had been any wrongdoing relating to his use of the Champney's health farm where Mr Wallis had been working:

"There has been no impropriety and I am extremely happy with what I did and the reasons for it - to do everything possible to return to running the Met full time,significantly ahead of medical, family and friends' advice. The attempt to represent this in a negative way is both cynical and disappointing."

Sir Paul had also faced criticism over the original investigation into phone hacking.

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson told Sky News he had accepted his resignation with "great sadness and reluctance" and said there was "no question about his personal integrity."

Mr Johnson said Sir Paul had not wanted to be a distraction for the force in the run up to next year's Olympic games.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee said he was "very shocked" at the Commissioner's resignation.

Sir Paul said it had been an "enormous privilege" to lead the Met.

More follows...

Sounds to me as if he has quit because he is not in the best of health, and doesn't need this, Chicane.

I am going to ask a silly question, but - Where's the meat?

Police officers taking money for info is disgraceful.

Hacking the phones of missing children and people who have died whilst serving in the forces is unspeakable, disgraceful - whatever words you want.

But I personally feel this is getting very close to a witchhunt, with people being found guilty by association. And as for the Labour party suddenly trying to claim the moral high ground - I personally find the whole business of Murdoch backing Blair over WMD a million times worse than Stephenson possibly getting a freebie whilst recovering from surgery.

Look who's quick to respond:

Get the Madeleine McCann Review away from Scotland Yard

Post Tony Bennett Today at 8:26 pm

candyfloss wrote:MET POLICE COMMISSIONER SIR PAUL STEPHENSON HAS RESIGNED!!!!

Tom Watson was right with his tweet!!


BBC coverage of this story here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14180043

Sir Paul Stephenson was one of an unholy clique who decided to waste £3.5 million of taxpayers' money on a 'review' of the evidence in The Madeleine McCann case - in order to, as David Cameron succinctly put it, 'support the McCann family'.

Another member of this clique was the Editor of the Sun, who earlier this year serialised a book by Dr Kate McCann which told anything but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - and then published Dr Gerald McCann's letter demanding a police review on his terms and Cameron's letter granting him his wishes.

Cameron only got the job of running this country because he bowed to the wishes of Rupert Murdoch, whom he met in August 2009 after being flown out there in the private jet owned by Matthew Freud, the man who employed McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell from 2008-9.

Sir Paul Stephenson has presided over the cover-up of the phone hacking scandal whilst he and his officers have routinely taken the Murdoch shilling and have done nothing about police officers en masse illegally giving information to the press for cash.

I am very glad he is gone.

NEXT TASK - to get the Madeleine McCann Review passed to a non-corrupt police force and to stop Scotland Yard having anything more to do with it.

That way we MIGHT get a review which will look at ALL lines of enquiry including the possibility that Madeleine McCann died in Apartment G5A and that her parents and others have covered this up.

Oh, what a surprise!

Precisely, what a surprise. What else do we expect from him?

Last night an article stated that Sir Paul Stephenson had been in very poor health due to cancer surgery which in turn caused a fracture to his thigh, but the article appeared to allude to something not being right about his connections to Champneys. I see that they have now clarified the association.

It really is sickening to see this whole thing turned into a witch hunt. Some people should and do deserve what is or may be coming to them, others don't. It's almost like hysteria..........

Which brings me back to Bennett, of course.

ETA: What is wrong with friends wanting to help a man recovering from cancer?

Precisely, Lily - and I have yet to see anyone who is in the slightest bit entitled to occupy the moral high ground pontificating about this.

If I was really, really cynical, I could construct a very nice conspiracy theory about the BBC wanting its monopoly back, the Guardian wanting readers, and the Labour party wanting back into Downing Street, on the back of this.

Naturally, with very heavy government controls on the press....

Funny you should say that, Bonny, because I too have thought those same things over this past week.

