The Leveson Inquiry

The Monday morning hearing began with last minute addition to the witness list. Dave Harrison, who was part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency team working on the 2006 Ipswich murders investigation said he was told a surveillance team had been deployed by the News of the World to find out who the SOCA team where and where they were based. Five women were murdered by Steven Wright, a local man, between October and December 2006. Due to the size of the investigation other officers, including Harrison, were drafted in to assist Suffolk Police. He told the inquiry:“We identified them because they were sat in the positions that we would sit in if we were doing the same job… If they knew nothing about surveillance, they wouldn’t have got anywhere near us.”

The former investigator said the News of the World team could have seriously hampered the investigation, as murder suspects often return to the scene of the crime to remove evidence, or commit further offences. He said a suspect being aware they were being followed, either by police or the press, would not behave in this way, damaging the chance of a successful prosecution.

Surveillance would also have been weakened as the SOCA team tried to avoid being followed by the press team. Harrison said a similar team from the Sunday Mirror had picked up the first suspect of the murders, who was later cleared, and debriefed him in cars before taking him to be interviewed. He told the inquiry they had also used “anti-surveillance capabilities” to elude the investigators.John Twomey, crime reporter at the Daily Express and chair of the Crime Reporters Association, said the Filkin report, into relationships between the police and the press, could affect the level of contact between the media and police forces. He told the inquiry:“The initial reaction would be to pull back, to err on the side of caution… That would have a kind of freezing effect. Officers would be less likely to talk to you. They would give out less information to you. Some officers may just cease contact with you completely.”

He said the report, commissioned by the Metropolitan Police, was condescending to women after it suggested some female journalists engaged in “flirting” with police officers to get information. He said off-the-record briefings could be vital to the success of police investigations. He said the New Cross double murder, where two French students were brutally murdered in 2008, was aided after a senior press officer released post-mortem information, and one of the perpetrators had come forward as a result of the publicity.

When asked about information passed to reporters, Twomey said he would carefully reflect on the nature of the story before “rushing into print”. He added: “You would never go ahead with any story that would possibly jeopardise apprehending a criminal… or a prosecution.”

Twomey said he met Dick Fedorcio, head of press at the Met, once or twice a year, either with CRA members or one-to-one. He told Lord Justice Leveson: “I always found him very proper and very professional, and very loyal to the organisation and those in command.”

He said meals with officers would incur a spend of £60 to £80 a head, and pointed out officers often wanted to relax over lunch away from Scotland Yard ”It doesn’t mean to say they are knocking back £400 bottles of champagne; [it's] over a couple of glasses of wine and a decent meal, there’s a tradition there and I think they would expect it. They don’t want to be in Scotland Yard when they could be out in a comfortable place with people they know and they can trust.”

The reporter said he had been shocked to hear evidence from former criminal investigator David Harrison. He added:“If that did happen, that’s quite shocking, I’m dismayed if it’s the case… It’s quite unbelievable really that a newspaper should go to those lengths.”

The second witness statement of John Twomey can be found here.James Murray, associate editor for News at the Sunday Express, told the inquiry he had accepted a lift home in a Scotland Yard car after socialising with police officers. He and a colleague had been celebrating over a meal and drinks after a successful prosecution by Met officers. He said:“If anyone’s suggesting ‘oh right, you’ve gone out for this meal with the police, you’ve had a loads of drink, da da da, the next step, you’re dropping brown envelopes all over the place’, it’s just so far removed from the truth, really. it doesn’t happen like that. The officer would be, firstly, mortally offended that it would be even suggested… and it would actually ruin the relationship because the relationship you’re trying to build up is one of trust and so he doesn’t want to receive a silly request.”

He told the inquiry the Guardian’s reporting of the Milly Dowler phone hacking allegations had damaged police relationships with the press, saying all trust had been“blown out of the water”.He said the News of the World was a “lone wolf” in carrying out the activities described by Dave Harrison. He added:“I don’t think journalists should play the role of detective. Playing an amateur detective can get you into all sorts of trouble and that’s not what we’re about.”

On socialising with police officers, he told the inquiry that he often obtains the best information “over a cup of tea, when everyone is very sober”.The final witness of the afternoon hearing was Jerry Lawton, reporter at the Daily Star. He said he had experienced nothing more than “tea and sandwiches” in terms of hospitality from the police. He added: “The officers I have dealt with, even if the thought of some inappropriate [offer]… you would blow your contact and risk arrest. I can say that pretty firmly.”

Lawton criticised Leicestershire Police over their handling of the Madeleine McCann case, saying because police refused to brief journalists off-the-record, inaccurate information leaked by the Portuguese police had gone unchallenged. Claims that DNA tests proved Madeleine’s body had been in the boot of her parent’s car, hired weeks after she went missing, were later found to be false. He added:“I don’t understand why Leicestershire police on this occasion, even if it was unreportable, did not brief, ‘This was not right, the leak was wrong’.”

The witness statement of Scott Hesketh was taken as read by the inquiry.

The Tuesday morning hearing began with evidence from current Met commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe, who called the relationship between the press and police “distorted”. He said he had concerns over close social relationships between officers and journalists, and said the frequency of meetings described in evidence to the inquiry had been surprising. He said: “A drink, so what? For me it’s the pattern. One drink, one coffee, one meal – I’m not sure if that’s going to damage integrity but I think sustained contact can.”

He later added: “When alcohol comes in, there are less inhibitions. There is a reason why alcohol is an important factor… it’s probably best avoided.”

He went on to tell the inquiry lunches following monthly Crime Reporters Association briefings no longer take place, and said he would rather “set the bar too high” when it came to regulating contact between the force and sections of the media. He added:“It’s been a difficult line to draw, given we do to maintain professional relationship but neither do we want to be too close.”

Hogan-Howe said challenges from journalists were beneficial to the police and should be welcomed, but the recording of meetings should be encouraged to improve transparency. He said he broadly accepted the findings of the Filkin report and it“encouraged people to think in a different way about something that had become a problem”.

The commissioner was asked about leaks from the Police National Computer and Operation Motorman, an investigation into the procurement of private information by private investigator Steve Whittamore for journalists, saying the police had taken steps to investigate leaks. He told the inquiry:“It is hard to imagine that so many people in the police are leaking this information; they must be leaking it to someone; not sure what proportion of their leaks are related to domestic issues, or links to payment for some inappropriate intention.”

He went on to reveal 53,000 Met police have now been given permission to access the internet at work. Until recently, officers had to prove they had a justifiable business reason for accessing the web.

The inquiry also heard from Justin Penrose, crime reporter at the Sunday Mirror, who described a “state of paralysis” between journalists and police officers. He said he almost “laughed out loud” at evidence given by former criminal investigator Dave Harrison, who yesterday told the inquiry the Sunday Mirror had used anti-surveillance techniques to elude police when picking up Tom Stephens, a suspect in the Ipswich murders case, to be interviewed.

Stephens, who was later cleared, was interviewed by journalist Michael Duffy in 2006. Harrison claimed Stephens had been driven to a hotel. Penrose said he had been tracked down through the electoral role and interviewed in a car park, a point enforced by Trinity Mirror’s lawyer, Desmond Browne QC.

Penrose told the inquiry he had given former assistant commissioner John Yates his mobile number, and had met him and Andy Hayman for lunch on two occasions. He also referred to a recorded lunch with the Met’s head of press, Dick Fedorcio.

Daily Mirror reporter Tom Pettifor said informal contact with police officers had become “difficult” and said he feared forcing officers to record all contact with journalists would “freeze up information flow more than it already is at the moment”. He said:“If the official information parameter broadens so much that we have all this information out there, then it will very much reduce the need for these unofficial channels of communication.”Tim Gordon, editor of the South Wales Echo, said the average reporter on his paper spends 71p a week taking individuals out. He said:“I have no issue with a journalist taking someone out for a drink or lunch, it’s just we don’t do it very often.”

The South Wales Echo is owned by Trinity Mirror, which has a policy stating every expenses claim must been signed off by a senior editor. Gordon said his crime reporter was told Gwent police were “tightening up” as a result of the Leveson Inquiry and the Filkin report, examining police relationships. The editor said it has become increasingly difficult to get information from the police, especially over weekends when the force press office is closed. He added: “It is really important that the information flow [from police to the press] is fast.”

During the afternoon hearing, the inquiry heard from Adrian Faber, editor of the Birmingham Express and Star, who said his reporters do not spend “much more” than the figure given by Gordon, and most meetings with police take place in the office. He said a “drink or a coffee or a sandwich” was perfectly acceptable, but anything further would blur the boundaries of propriety. Faber told Lord Justice Leveson he fear the restriction of information from the police, and thought asking officers to record all contact with journalists would have a negative effect.

He said his paper, with a staff of 100 journalists, was able to cover the courts and council meetings in the area, but the impact of the internet meant an increasing pressure on his newsroom. He added: “The problem all newspapers face is having to resource websites and at the same time attempt to make money.”

