A former intelligence officer has said the News of the World “jeopardised” the hunt for the Suffolk Strangler in 2006 by spying on the surveillance team leading the murder inquiry. Read the full story

Scotland Yard’s director of public affairs has defended his decision to hire a former deputy editor of the News of the World on a £1,000-a-day contract.

Dick Fedorcio denied rigging a tendering process when he took on Neil Wallis – who has since been arrested as part of the phone hacking investigation – as a Met consultant.

Fedorcio is currently being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over the move but he told the Leveson inquiry that his deputy was on sick leave and he needed an immediate replacement.

The Wallis revelation – exposed after his arrest – has already contributed to the resignations of the Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, and the assistant commissioner, John Yates.

Wallis had only recently set up his own business when he made a bid for the contract alongside public relations firms Bell Pottinger and Hanover. Fedorcio admitt that he’d wanted Wallis in the first place, before realising that the rules made a tendering process mandatory. Wallis’s company bid 50 per cent less than the two larger firms for the Met contract.

Leveson asked if the whole process had been “set up to get a result”, but Fedorcio said “it was not”.

The inquiry heard that Wallis had assured the Met that he was not implicated in the hacking scandal. The force was dismissing the revelations coming out of The Guardian during Wallis’s two-day per-week employment.

NoW reporter filed report on Met computer

Fedorcio admitted allowing a News of the World journalist to write an article from his office computer, giving him “advance sight” her story. He said he had organised “end-of-the-week meetings” with the redtop to give the Met more time to react to issues they wouldn’t usually hear about until Saturday afternoons.

Crime reporter Lucy Panton was under pressure to file her story about former police commander Ali Dizaei’s “reception” into prison, so Fedorcio “offered to let her type the story”. Panton also forwarded the story using his email, in which she pointed out it “would not be helpful for people to know” about the situation.

Fedorcio also denied favouring News International journalists when hiring staff, after it emerged that 12 in his press office had previously worked for the publisher. He said he met with tabloids more often than broadsheets because of their interest in salacious stories and their need for “detail” about operations.

(Source: MediaGuardian)

Picture taken by Flickr user bac888, shared under the creative commons licence.

A former Metropolitan police commissioner has said that police officers have become “scared” of speaking to journalists, warning that such a lack of transparency would gradually spread mistrust among the public. Read the full story

Davies highlights police ‘backlash’

Police have arrested two of its officers for speaking to reporters without permission as part of a “backlash” in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, according to Nick Davies.

The man who broke the story told Leveson there had been a “completely unjustifiable and unnecessary reaction” not just from the Met, which has been heavily criticised during the affair, but by all forces.

He warned that the police forces were threatening to curb any kind of unauthorised contact, saying that they would be able to control and monopolise all information being released. (Source: Press Gazette)

NoW surveillance ‘subverted’ murder inquiry

Former Crimewatch presenter Jaqui Hames believes she was placed under surveillance by the News of the World to subvert an investigation into the 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan. Morgan’s firm Southern Investigations, whose members included suspects in the killing, had “close links” to senior News of the World news editor Alex Marunchak, according to Hames.

She said in a statement to the inquiry: “I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation.”

Then-NoW editor Rebekah Brooks claimed the reason for the surveillance had been the suspicion that Hames was having an affair with detective chief superintendent Dave Cook – but the couple had been married for four years. Hames, herself a former Scotland Yard detective, said the surveillance had contributed to the end of her marriage, and criticised the police for failing to investigate NoW‘s actions. (Source: Press Gazette)

Jefferies says police leaks led to ‘open season’

Police have told Chris Jefferies that his name was “inadvertently” leaked to the press when he was a suspect in the case of murdered Bristol architect Joanna Yates, leading to “open season” against him in the tabloid media.

The former school teacher believes it confirms evidence given to the inquiry by Daily Mirror Richard Wallace, who said reporters had been given off-the-record guidance that Jefferies had been arrested. Wallace said police were confident that “Mr Jefferies was their man”.

Jefferies added: “Armed with confirmation of my name and, it appears, other information from the police… the media seemed to consider that there were no holds barred…” (Source: Press Gazette)

Rupert Murdoch has called on his staff to “deliver a great new dawn for the Sun” after News International announced that it will publish the first edition of the Sun on Sunday this weekend. Read the full story

A leading shareholder group has increased the pressure on News Corporation’s chief operating officer James Murdoch, by telling its members that his name is “inextricably linked” to the way the company has dealt with the phone hacking scandal. Read the full story

Self-styled tabloid nemesis Steve Coogan has insisted that his campaign against the press not been about money after accepting damages over phone hacking. Read the full story

The Metropolitan Police has given up on its year-long legal battle to defend itself against accusations of withholding information from phone hacking victims, after admitting it failed to tell them that their phones had been targeted. Read the full story