The Leveson Inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice was fairly low key this past week although on Monday,
fake sheikh Mazher Mahmood testified and, surprise surprise, he really is a Moslem, at least he swore on the
Holy Qur'an rather than on the
Bible. Although his evidence is available as an
audio file, his face was not shown. His most high profile recent investigation was that of the Pakistani cricketers who
sold their honour and paid the price.
Although interesting, Mahmood's testimony was predictably sanitised and self-serving. At one point he claimed it was impossible to entrap people to commit criminal offences. The wily Leveson was having none of it, and made a timely intervention.
Apart from Piers Morgan, most of the people on the witness list this week will be unknown to the general public. Previous better known faces include Harry Potter author
JK Rowling and singer-songwriter
Charlotte Church.
The Inquiry will soon be accepting submissions relating to the press and the police. This will be interesting if it covers police officers passing confidential information to journalists including journalists engaged in libel litigation, as did a certain Detective Sergeant Chainey in 1996 and almost certainly 3 years before that to
Gerry Gable. And the proof of the pudding...for the first time ever in public, can be found below:
In December 1996, a detective serving with the Metropolitan Police passed confidential information from a criminal investigation to a journalist who was then engaged in civil litigation. This is a scan from his witness statement.
DS Chainey's rhetoric is both amusing and self-serving, his allusion to “a number of evidential reasons” and “no realistic prospect ” of conviction means there was no evidence that a certain Alexander Baron had committed a criminal offence.
In December 1996, a detective serving with the Metropolitan Police passed confidential information from a criminal investigation to a journalist who was then engaged in civil litigation. This is a scan from his witness statement.