The inquiry also heard from Chief Constable Chris Sims of West Midlands Police, and the force’s head of press Chief Inspector Sally Seeley. Sims, who worked at the Met for 15 years as a junior officer, said he had been surprised by evidence heard at the inquiry and had never been offered hospitality of that kind from local newspapers, including the Birmingham Express and Star. He added: “I genuinely think they don’t happen beyond that particular era and location.”

Sims said officers from the force often used social media to keep the public informed, but these accounts are monitored by the press office. He warned against recording all contact between police and the press. He said: “We shouldn’t equate integrity with recording processes. Recording has very limited impact on personal behaviour.”

Seeley told the inquiry she is the only police officer in the press office, and five of the 30 staff had trained in journalism. Lord Justice Leveson noted policy of having a serving officer as head of press at the force as helpful in limiting “cosy” relationships with journalists.

The witness statement of Abigail Alford was taken as read by the inquiry.

The Wednesday morning hearing began with evidence from Times crime reporter Sean O’Neill, who said the Met has become “closed and defensive” as a result of the Leveson Inquiry, which had resulted in a chilling effect on press contact with the police and a clampdown on media relations by the force. He told the inquiry:“I do fear that the ability to build a trustworthy relationship with someone is going to be seriously inhibited if you can’t have a coffee or a pint or a bite to eat with them. I do think that is a concern, and I think it’s quite important for senior crime journalists to be able to meet with senior police officers and talk openly and freely without necessarily a watchdog or a press officer sitting on your shoulder recording every word or listening in on every word.”

In his written statement O’Neill said there is “virtually no social contact with officers” in the current climate. He said he would usually buy officers coffee, pints of beer, lunches and evening meals, often in the company of other crime reporters. Hospitality records showed a number of dinners with former assistant commissioners Andy Hayman and John Yates, and force’s head of press Dick Fedorcio. He said:“The last time I met an officer we met a very, very long way from Scotland Yard because he was so nervous abut meeting me and that anyone would see him, and he’s a perfectly honourable, experienced police officer.”

O’Neill called the Filkin report, examining police relationships, patronising and“ultimately dangerous for the future accountability of the police”. He said the report had created a “climate of fear” preventing officers from speaking freely to the press, and said it was insulting to female crime reporters. He added:“[The report implies] they are just a bunch of women in short skirts out flirting with people.”

The crime editor defended the Times’s hiring of Hayman as a commentator, saying he recommended him to editor James Harding. Hayman was paid £10,000 a year for his column. He said: “Frankly I now wish I’d let the Daily Telegraph sign him up. It would have been better for him, and for us.”Chief Constable Stephen House said Strathclyde Police has investigated 45 suspected leaks to the press in the past five years and officers are “bound to be” accepting money for information. He told the inquiry:“I have no doubt that there are specific individuals in my organisation who are in receipt of money from various people. I’m not suggesting its individual newspaper but various people…that is inevitable. Bound to be happening.”

He said most of the leaks concerned the arrest or questioning of celebrities. He added:“That’s effectively where the money would be, so yes, it’s the newspapers – the reporters and photographers – being on the doorstep of the police office as a celebrity is released and that shouldn’t happen. Most of them are unsubstantiated. That does mean to say there weren’t actually leaks, but it means that we can’t prove them.”

He later said: “People talk within the organisation. Celebrities are by nature known, so word of mouth will quickly get around that so-and-so is in custody and it will go almost viral in that way.”

House said the force had suffered from leaks on tactical information relating to police investigations, especially homicide cases, meaning certain material cannot be used in court cases. The chief constable said he did not think in general officers had an“untapped desire” to speak to the media, but said local press had more direct access to community inspectors to discuss “low level stories”. He told the inquiry all national press contact comes through the corporate communications department, whereas local journalists are able to speak to officers directly. He said:“There are situations where officers will say things – I’d be delighted for individual officers of very junior rank to be talking to the media about specific cases that they’re involved with… it’s when it becomes more around the closing of a police office and you then get a situation where the local media want to talk to a sergeant or a constable about, ‘what do you think about this’ …. I don’t meet individual media for stories without someone from the media department present recording it. That’s a policy I’ve adopted through learning harsh lessons when I was in the Met.”

House said he meets with incoming editors over coffee to introduce himself and discuss the force’s media “set-up”. He said contact with journalists was useful as long as it is in the public good and not serving private interests.Rob Shorthouse, director of communications for Strathclyde Police, denied any leaks had come from his department. He told the inquiry: “There’s absolutely nothing to suggest at all that we have an issues with leaks coming from the media office.”

He said non-attributable conversations with journalists are not encouraged, and all on or off-the-record contact with the media is logged by the department. Shorthouse said his staff are dedicated to making sure there is a quick turnaround on information provided to journalists, but said the internet had made this more difficult in recent years. He added:“The change in the nature of the media at the moment is huge… It’s going to make that need to be more immediate and over away from the traditional roles that journalists have played.”

The editor of the Herald, Jonathan Russell, appeared before the inquiry for the second time, having given evidence during module one. He said the paper had a “generally healthy relationship” with the Strathclyde force but admitted journalists would always want more information from the police. He added:“It had to be a mutually beneficial relationship… we provide a very important service to the police in terms of looking for witnesses and helping in solving crimes. It isn’t perfect, we don’t always get what we would want – I’m fairly sure they don’t always get the coverage they would want – but I think generally it works pretty well for both sides.”

Russell told Lord Justice Leveson the Herald’s relationship with Strathclyde was a “good template” for proper interaction between police and press.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Inquiry heard from the chief constable of South Wales Police, Peter Vaughan and Assistant Director of Communications Caroline Llewellyn, Vaughan told the inquiry he regretted allowing officers to be filmed for the BBC One programme ‘Traffic Cops’, saying the televised behaviour of some officers was not representative of the force. He told the inquiry: “Some of those instances aren’t the organisation that I want to reflect as being representative of the South Wales Police.”

Vaughan said frequent repeats of the programmes, filmed some years ago, was damaging to the force’s reputation, and is used as an example when training new officers in standards. He added:“It’s shaped the way we engage with the media….It’s very important that we’re help to account for our activities and its important that the public sees that policing isn’t just knocking down peoples doors, discovering cannabis plants and dealing with violent people.”

Catherine Llewellyn said the media were generally cooperative when asked not to publish certain material that could affect investigations and prosecutions. She gave the example of a journalist obtaining a restricted internal document from the force. She said:“We advised them that it would cause untold damage, not just to the investigation but it would also upset the family [of a suspect], and asked them not to publish it. They didn’t publish it and they have never published that information.”

Vaughan told the inquiry the force had investigated three suspected leaks to the press in the past five years. One of these, where the address of a police officer was revealed turned out to have come from open proceedings in court. He told the inquiry leaks were often the result of “misplaced loyalty” by members of staff. He added:“One of the examples we had in our anti-corruption unit, one of the examples we followed through, was a member of our staff providing information to a private detective who was a previous colleague of that individual. There is misguided loyalty; on occasions there will be money exchanging hands for that sort of information. “

He said that the South Wales Police had a generally positive relationship with the press.

Llewellyn added:“I think throughout [our] guidelines there’s an encouragement there to our officers to speak [to journalists], but obviously within guidelines and when it’s appropriate….Often journalists will be trying to deal with very busy police officer, and a press officer intervening may actually speed up the information.”

Next week the inquiry will hear from Colin Adwent (Crime Reporter, East Anglia Daily Times), Chief Constable Simon Ash (Suffolk Constabulary), Anne Campbell (Head of Corporate Communications, Norfolk and Suffolk Police), Nick Griffiths (Carlisle News and Star), Terry Hunt (East Anglian Daily Times), Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey (MPS, former Chief Constable Cumbria Constabulary), Anne Pickles (Carlisle News and Star), Gillian Shearer (Head ofMarketing and Communications, Cumbria Constabulary), Barbara Brewis (Media and Marketing Durham Constabulary), Amanda Hirst (Head of Corporate Communications Avon and Somerset Police), DCI Philip Jones (Avon and Somerset Constabulary), Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Kirkby (Surrey Police), Chief Constable Colin Port (Avon and Somerset Constabulary), Chief Constable Jonathan Stoddart (Durham Constabulary), Chief Constable Matthew Baggott (PSNI), Joanne Bird (Head of Media and Marketing BTP), Oliver Cattermole(Director of Communications ACPO), Jane Furniss (CEO, IPCC), Sir Hugh Orde(President of ACPO), Chief Constable Andrew Trotter (BTP), Liz Young (Head of Corporate Communications (PSNI), Catherine Crawford (Chief Executive of theMetropolitan Police Authority), Chief Constable Mike Cunningham (Staffordshire Police), Ian Fegan (Head of Corporate Communication Staffordshire Police), Kit Malthouse (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime), Julie Norgrove (Director of Audit Risk and Assurance Metropolitan Police Authority) and Ben Priestley (Unison).

