Downing Street Says » Police Inquiry

Asked why Scotland Yard thought No10 were leaking details of emails to wreck their inquiry, the PMOS asked if Scotland Yard really thought that. The reporter responded by saying that the papers said so. The PMOS went on to say that suggestions that we leaked, or were trying to leak, this information, were just plain wrong, and that judgement was not based on his personal hunch, but because there were inaccuracies in reports that meant it could not have come from No.10. He added he could not get into what the inaccuracies were as the approach from No.10, all the way through, had been that we are against all leaks, all speculation. It was a police investigation that should just be allowed proceed. All the weekend had done was to illustrate precisely why the leaking in the past had been unhelpful, just as this leak had been unhelpful.

Asked if the PMOS was seriously suggesting that the Government did not leak, the PMOS said what he was seriously suggesting that on this issue that this leak did not come from No.10.

Asked if the PMOS was confident that it was the police who leaked the information, the PMOS said he did not know who leaked the information. There were people in the lobby briefing who he suspected did know but he did not and it would be wrong, in any way for him to speculate about who did.

Asked what the PMOS meant by no one in No.10, did that include everyone who works there, part and full time, the PMOS said that what it certainly included anybody who had any knowledge of this case.

Asked if the PMOS’s statement applied not just to the BBC leak but also the Sun’s email story this morning with similar content, the PMOS said it applied full stop to this story as a whole.

Asked if the email out there was accurate, the PMOS said that he would not get into what was inaccurate and what wasn’t in any way, but there were inaccuracies and there had been inaccuracies in the way the story was put to No.10.

Asked if the police had been in contact with the Prime Minister about the inquiry recently, the PMOS said no.

Asked to sum up the relationship between the No.10 and the Metropolitan Police, the PMOS said that there was an investigation going on, it was entirely proper the that that investigation went on. We were not getting into giving a running commentary on it. If this sounded familiar it was because it was, since that had been our line and our approach right from the start of this. At times it was very frustrating, but that’s life.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Monday, March 5, 2007

Police Inquiry

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries