Downing Street Says » Phone Hacking

» Monday, January 24, 2011

Phone Hacking

On whether the Prime Minister agreed with Chris Huhne that the police needed to look again at the phone hacking allegations, the PMS said that the position was that the CPS were carrying out an assessment of the material held by the Met police. That process was underway and it was up to the CPS to make a decision based on their assessment.

Asked if the Prime Minister feared that his phone had been hacked into at some point, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister’s position was that if there were allegations of illegal behaviour, then those allegations needed to be taken very seriously. In all cases, it was a matter for the police and the CPS.

Put that Gordon Brown had contacted Scotland Yard and had yet to receive a response, the PMS said that it was not for him to get into specific aspects of this; if there were allegations of illegal behaviour, it would be a matter for the police.

On whether the Prime Minister thought that the police had investigated it seriously so far, the PMS replied that we wouldn’t comment on operational issues. There was a process underway, whereby the CPS were undertaking an assessment of the information held by the Met police and they would take a view at the end of that assessment.

Asked if he was suggesting that it was wrong for the Energy Secretary to comment on the issue, the PMS said he was not suggesting that. The Energy Secretary had spoken about this on a number of occasions and he had repeated what he had said in the past over the weekend.

Put that Paul Farrelly had asked the Justice Secretary whether an independent probe could be set up, the PMS replied that if there were complaints about the Met police, the first place that those complaints should be directed to was to the Commissioner of the Met police. The PMS said there was an established procedure. If the complaint was not dealt with in an appropriate way, the matter could be referred to the Metropolitan Police Authority.

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