Last year Jefferies successfully sued eight newspapers – the Sun, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Record, Daily Mail, Daily Star, the Scotsman and the Daily Express – over their coverage of his arrest and received substantial libel damages. The Sun and Mirror were also referred to the Attorney General and found in contempt of court for articles including “The strange Mr Jefferies” (Sun) and “Jo suspect is peeping tom” (Mirror).

In November 2011, Jefferies gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. He told the chairman how his life had been irreparably changed by the events of December 2010, a result of his monstering in the national press. He returned this year to give evidence on module 2, the relationship between the press and police, as he is currently in the middle of legal proceedings against Avon and Somerset police for wrongful arrest.

He tells Hacked Off: “The whole of the action against the police is not essentially different from the action against the press, because it was as a result of the police action that all sorts of innuendos and calumnies and whatever else appeared in the press."

As far as I am concerned they don’t escape the sort of responsibility that the press have had to accept, and until that particular chapter is over and there has been some form of vindication there, one is very much still in the process of, as far as one can, restoring the reputation that was destroyed.”

Several people passing through the Leveson Inquiry witness box since Jefferies have been questioned on his treatment by the press. Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace publicly apologised to Jefferies and explained police had told the paper, off-the-record, that they were confident “Mr Jefferies was their man”.

Jefferies says: “That did mean something because Louis Charalambous [his solicitor] took the troubled to email me and comment on it, and said really it was quite striking that [Wallace] said what he did, because he went considerably beyond than what perhaps he was being invited to say by the counsel for the inquiry. I thought that that did actually carry some weight.”

The former chairman of the PCC, Sir Christopher Meyer, although not with the commission during the Joanna Yeates coverage, dismissed questions the PCC had failed to protect Mr Jefferies, and told inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC “you’re not going to lead me down that path”.

Jefferies says: “One thing that I thought was pretty disgraceful was when Sir Christopher Meyer was talking to the inquiry and merely shrugged [off] the failure of the Press Complaints Commission to do anything, really just shrugged that off and said ‘[journalists] are fallible human beings, there are bound to be mistakes’. I thought that was both insensitive and irresponsible.”

Current PCC chairman Lord Hunt has now met with Jefferies, as he has done with several other victims of press intrusion, to discuss his plan for a future press standards body.

“The meeting with Lord Hunt was very encouraging", says Jefferies.

“It is obviously important that all newspapers sign up to this, that the code is suitably robust and that editors no longer have anything to do with policing themselves. Perhaps the most encouraging thing from my point of view is that he appears to see my experience as a test case for his proposals - nothing remotely like it must be allowed to happen again.”

“I very much agreed with the concerns that Lord Justice Leveson obviously had to make certain that whatever was put in place was not only as robust as it can possibly be but also left no opportunities for loopholes, because obviously Lord Hunt at the moment anyway is using the carrot more than the stick in order to get proprietors and editors to agree with him. People in my position are certainly going to want to make absolutely certain before they endorse such proposals that there’s going to be absolutely no opportunity for editors and proprietors to walk away from their responsibilities in the future.”

Jefferies makes it clear he wants to move on from the experiences of the last two years, but while his action against the police is on-going, he continues to live in a state of limbo.

“It is something that continues to loom extremely large as far as what I am able to do otherwise is concerned. These events have meant that eighteen months of my life which could have been devoted to other things, have very largely had to be taken up with coping with the aftermath of something that I had absolutely no responsibility for.

“If all the momentum which has gathered around this and other similar things really does result in a sea change as far as the press in concerned then I think that significant good will have come out of it, so that is very much what I hope and it’s certainly I think the sort of attitude that friends and relatives have taken. It was extraordinarily painful at the time but it may well be that something positive does happen as a result.”

Speaking at the Benn debate held by the Bristol NUJ last week, Jefferies described being painted in the media as a caricature, a lewd, peeping tom that spied on his tenants.

“If you think back to end of 2010 and last year, the story was something of a gift to the tabloids. It was a ready-made ‘Midsomer Murders’ script set in a respectable and leafy suburb.

“I was the person who had been arrested and the press seemed determined to believe the person who was arrested was the murderer, and to portray me in as dark and as lurid a light as possible...Even today I haven't been able to bring myself to read everything.”

He tells Hacked Off he will never fully recover from the events of that December, despite receiving a huge amount of sympathy and support from friends, family, and often, complete strangers."

I am quite certain that the sort of coverage that happened always leaves some residue behind. I don’t think that it would be rational to think otherwise."

“We have been here on a number of occasions before, there have been high profile cases and people have said lessons have been learned and it won’t happen again – lo and behold it does happen again and each time it happens it seems to happen in an even more explosive and intemperate way than ever.”

It’s a week since Hacked Off called for the disclosure, in a form redacted only to protect the target individuals, of the whole Motorman database – the thousands of logged transactions by which national newspapers gained access to private information. What has happened since?

Plenty. But before reviewing the various developments it is worth noting the dog that didn’t bark: with the exception of the Guardian, which published a short report of our call for disclosure both in print and online, and The Independent, no national newspaper took any notice. Perhaps they just didn’t think it was newsworthy or perhaps this is further evidence of a shared code of silence in the press – most national newspaper organisations are implicated in the Motorman scandal and they have nothing to gain from publication of the details. Their idea of freedom of expression rarely extends to exposing themselves or each other to criticism.

Elsewhere the impact was striking. Our post was cross-posted elsewhere (e.g. at Inforrm, Index on Censorship and Alastair Campbell) and the links were widely shared, so that despite the silence of most of the press the message reached many thousands of people even in the first 24 hours.

And even quicker than that, it drew a direct response from Lord Justice Leveson at his public inquiry. On Monday just after 10am he said this:"I am aware that the Inquiry is being publicly requested to publish the Motorman files beyond the redacted version published by the Information Commissioner. If Mr Sherborne, on behalf of the core participants who complained about the conduct of the press, wishes to argue that such a step is appropriate, given the terms of reference and the fact that this Inquiry is not concerned with individual behaviour -- that is to say, who did what to whom -- and has eschewed such investigation as a matter of fairness, but is rather concerned with custom, practices and ethics, he is at liberty to do so."This message was repeated the next morning.The key points from the judge’s comments are:(a) that he is prepared to make time at the inquiry to hear arguments on Motorman disclosure from David Sherborne, the barrister who represents what are known at the inquiry as core participant victims (CPVs);(b) that he (the judge) needs to be convinced that publishing the Motorman files would shed light in a general way on the custom, practices and ethics of the press, which is his concern in this part of the inquiry;(c) that in his view disclosure is partly at least a matter of fairness, with the implication that he felt disclosure now might be inconsistent with a general position he had taken on the naming of journalists.

Hacked Off has opened discussions with David Sherborne and the CPV legal team about (a). Since they do not act for us but for the officially-recognised victims we need to recruit some of these to support our case. We will keep you posted.

As for (b) and (c), we are confident that the arguments in favour of disclosure are strong ones.

After all, what could tell us more about the culture, practices and ethics of the press than a database logging thousands of transactions involving hundreds of journalists working for most of the national press? And until newspapers are asked to account for those transactions in detail nobody can say whether they were legal (as papers claim) or illegal (as the Information Commissioner’s Office has said).

As for fairness and consistency, it is hard to see how newspapers or journalists could reasonably complain if the Motorman files were opened. Naming names is what journalists and newspapers do: in the case of MPs‘ expenses they readily named every name they could, irrespective of whether the MPs had broken the law. In that case some MPs were prosecuted but with Motorman there is no such possibility: it is far too late to prosecute any journalists and neither do we want to.

And there is a more fundamental argument, which is that it is wrong that a public inquiry should proceed when so much important and relevant information is not open to the public. We are bound to be baffled and frustrated by public exchanges that appear to be conducted in code.

To illustrate this, look at evidence given by Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers. Mr Dacre’s newspapers are known to have made extensive use of the services of Steve Whittamore, the private investigator at the heart of Motorman. The ICO published data indicating that no fewer than 99 journalists working for Associated’s papers commissioned Whittamore on at least 1.390 occasions. (Whittamore, incidentally, was also used by journalists at Mirror, Express and News international titles, as well as by reporters from the Observer and from various magazines.)