And of course, under a set-up like that, all the really, really nasty stuff, that has costs thousands of people their lives - Blair and WMDs - would never, ever see the light of day.

bb1 wrote:And of course, under a set-up like that, all the really, really nasty stuff, that has costs thousands of people their lives - Blair and WMDs - would never, ever see the light of day.

How convenient would that be?

Whatever this is about, it sure isn't the Forces of Light, Lily.

Unfortunately that would be true, Bonny.

It would certainly be a very dark thing to squash the voices of those who oppose other political view points, for instance. The matters you pointed out would never see the light of day. Life itself for the masses could become rather oppressed if matters continued down that path........

Well, let's take a look at the people doing the most shouting.

The BBC - imposes a viewing tax on every household in the country, whether they watch the BBC or not.

The Guardian - home of the chattering classes, the paper which hypocritically thinks it is OK to print hacked cables, but not to hack phones.
When, in fact, both are wrong.

The Labour party - who snaffled up every single goodie NI had to hand out for year after year. Mandy is a leading light of the Labour party, so they are in no position to lecture anyone about morality.

And all through this, siren voices are saying more regulation of the media is needed.....

Exactly, Bonny. However, the Guardian and the BBC think they are somehow superior?

Well, at least Sky gives people a lot more value for their money than the BBC do in effectively holding TV viewers to ransom.

Oh yes..... who got the Wikileaks scoop? That was for freedom of speech blah blah blah and other humanitarian or something or another view from the Guardian? Look how Assange got that information but that's okay? Obviously it is to the Guardian so as you say, who is calling whom black?

Wasn't Mandy at the party at Elizabeth Murdoch's house just days before this scandal broke?

Hacking Milly Dowler, veterans, and regular people was the pits. That never should have happened.

Gordon Brown, in my opinion, was useless as both the Chancellor and the PM so for him it is sour grapes. I'm not saying that Cameron is great, by the way, either.

Take your freedom of speech away and it's a fast slide down after that.

Yes,

BEWARE OF WHAT YOU WISH FOR...

Here's hoping common sense prevails.

A longer report:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015779/Sir-Paul-Stephenson-resigns-phone-hacking-scandal.html#ixzz1SPMvCIhg

This is interesting:

In particular the Public Inquiry must take time, with even the first part scheduled not to report within a year.

And it will conclude that lessons must be learned, the same old same old. But anyone normal will have forgotten what it was all about to begin with by then, anyway.

That's a very interesting article. I'm sure you are right, Bonny, as in a year other things will have happened etc. and it has to settle down at some point.

Oh, what is this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v1AJjnl2y8U#t=28s


Why, I do believe it is Ms Wade, as she was then TELLING parliament police were sometimes paid for information.

I wonder why nothing was said or done then? 'Then', by the way, is 2003.

Am I right in thinking that Labour was in power then, under one T. Blair?

http://thehoundingofthemccans.blogspot.com/?zx=bd7d5ff2f7285e1a

Sense, on Anna's blog, from one of her colleagues:

http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/i-love-my-friends-and-my-friends-love-me/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AnnaRaccoon+%28Anna+Raccoon%29

The British press have always been utterly ruthless in their pursuit of a good story: the Victorian press was particularly fond of tittle tattle and a good scandal, particularly if there was murder involved. And the press and the police have always worked together in … let’s call them mysterious ways.

Anyone who thinks the CID don’t regularly whore themselves to the press for a few pints or more and the odd tip off in return is living in cloud cuckoo land. And the Met is the most famously corrupt force in the land (allegedly).

What we have then is a storm in the Westminster tea cup, and not more than that. Posturing and point scoring, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The Dowler connection has simply caused the public to “go off on one”, but all that is being revealed is how politics works, and probably has to work, and always will.

As the police might say: Move along here, there’s nothing to see…


I would say that is about right, under all the hysteria.

It isn't as if the Minister of Defence has slept with a 'model' who was also sleeping with a military attache at the Russian Embassy or anything.

Now that's a scandal....