When asked about Motorman at the inquiry, Paul Dacre said:“... everybody, every newspaper – and I see the BBC spent nearly as much on enquiry agents as we did – was using him. We didn't realise they were illegal. There was a very hazy understanding of how the Data Protection Act worked and this was seen as a very quick way of obtaining phone numbers and addresses to corroborate stories.”The questioning then became more specific:Q. How do you know that you were trying to get addresses and phone numbers to corroborate news stories?A. Because that was the main use to which they were put.Q. How do you know that, Mr Dacre?A. Because I, at the time, talked to my managing editors.Q. Because we know from the material -- and we've seen some, not all, of the underlying material -- that there were requests made by Associated titles for Police National Computer checks and Friend & Family numbers. Those couldn't reasonably have anything to do with checking out news stories, could they?A. Of course, yes. You need to get to the people in a family to check a story, and also we don't know whether the reporter asked friends and families. We established that often Mr Whittamore supplied information that wasn't necessarily asked for.Q. In one case – it is quite a stark case – the request was made for Friends & Family numbers and there were 10 phone numbers and that cost £500, and an Associated title paid £500 for it. That couldn't have been an unsolicited request, could it? Do you know the one we're talking about?A. I don't know.Q. Is it your evidence that the reason for the request for Friends & Family numbers was in order to contact any one of those individuals in order to corroborate stories rather than to find out who the friends and family were of someone who was of interest to the Mail? Do you see that?A. If they were of interest and they were involved in a major story, and you needed to get to them or information about them, yes, you would try to talk to them or members of their family.Q. Is it your position that that is within the Data Protection Act; in other words, not in breach of Section 55? Request for Friends & Family numbers?A. I would say that that information could all be obtained legally, but it would take time. This was a quick and easy way to get that information.This is a vivid example of the inquiry tiptoeing around concrete evidence and being unable or unwilling to call a spade a spade. Unless there was a strong public interest justification – for example preventing crime or protecting public health – it was illegal to access Friends & Family phone numbers without permission. So it would surely be natural to ask,(a) what sort of person was this target individual, and(b) what sort of “major story” were they supposed to be involved in?

If the answer is an actress or a footballer or a relative of a victim of murder (all routine Whittamore targets), and the story had no clear public interest justification then the law was almost certainly broken.

But neither Dacre nor any of the other editors and representatives of implicated organisations who gave evidence was ever asked such direct questions. Nor did they volunteer more than bland and general explanations for their use of Whittamore. Nor has the public been given this information – even though the unredacted Whittamore files have been shared among the lawyers at the inquiry and seen by many journalists.

Did newspapers other than the News of the World have a culture of acquiring information illegally? That is surely a matter that goes to the heart of the Leveson inquiry. The answer can be found by confronting papers and journalists named in the Motorman files with the detail of the listed transactions, but that is not happening.

Hacked Off believes the entire Motorman database should be published once it has undergone the minimum redaction possible to protect the privacy of those people who were the targets of the transactions. We should know in every case the names of the newspaper and the journalist making the inquiry, the date, the fee paid, the character of the target (MP, television presenter, victim of crime...) and the nature of the information sought or acquired (criminal records, vehicle registration details, ex-directory numbers...).

We will continue to press for this, and we will keep you informed of progress.

Brian Cathcart, a founder of Hacked Off, teaches journalism at Kingston University London and tweets at @BrianCathcart

The Monday morning hearing began with Lord Justice Leveson noting a request from the Hacked Off campaign for the Operation Motorman database to be published. The chairman said David Sherborne, barrister for the core participant victims, was welcome to formally submit the request if he thought it would highlight the culture and practice of the press rather than “who did what to whom”. In his opening remarks, Leveson LJ told the inquiry his mind “remains open to all options” following an announcement by Lord Hunt that the Press Complaints Commission is to be shut down and reincarnated before the inquiry has finished. He added:“I am grateful to him and Lord Black for keeping the inquiry team informed but it is important that… should not be taken as an endorsement or agreement.”

He also expressed concern over the leaking of witness statements to the press, before they have been made publicly available on the inquiry website, and said he will require core participants to sign a declaration of confidentiality.

The inquiry then heard from Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick of the Metropolitan Police, who added to evidence given by other senior officers last week. She said the leaking of information to the press from police officers was not an “endemic problem”. She said: “I genuinely do not believe this is a culture or anything other than isolated individuals.”

The assistant commissioner was questioned over former assistant commissioner John Yates’ handling of the review into the 2006 Met phone hacking investigation, and his relationship with Neil Wallis, then deputy editor of the News of the World. She told the inquiry:“If I had been asked to do this piece of work and I knew somebody as well as it now appears [Yates knew Wallis]… do I have any conflict and if you do think you have any conflict you have to discuss that with the boss, and that’s what I would have done…I was completely and totally unaware of that relationship at the time. I had never heard of Mr Wallis until early 2011.”

Leveson LJ called the outcome of the conflict “disastrous” and said it had been suggested Yates had dismissed the case as a result of his friendship with Wallis. Dick revealed she could have taken charge of the review, but felt Yates had the relevant experience to deal with it. She said a 2009 Guardian article, which contained fresh allegations about hacking at the News of the World and prompted the review, was something the Met “couldn’t ignore and definitely needed to have a look at”. After a single day, Yates publicly announced that further investigation was not necessary.

Dick was also questioned over the Met’s relationship with the now-defunct Metropolitan Police Authority, and said she had laid down clear boundaries with Kit Malthouse, deputy mayor of London and then chairman of the organisation. She claimed Malthouse had told her not to put too many resources into the phone hacking investigation, and said she had reminded him of her operational independence. She described “finger-pointing” between the Met and the MPA after sensitive information on police investigations was leaked to the press on several occasions, after it was made available to the MPA.

Asked about her contact with the media, Dick said she would talk to journalists in the street and occasionally during social events but would not release information except through the Met press office. She admitted there was a perception that some police officers were too close to the media.

During the afternoon hearing the inquiry heard from Sir Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, who said former Home Secretary Alan Johnson rejected plans for a full investigation into phone hacking. He said he discussed the case with Johnson and senior official in 2009 but there was little enthusiasm for carrying it forward. He told the inquiry:“A discussion ensued with a minister and the Home Secretary at the time but there was not appetite for HMIC being involved. It never got off the ground, sadly…I said, looking at [the Guardian article], I thought the revelations merited some sort of independent review. I thought if the allegations if true in any degree would raise substantial public confidence issues.”

At the time, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, headed by O’Connor, was investigating allegations that Conservative minister Damian Green was being leaked confidential Home Office documents by a junior civil servant. O’Connor was asked about an HMIC review of police relationships, published last year. He said interactions between police officers and journalists should be regulated by without stifling contact, which would “defy reality”. He said:“Those in regulation we didn’t manage to stop this… I take the view there needs to be a significant revision in the way it works, but not to shrink the relationship but to get it on the right footing… It’s much more creating the framework where everybody can understand the appropriate moral compass…We have to think about ways of not freezing down the public interest… It’s a public interest safety valve process.”

O’Connor said a survey of police hospitality showed most officers acted with common sense when it came to dealing with the media, and said officers were usually offered “tea and sandwiches” by journalists, rather than the “fashionable alternatives” received by some senior officers appearing before the inquiry. The review found 298 examples of inappropriate hospitality. Roger Baker, from HMIC, first provided this updated figure to the inquiry last week.

The Tuesday morning hearing began with Sara Cheesley, senior information officer at the Met. She said she had been “surprised” by the contract between Chamy Media, a company run by Neil Wallis, and the Met and only became aware of it in last year. She said Yates told her that he knew Wallis, but was told the pair met a couple of times a year. When asked by Leveson LJ whether she believed socialising with journalists was necessary for senior officers, Cheesley said she could not say either way, and later refused to answer the question.

Giving evidence into the afternoon hearing was Dick Fedorcio, the Met’s director of communications, who said a News of the World journalist filed a crime story from a computer at Scotland Yard. He said he had allowed Lucy Panton, crime reporter at the News of the World, to file a story on disgraced police commander Ali Dizaei from his office computer. His written statement said:“She was being chased by telephone and/or text by her office to file this story, which they were expecting from her. To help her, and as she was under pressure, I offered to let her type the story, which she did from notes that she arrived with, in an e-mail on the standalone computer in my office. She accepted and wrote the story and sent it. I was present in the office throughout this time, and therefore got advance sight of a story about an MPS officer.”

Fedorcio said the computer was not connected to the MPS computer system and Panton would not have had access to police files or documents, but admitted it may have been an error in judgment to allow her to use the computer and his email address. The inquiry was shown the email from Panton to the news desk containing her copy, which had been forwarded from Fedorcio’s email account. The journalist asked the news team, including Ian Edmondson, to delete Fedorcio’s details from the email chain as it “would not be helpful 2 him for people 2 know I was using his office” [sic].The statement also revealed the Directorate of Public Affairs was sent a Christmas hamper by then News of the World editor Andy Coulson in 2003, as a “thank you” for the efforts of the team in dealing with the paper. When questioned on this by Robert Jay QC, inquiry counsel, Fedorcio said he often dealt with requests from the paper on a Saturday afternoon, including an article on the alleged Victoria Beckham kidnap plot, which had been shrouded in secrecy by journalists to keep it away from competitors.

Fedorcio contradicted evidence given by former commissioner Lord Stevens earlier this month on the surveillance of DCS David Cook and his wife, former police officer Jacqui Hames by the News of the World in 2002, which Stevens said he had not been informed of. Hames told the inquiry she believed the scrutiny was due to her husband’s involvement in an inquiry into the 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan. In his statement Fedorcio claims he informed Stevens that a meeting had been arranged between Rebekah Wade, now Brooks, Commander Andy Baker and Cook to explain why the couple had been put under surveillance by the paper. The inquiry has been told Wade said journalists suspected Cook and Hames to be having an affair, a fact disputed by Hames as the couple had been married for several years. Fedorcio said he could not remember the exact details of the meeting, but Wade may have alleged Cook was having an affair with someone else. Fedorcio said Cook and Baker told Wade one of her journalists was being paid by Southern Investigations, Morgan’s company, for consultancy work. He added: “[She was] non-plussed…I did not see a big reaction one way or another.”

Fedorcio’s written statement referred to the relationship John Yates and Neil Wallis, deputy editor of News of the World. Fedorcio said he was aware the two had a professional relationship but “did not understand them to have significant contact outside of work”. In his evidence to the inquiry Yates repeatedly referred to Wallis as a close personal friend. Ferdorcio was questioned over his own relationship with Wallis, after appointing his company, Chamy Media, to work with the press office. Wallis offered assistant to Fedorcio after his deputy took an extended leave of absence due to illness. He told the inquiry he had to put forward three applicants for the position, and chose candidates from the Bell Pottinger and Hannover public relations companies.

Jay QC suggested the other two candidates had been chosen because Fedorcio wanted Wallis in the postion, and knew the other companies would charge more, which Fedorcio denied. Leveson LJ added:“There are obviously other people who are perhaps more comparable to Chamy Media than Bell Pottinger… Let’s be blunt about it. This is set up to get a result.”

Fedorcio admitted he may not have taken on Wallis’s firm if he had been aware of the extent of his friendship with Yates. He was also questioned over the lending of a Metropolitan Police horse to Rebekeh Brooks, after it was pointed out his son carried out work experience at the Sun while he was arranging the lending process.

During the Wednesday morning hearing, Guardian crime reporter Sandra Laville said she feared closing down unofficial contact between police and the media would drive information “underground”. She said a mutually beneficial relationship is in the public interest and has “lasted for a long time because it actually works”. She added:“I think there’s been an overreaction within the Metropolitan Police already, yes. Absolutely. It affects everything I do at the moment.”

She said a senior officer she had known for years recently refused to discuss a case with her without permission from the press office. Although he was happy to disclose information, the office disallowed it. She said:“I think we already have laws and guidelines in place and I think they should be reiterated. You have to trust police officers, police officers who are investigating serious crimes… you can regulate as much as you like, unless you can trust them I don’t think it’s going to work. I wouldn’t encourage more rules.”Paul Peachey, currently of the Independent, said it would be obvious to other staff members if he was “regularly wined and dined” by police officers, but said he did occasionally have modest meals with officers.

Leveson LJ asked if “expense account dining” meant either party would expect to get something out of a meeting. Peachey said the Independent had a £30 per head limit on hospitality and meals were infrequent, and most press dealings with police were“above board”. He added:“Provided that media organisations and police forces remain vigilant I believe that situation will continue, especially given the recent, renewed scrutiny of the relationships.”Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, of the Sunday Times, told the inquiry he had not accepted or offered any hospitality from the Met, but said he would not have an issue meeting an officer for coffee if working on a story. He said he had not experienced a chill in police relations but admitted press officers tended to give limited information. He added:“By the nature of what press officers do… they give quite limited information. It’s come through another person. You’re not actually speaking directly – its second hand by its nature.”

In the afternoon hearing, president of the Crime Reporters Association, Jeff Edwards, described being asked to pay police officers for information when working for the News of the World between 1981 and 1985.

He told the inquiry how his news editor suggested he spent company money on contacts. He said:“I said, ‘I’m sorry, what are you suggesting?’ He said ‘You know, you need to put some inducements out there…About three or four weeks later clearly my performance was still not satisfactory; he took me to one side… and said, ‘You should essentially be bribing more police officers’… A couple of weeks later I was removed from post and replaced…It was 30 years ago, I can’t talk about how things proceeded after that but I thought it was indicative of the culture in that particular organisation at the time… there was an element in there that had a tendency towards questionable, unethical behaviour.”

Edwards went on to work for the Daily Mirror, where he was crime editor until 2008. He said the paper had a very high ethical standard.

He said he met Dick Fedorcio, director of public affairs for the Met, several times but only one on a one-to-one basis. He admitted he though Fedorcio concentrated on papers he thought were more influential but called him a “very professional man”. He added:“Some organisations, I think News International, possibly Associated Newspapers, he was more keen to engage with than others.”

Edwards responded to evidence given by former police officer Jacqui Hames, who told the inquiry the journalist had been allowed to accompany a robbery raid at Heathrow airport in 2004. He denied being offered the access as a favour, and said he had spent months working with officers on Operation Grafton. After a failed raid in 2003, Edwards, who was working at the Mirror, was allowed to join officers on a renewed effort in 2004, and took a photographer who pictured the arrested men. He said: “I don’t think I got that because of a special favour – it was an endeavour on my behalf that met with success.”

He advocated a common sense approach to police and press relationships based on“ethicality, good judgment and integrity”. He added: “It’s about deft adjustments, delicate adjustments rather than some kind of scorched earth policy, a carpet bombing of the whole system.”

The witness statement of Mark Hughes, Daily Telegraph, was taken as read by the inquiry.

The Thursday morning hearing began with an unexpected appearance from DCI Clive Driscoll, who said the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence could have been jeopardised by Daily Mail reporting. Driscoll, a senior investigation officer on Operation Fishpool, a 2006 review of the investigation, said leaks reported by the Mail had a negative impact on the progress of the case. He told the inquiry the source of the leaks was never discovered and “everyone became a suspect”. He said in a written statement:“Many of the leaked stories were published by the Daily Mail and my recollection is that Stephen Wright was usually the author. I do not believe that Mr Wright would have deliberately done anything to undermine the investigation. I found it odd that the Daily Mail were publishing many of the leaks, as they had always campaigned for the suspects to be prosecuted and had been supportive of the family’s fight for justice. I cannot explain why this was the case, but felt that the newspaper was being used.”

Driscoll told the inquiry: “It had a negative effect on the investigation, it had a negative effect on my team… I don’t know who leaked this, so therefore everyone becomes a suspect.”

He praised the paper for pursuing the story, but said an article published shortly after a meeting between officers, the Lawrence family and their lawyers in 2007 had undermined the police relationship with the murdered teenager’s family. He added:“This newspaper article was particularly damaging as it undermined our relationship with the family. Every time a story leaked to the press I had to repair relations. It also risked the integrity of the investigation and trust of other witnesses. The upset that was caused was evidence. Really it reinforced their belief that it was corruption that played a part in her having to wait 18 years in order to get partial justice.”

Driscoll said a senior member of the Met was suspected of briefing and making allegations outside of the official line, but did not confirm the name or that the individual had been the source of the leaks. The individual is currently under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and Operation Elveden, the Met investigation into alleged payments to police by members of the press. He said the Mail had agreed not to publish certain articles relating to the investigation after contact from the police, and thanked them, saying “if they had it would have had a serious consequence on the investigation we were planning”.

The inquiry also heard from the Sun’s crime editor Mike Sullivan, who was questioned over his relationship with senior Met figures, including John Yates and Dick Fedorcio. He said he had a “reasonably close working relationship” with Fedorcio that had developed over several years. Jay QC said records showed the pair had met five times between 2004 and 2008. Sullivan said the meetings were to keep him in the loop of police information. He said:“Over a period of time you get to know someone well and therefore you would normally expect to perhaps have more contact with that person, not just Dick but with plenty of others, rather than someone arriving [like if] another newspaper has appointed a crime reporter…I would regard myself as part of a group of long-serving crime reporters, who would have been in a circle of trusted journalists for Mr Fedorcio to talk to.”

Sullivan says he has met former senior Met police officers John Yates and Andy Hayman on social occasions, but had not been close to any other assistant commissioner. He said evidence heard by the inquiry from former assistant commissioner Bob Quick was wrong. Quick said he had seen Sullivan, Sun crime reporter Lucy Panton and Stephen Wright of the Mail having drinks with Sir Paul Stephenson and Yates, and implied it was indicative of a general culture between some senior officers and journalists. Sullivan referred to it as a one-off occasion. He further contradicted Quick, saying he was not aware of the Sun ever having used Southern Investigations, the company run by murder victim Daniel Morgan and Jonathan Rees, as alleged by the former officer in his written statement.

He told the inquiry he had been informed by a reliable source that the Met monitored stories written by journalists and graded them on how favourable they were to the force. Neil Garnham QC, representing the Met, question Sullivan over his allegations. Sullivan told Jay QC:“I was reliably informed three to four, perhaps five, years ago that there was such a system… I was told that that system existed and I quite believe it.”Stephen Wright, associate news editor of the Daily Mail, said he felt CRA briefings had been used by senior officers to “control the flow of information”. He described asking Lord Condon an uncomfortable question at a briefing in 1999 and being reprimanded by a press officer afterwards. He said he received information senior officers but did not speak to anyone below inspector rank. He said:“I am a journalist and we want to gather information. What we hear and whether we use it is an entirely different matter…“We are soon out of work if we rely on press releases for our stories.”

Wright told the inquiry he had a good relationship with the family of Stephen Lawrence, and said the Mail would not have published a story about the investigation if the police objected or thought it would jeopardise the investigation. He said his 2007 article on a meeting between the family and police officers, mentioned by DCI Clive Driscoll, had come from a source but not from anyone on the investigation team. He went on to tell the inquiry:“I am concerned in the current climate… I have current colleagues in the CRA who have been receiving intimidating phone calls from a certain department in the Met Police Service about who sources are.”

Wright also said he is happy to meet police officers “for coffee, breakfast or a drink”,and said there had been an overemphasis on hospitality arrangements between police officers and press, although the “closeness and intensity” of some relationships was a concern.

In the afternoon hearing, Alastair Brett, formerly in-house lawyer at Times Newspapers Limited, told the inquiry how information that Times reporter Patrick Foster had illegally hacked into the email account of DC Richard Horton, author of the “NightJack” blog, was not disclosed during legal action in 2009. Horton tried to injunct the paper to prevent them revealing his identity. The Times failed to disclose that the information had been obtained by hacking, as Foster “stood up” his story with information from the public domain after discovering Horton’s identity. Brett said he had acted in the belief the blogger would not take the matter to court.

Brett told the inquiry he did not believe the court had been misled over the unmasking of Horton, which he said had been obtained “entirely legitimately”. Leveson LJ, visibly angered, replied:“No he hadn’t, with great respect. [Foster] couldn’t put out of his mind that which he already knew.”

Foster approached Brett with the story in 2009 and admitted hacking into the officer’s email account to establish his identity. Foster had previously hacked email accounts at Oxford University while a student in 2004. The lawyer admitted an email to barrister Jonathan Barnes, referring to Foster’s past hacking at Oxford but not the Horton incident, was “oblique to an extent which is embarrassing”.When asked by Horton’s lawyers whether his email account had been unlawfully accessed, Brett told Foster not to engage with the question. He said he told the reporter: “You have done this legitimately now – because you have done this legitimately now we don’t have to engage on that subject.”

Leveson LJ pressed Brett over the misleading nature of the information provided to the High Court. Brett eventually conceded it was “not entirely accurate”. Brett told the inquiry: “Perhaps I was making a wrong decision but I was compartmentalising things. I put the earlier email hacking into a compartment.” Brett said he told the journalist he had acted in a highly unethical and considered reporting the matter to managing editor David Chappell. He added:“I was told it was a one-off occasion… and I thought ‘I’ve got to tell him you cannot behave like this at a proper newspaper’.”

Evidence from Peter Tickner, formerly of the MPS and the MPA, was postponed until a later date.

Next week the inquiry will hear from Dave Harrison (retired criminal investigator), Jeremy Lawton (Daily Star), James Murray (Sunday Express), John Twomey (Daily Express and Chair of the Crime Reporters Association), Adrian Faber (Birmingham Express and Star), Tim Gordon (South Wales Echo), Commissioner Bernard HoganHowe (MPS), Justin Penrose (Sunday Mirror), Tom Pettifor (Daily Mirror), Chief Inspector Sally Seeley (Head of Press and PR, West Midlands Police), Chief Constable Chris Sims (West Midlands Police), Chief Constable Stephen House (Strathclyde Police), Catherine Llewellyn (Press Officer, South Wales Police), Sean O’Neil (Times), Jonathan Russell (The Herald Scotland), Rob Shorthouse (Director of Communications, Strathclyde Police) and Chief Constable Peter Vaughan (South Wales Police). Statements from Scott Hesketh (Daily Star Sunday), Abby Alford (South Wales Echo) and Mark Thompson are to be taken as read.

This post has been cross-posted on the Inforrm website

One hesitates in second guessing an Attorney General like Dominic Grieve who has been so aggressive in prosecuting contempt cases, but in these cases I do not believe the test for contempt has been satisfied... just yet.David Banks is a journalist, media law consultant and author. He tweets at @dbanksy

Whittamore’s biggest clients? The British press. Not just the News of the World (who relied heavily on another private investigator by the name of Glenn Mulcaire) but The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, The Observer, The People, The Daily and Sunday Mirror. In all, more than two dozen national newspapers and magazines commissioned Whittamore to acquire over 17,000 pieces of personal information (see What Price Privacy for list of publications). We know all this because Whittamore kept careful records, in four A4 sized coloured books – a blue one, a red one, a green one and a yellow one, plus lots of miscellaneous records.

The newspapers commissioned Whittamore to get home addresses from telephone numbers, names and addresses for vehicle registration numbers from the DVLA and Police National Computer (PNC), criminal records from the PNC. He was also paid to get phone numbers: ex-directory numbers, mobile phone numbers, BT "friends and family" numbers. None of these can you get legally without proper authority (although there are “public interest” defences).

After the raid Alec Owens and his team went meticulously through the coloured books, astonished at the Pandora’s box of personal information. At the time Owens could not work out why the newspapers had such a fascination with phone numbers. Of course journalists may want to get in contact with someone who is the subject, or the source, of the story. But there were far too many numbers just for that. And the numbers often included all those close to the subject of the story – their partner, their children, their close friends, the people they worked with.

Owens did not pursue this because – according to the evidence he gave under oath at Leveson – he was discouraged from doing so by his bosses. “We can't take them on,” Owens reported ICO Deputy Commissioner Francis Aldhouse saying, “they're too big for us”. By his account, he therefore could not question journalists as to why they had acquired friends and family numbers. Those who ran the ICO at the time, including Mr Aldhouse, firmly deny that this was the position.

Then the phone hacking scandal blew up, and some of the names coming out started to match up. Dozens of the people whose personal details were in Whittamore’s files had, it appeared, had their phones hacked. Not only that, but their parents, their partners, their friends, and their colleagues had often also been hacked. A light bulb clicked on in Owens’ head. That’s it, he thought, that’s what they needed all the numbers for.

As Owens says when questioned by Robert Jay QC at the Inquiry on Wednesday, November 30:Robert Jay QC:You tell us in 5.2 [of your written evidence] you read about Glenn Mulcaire's arrest which we know took place on 8 August 2006. You say you certainly never associated it with Operation Motorman. Do you now associate it in some way with Operation Motorman, Mr Owens?Alec Owens:Yes.Robert Jay QC:And why?Alec Owens:Basically, at the time one of the burning questions was, especially for the ex-directory mobile phone numbers, what could all these journalists want it for? You're talking about thousands and thousands of telephone ex-directory numbers. And essentially I -- well, I can say, an awful lot of the names of the victims that are coming up in hacking are in Operation Motorman, Steve Whittamore's books. An awful lot. And my personal feeling was Steve Whittamore was gathering the numbers -- he wasn't hacking, he was definitely not into hacking, we found no evidence of that. But he was then passing them to the papers and possibly those numbers were being passed to people who hacked. I mean the names of people like Milly Dowler, the numbers, ex-directory numbers, that sort of thing, and it wasn't just an occasional one. There were dozens of them, of the names that have now come out in the hacking Inquiry.Robert Jay QC:I should ask this question: did you see reference to the Dowlers' ex-directory numbers in the Operation Motorman material?Alec Owens:Yes.(Oral Evidence, November 30, 2011)So, according to Owens, dozens of the phone hacking names match up with the Motorman names. Even the Dowlers’ ex-directory numbers are in the Motorman files.

We do not know what these numbers were used for, or if they were ever called. But, at the very least, the Leveson Inquiry needs to find out if Owens was right. Were any of these phone numbers acquired illegally so they could be hacked? If so, were other newspapers involved in hacking? If not, why were all those phone numbers being bought – at considerable expense – and what were they used for?

To find out the Inquiry has to ask the journalists who commissioned Whittamore to acquire these ex-directory, mobile, and friends and family numbers. But it cannot ask the journalists without knowing who they are. To do this it has to open the Motorman Files. So open the Motorman Files.*If you agree that the Motorman file should be redacted and published as a matter of priority, please write to the Leveson inquiry saying so. The address is:generalenquiries@levesoninquiry.org.uk. Please copy your email to the Information Commissioner’s Office: internalcompliancedept@ico.gsi.gov.uk.

What are the arguments against publication? First, let us dispense with the weakest: that this database is so vast that redacting it for publication is too much work. Not so. The Information Commissioner’s Office itself has estimated that the job would take between 15 and 30 staff days (see par 483).

Next is the argument that, because newspapers say they have stopped using Whittamore, Motorman is ancient history and thus irrelevant to the inquiry. There is an inconsistency here: nobody publicly suggests that journalists are still hacking mobile phone voicemails and yet that is clearly relevant.

In fact, the cases of Steve Whittamore and the hacker Glenn Mulcaire are remarkably similar. Mulcaire was arrested in 2006 and it is clear he began hacking in 2002 or earlier – when Whittamore’s business was at its peak. Both investigators worked closely with newsdesks to penetrate the privacy of large numbers of people by illegal means. Yet Mulcaire’s journalist clients are subject to rigorous criminal investigation while the identity of Whittamore’s journalist clients is being officially protected.

It might be argued that to publish the full list of journalists’ names would unfairly lump the innocent in with the guilty. Reporters and editors who never did more than pay Whittamore to consult an open, public database will appear alongside those who asked him for people’s criminal records.

There may be embarrassment for some journalists, but remember there is no danger of prosecution here. What matters most, as with phone hacking, is that the scale and character of the scandal is fully understood and that today’s editors and news executives, some of whom have insisted that they and their papers never broke the law, should be subject to informed public scrutiny. This is very similar to the justification for publishing all of the data on MPs’ expenses, even though only a minority of MPs had broken the law.

Finally, while it is vital that victims’ identities should be redacted from the files (they should be identified only in classes, such as ‘a television presenter’, ‘a victim of crime’, ‘a police officer’ etc) it is equally vital that victims should be informed of what happened. This process – which is a matter of right – is under way in the hacking scandal; it is even more overdue in the Motorman affair and should begin as soon as possible.*If you agree that the Motorman file should be redacted and published as a matter of priority, please write to the Leveson inquiry saying so. The address is:generalenquiries@levesoninquiry.org.uk. Please copy your email to the Information Commissioner’s Office: internalcompliancedept@ico.gsi.gov.uk.*Further reading about the Motorman/Whittamore file:Two reports by the Information Commissioner’s Office here and here.An investigation by the IndependentA 2009 report by the Guardian’s Nick DaviesBy the way, the following purports to include a redacted version of the spreadsheets. As you will see, it has been redacted to the point of meaninglessness.Brian Cathcart, a founder of Hacked Off, teaches journalism at Kingston University London. He tweets at @BrianCathcart

The Monday morning hearing began with Sir Paul Stephenson, former Met commissioner. He said the Met had developed a “fixed mindset and a defensive mindset” in 2009, when the original investigation was reviewed by Yates, and there was a flawed assumption that the original investigation was satisfactory. He added: “What we didn’t do is go back and challenge the reasons for those decisions in 2006. We didn’t go back and challenge the reasons why it was limited. Had that taken place we might have been in a better place. In so much as it felt like a successful investigation, the fact this did not feel a priority was a relevant factor in terms of using resources. I then go on to think we got ourselves hooked on a defensive strategy that we would not expend significant resources without new evidence.”

He argued that this was a “perfectly logical situation to be in”, provided that the assumption about the original success of the operation was correct.

In his written statement to the inquiry Sir Paul said Kit Malthouse, chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, had referred to hacking allegations as driven by a “level of hysteria” created by politicians and the media, and said the force should not be devoting further resources to Operation Weeting. In 2010, London Mayor Boris Johnson said phone hacking allegations had been substantially investigated and accused the Guardian and Labour party of whipping up the scandal to embarrass Andy Coulson, then David Cameron’s communications director.

The Guardian published the phone hacking allegations in 2009 but Operation Weeting was not launched until January 2011. Sir Paul said Yates had reassured him further investigation into the allegations was not needed. He said:“I continued to have intermittent discussions with AC Yates as the Guardian maintained its coverage on this issue. I continued to be reassured by him that there was nothing new in the allegations that would warrant the reopening of the investigation.”

The statement said a “scoping exercise” had been undertaken by Yates after fresh allegations were printed in the New York Times in 2010, and the Crown Prosecution Service were informed by his team there was “insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution”.

Sir Paul told the inquiry Yates was the natural officer to conduct a review of phone hacking evidence in 2009 but admitted Yates’ friendship with Neil Wallis, former News of the World deputy editor, may have appeared inappropriate in the context. Sir Paul was asked about his own links to Wallis, with whom he had met several times during his time as commissioner. He resigned last year after criticism for the hiring of Wallis as a consultant to the Met’s press office in 2009.

He told the inquiry he was not aware Wallis was a person of interest in the investigation until April 2011 and said he regretted entering into a contract with the former News of the World employee. He said it would have been “clumsy” to meet with Wallis after his name was associated with hacking.

The former commissioner had also come under fire for an extended stay at Champneys in Hertfordshire following an operation, after it was revealed the public relations company run by Wallis had been hired by the luxury brand two months before his visit. He maintains he was not aware of the connection before or during his recovery at the spa.

Sir Paul’s hospitality register, shown to the inquiry, recorded a significant number of meetings with national newspaper editors and journalists during his time as commissioner, including a 2009 dinner with Yates, Wallis and the Met’s head of press Dick Fedorcio. He said he sometimes personally paid for drinks with press as he was uncomfortable with the idea of billing the public purse for alcohol.

During the afternoon hearing the inquiry heard from Dame Elizabeth Filkin, former parliamentary commissioner for standards and author of The Filkin Report, otherwise known as ‘The ethical issues arising from the relationship between police and media’, and Roger Baker and Her Majesty’s inspectorate for the northern region and a former chief constable in the Essex police forceDame Elizabeth, whose report was published in January this year, said lower ranking members of staff within the Met saw complimentary gifts from the press, including tickets to expensive sports events, as excessive. She added:“Many of the police officers and staff were obviously highly shocked at the amount of hospitality that the senior people appeared to be receiving… many of the lower ranks felt people were ‘filling their boots’ and that was a very general view. From what people had seen from the publication of the registers, most of the people that I spoke to within the Met felt that people had been receiving excessive hospitality.”

Lord Justice Leveson told her:“The great advantage of the work you’ve done is that it rather foreshadows some of what I have to do, and therefore it would be perfectly in order, would it, for me to use what’s been said to you for the purposes of the inquiry.”

Dame Elizabeth spoke to police, staff, politicians and journalists, and told the inquiry she exercised her own judgment on whether what she was being told was reliable. She went on to highlight several issues, including the favouring of some journalists and newspapers by the Directorate of Public Affairs, which would offer stories to certain reporters to keep others out of the press, and said transparency should be a priority for the Met in dealing with the media.Roger Baker told the inquiry that as chief constable, he never accepted anything more than tea, coffee or water from members of the press, saying he regarded meetings with the media as “on duty”. He added:“It makes me sound extremely dull… I didn’t need to be in a more convivial environment – we just got on and did business. In truth, there was never occasion to do that. I always found tea, coffee or water suffices.”

Baker said he recognised an “intensity” at the Met, due to the size of the force and it being on the doorstep of the national media. He advocated for more clarity in the relationship between police officers and journalists, and said off-the-record briefings should be limited and recorded in order to safeguard the public. He added:“There needs to be a real clarity on what is appropriate and what isn’t. If no clarity on rules, you can’t regulate.”

The inquiry heard the HMIC team compiling the ‘Without Fear or Favour’ report, headed by Baker, spoke to officers involved in Operations Elveden and Weeting, but did not want to interfere with current investigations.

On Tuesday, the morning hearing began with evidence from Lord Condon, commissioner from 1993 to 2000, who said his professional relationship with the media was a significant part of his role and would at times completely dominate his life. He said:“For every waking minute I was on duty, that relationship with the media would be the single thing that would be dominating my life. Major terrorism event in London, there would be an insatiable demand for the commissioner of the day to be saying things about it, to be reassuring the public, to be giving information…Rightly or wrongly, the commissioner is seen as the voice of the police force.”

In his written statement, Lord Condon described hospitality as “the start of a grooming process that can lead to inappropriate or unethical behaviour”. He told the inquiry he had preferred to meet journalists and editors on police premises, but would occasionally agree to visit media offices or restaurants. He said he remembered a meal with Stuart Higgins, then editor of the Sun, and had agreed to meet Max Hastings for lunch as he “always moaned about the quality of food at Scotland Yard”.Lord Condon was responsible for introducing hospitality registers for the Met in 1998 and said it seemed to be “a sensible stepping stone in encouraging good behaviour”. He added:“It seemed sensible to give some pretty clear steer around hospitality, gifts, hospitality registers. Every meeting with the press that involves hospitality should be able to pass what some people have described as the blush test: would you be happy for a local politician, a neighbour, a member of your family [to be present] – does this meeting feel right?”

The former commissioner told the inquiry he declined several offers to write an autobiography or become a media commentator after retiring from the force, as it would have taken him out of his “comfort zone”. He added:“Having spent my career majoring on integrity, independence, being apolitical, it just seemed I would have to take decisions to be partial or be drawn into favouring one group over another.”

Lord Condon said police corruption in relation to the media was not a matter of concern when he began as commissioner and he had been disappointed by some of the issues leading to the inquiry. He told Lord Justice Leveson police corruption is cyclical, following a pattern of inquiry, remedial action, relaxation and complacency before the next scandal. He added: “It’s about human weakness and opportunity and those two are omnipresent.”

The inquiry also heard from former Met commissioner Lord Stevens. He was pressed by inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC on how he would have responded to the allegations printed in the Guardian in 2009. Lord Stevens said he would have gone where the investigation took him. He added:“I’d have gone on and done it. That’s what police officers are paid to do, to enforce the law… I would like to have thought the issues that the Guardian raised I would have picked up as commissioner. I think I would have been quite ruthless in pursuing it.”

Like other senior Met figures, Lord Stevens was questioned over his relationship with Neil Wallis, which he called “totally professional”. The former commissioner’s autobiography was serialised in News of the World and led to him writing several articles over a two year period in a column called ‘The Chief’, edited by Wallis. He was paid £5,000 for seven articles in the first year before his fee was upped £7,000 for the second. Lord Stevens said he lost most of the money after the Northern Rock bank collapsed and terminated the contract following the convictions of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, for hacking voicemails of the royal household, in 2007. He said he heard further information about “unethical behaviour” relating to News of the World headlines. He added: “I would never have written the articles if I had known what I know now.”

Lord Steven’s hospitality register had not been recovered from Met records but his diary, made available to the inquiry, showed frequent meetings with editors and journalists with national newspapers between 2000 and 2003. He said he had been determined not to favour any newspaper group.

Lord Stevens was questioned over three lunches with Rebekah Brooks, then Wade, and former husband Ross Kemp at the Ivy in 2002. Stevens said they had been meetings regarding his charity, and that separate meals with Wallis and their wives was in regard to the same charity. He added:“Ross Kemp very kindly agreed to front an evening in which we were going to get charitable donations. My wife was at two of these and on one of those occasions I personally paid at the Ivy.”

The diary also showed several meetings with editors including Paul Dacre and Max Hastings. He said other meetings with Rebekah Brooks related to Sarah’s Law, a campaign run by the Sun following the murder of Sarah Payne.

During the afternoon hearing Chief Constable Lynne Owens, a former Met assistant commissioner currently at Surrey Police, said she refused to meet members of the media outside of Scotland Yard and that journalists found it strange that she would not meet them for lunch or in a social setting.

She said she would not drink with journalists as there would be an expectation she would say something indiscreet, and said she found it “abhorrent” that officers could leak inappropriate information to the press. She added:“The fact that people would be prepared to release that data is frankly beyond me and I don’t believe people like that should be in the police service.”

Rober Jay QC asked the chief constable about her written statement, in which she claimed details of an investigation into a crime squad had been leaked to the media. It was not clear whether the information had come from the officers in question, someone else in the Met, or the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Owens said she had off-the-record conversations with journalists around the royal wedding, on the understanding information could be published after a certain time when it was no longer sensitive. She said:“There’s a balance at needs to be struck because it is clearly very important that the media have access to accurate, timely information because that does inform the public, and is therefore the heart of public confidence…It’s difficult to get balanced and measured responses from the media. The sensational and the exciting are the stories that tend to hit the headlines.”

The Wednesday morning hearing began with evidence from former commissioner Lord Blair, who admitted the Met could have taken a different approach to phone hacking allegations at the News of the World. The former commissioner, in charge of the force from 2005 to 2008, said the then deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke took a reasonable decision not to continue with the investigation following the arrests of News of the World journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire in 2006, but that a different approach could have been taken.

He told the Leveson Inquiry he was informed in 2006 his phone number appeared in Mulcaire’s notebook. He said:“I see the reasonableness of [Clarke’s] decision but it would have been possible to make a different decision which would have to escalate it up to those parts of the organisation who could take a different decision. I didn’t ask the question which now looks so obvious, as to how many other [potential phone hacking victims] there were.”

Lord Blair said he did not understand why then assistant commissioner John Yates“made the decision at the speed that he did” not to reopen the hacking investigation following further allegations printed in the Guardian in 2009. He added: “From what I can see, that decision was just too quick. Why could you not have gone back with all those allegations and looked further at what the material did actually say?”

Lord Blair told the inquiry he had no recollection of being asked to give authority for the loaning of a police horse to Rebekah Brooks in 2008 and it was “not a big deal”. He said the Met’s head of press Dick Fedorcio, due to give evidence to the inquiry next week, maintains Lord Blair discussed the matter with Brooks over a lunch on the same day Fedorcio set up a meeting for Brooks to arrange the loan. He added:“What I understand Mr Fedorcio will say is that he was telephoned by Rebekah Brooks asking about this arrangement… and that then he arranged for her to go down and see the inspector in charge of horses and then have a discussion about it and this actually seems to have happened on the day that I had lunch with her, and what I understand Mr Fedorcio is going to say is that this was discussed at the lunch. I have absolutely no recollection of that.”

His diary showed four recorded meetings with Rebekah Brooks: a phone call in 2005, a meeting in 2006, a lunch in 2007 and an exchange after the Sun ran the headline “Blair is doomed”. A lunch with News International’s Les Hinton in 2006 and a lunch with News of the World editor Colin Myler, deputy editor Neil Wallis and Fedorcio in 2007 were also shown. Blair said he met the Crime Reporters Association once a month and had one-to-one interviews with journalists once every two months. He added:“I didn’t have any dinners at all with editors or journalists with an exception with one friend who was a friend before I became commissioner, which was entirely social.”

Lord Blair said staff spent too much time worrying about press coverage and felt the Met management board should have less contact with the media, adding too many meetings with journalists were “unrecorded and unnecessary”.He named former assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who gave evidence to the inquiry last week, as an officer investigated in 2007 after information about a conspiracy to kidnap and behead a Muslim soldier was leaked to the media. Blair said telephone records showed a “high volume of traffic” on Hayman’s phone to journalists.

The inquiry then heard from Bob Quick former assistant commissioner at the Met, who said he came under scrutiny from the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday after heading an investigation into then shadow immigration minster Damian Green. He said the investigation revealed Green had been leaked confidential information from senior civil servant Christopher Galley and was “perfectly legitimate”. Despite this, he received little support from the Met and was criticised in the press for his approach.

A wedding care hire business run by Quick’s wife became then became the target for a series of Mail on Sunday articles. The former officer said he became aware of the situation after a client contacted his wife to say a journalist had been enquiring about the business. The paper then contacted Dick Fedorcio to say they were running a story claiming serving police officers were working for the business as chauffeurs. When Quick replied saying this was untrue, a different story was printed claiming the business posed a security risk, as he was responsible for counter terrorism. He told the inquiry: “I felt that I ought to ask for the [Met’s] support but I didn’t feel, honestly, that it was forthcoming.”

He said he was surprised when former assistant commissioner John Yates told him the inquiry was “doomed” and advised him to drop it, and was concerned that Yates had been close with Mail journalist Stephen Wright. He added:“We had just seized a load of evidence that we hadn’t the opportunity to examine yet… it didn’t seem a tenable argument.”

Quick was responsible for an investigation into Yates’s contact with the media after Gus O’Donnell, former cabinet chief secretary, expressed concern over his dealings with the press. Quick said he did not believe there had been any leaks but recommended the assistant commissioner’s phone records be audited. Yates refused, saying he was too well connected. He repeated he was “very well connected” when pressed by the officer.

Quick was asked about Operation Nigeria, a police investigation into detective agency Southern Investigations in 1999, which revealed corruption within the force. It was discovered a number of journalists, specifically from the Sun and News of the World, had contact with the agency. He said:“It became apparent that some officers were being bribed to provide stories. I took the view that was a threat to the organisation and compiled a short report proposing that we might deal with that by way of an investigation looking at financial transactions. In particular we believed journalists paying the bribes were not paying them from their own funds. Intelligence revealed payments of £500 to £2,000, therefore we believed they were claiming that money back from their employers.”

Quick submitted a report recommending an investigation into police corruption to assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who decided it would be too “risky” to continue. Quick said he disagreed with Hayman’s assessment but felt there was enough evidence to prove journalists had been bribing officers.

In the afternoon hearing, Tim Godwin, former deputy commissioner, told the inquiry he had “different values” to other senior officers at the Met, who frequently socialised with journalists and editors. He added:“We pretty much had common values about honesty and integrity. I think the difference would be that there was one style favoured by some members and another style, which was my style, where I didn’t feel comfortable in that environment.”

He said he had a conversation with Yates about his relationships with members of the press but did not realise the extent of his friendship with Neil Wallis until hearing evidence given to the inquiry.

Robert Jay QC did not question Godwin over his hospitality register as there was“nothing of interest” to examine. Lord Justice Leveson said this was significant in itself as it displayed a difference in approach between Godwin and some of his colleagues.

Godwin said he had limited contact with the media but would meet journalists in his office and attend events such as the Crime Reporters Association Christmas party.

Next week the inquiry will hear from Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick (MPS), Sir Dennis O’Connor (HM Inspectorate of Constabulary), Sara Cheesley (Senior Information Officer, MPS), Dick Fedorcio (Director of Communications, MPS), Jeff Edwards (Crime Reporters Association), Sandra Laville (Guardian), Paul Peachey, (Independent), Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas (Times), Mike Sullivan (The Sun) and Stephen Wright (Daily Mail).

This post has been cross-posted on the Inforrm website.