Met Accept Failure To Warn Hacking Victims

The Met Police failed to warn the victims of phone hacking by the News of the World, a judicial review has ruled.

In a statement the police force said: "The MPS is pleased to have reached an agreement in this case and accepts more should have been done by police in relation to those identified as victims and potential victims of phone hacking several years ago.

"It is a matter of public record that the unprecedented increase in anti-terrorist investigations resulted in the parameters of the original inquiry being tightly drawn, and officers considered the prosecution and conviction of Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire as a successful outcome of their investigation."

The statement continued: "There are now more than 130 officers involved in the current phone-hacking inquiry (Weeting) and the two operations being run in conjunction with it and this in part reflects the lessons that have been learned about how police should deal with the victims of such crimes.

"Today's settlement does not entail damages being paid by the MPS and as the court has made clear, sets no precedent for the future. How the MPS treats victims goes to the very heart of what we do. It was important that this case did not result in such a wide duty being placed on police officers that it could direct them away from their core purpose of preventing and detecting crime"

Lord Prescott, who pushed for a review alongside Labour MP Chris Bryant, ex-Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick and two others, said: "I just wanted them to admit they weren't doing their job properly. In this country we expect police to get on with their job impartially, and they didn't in this case.

"It's taken me 19 months to finally get justice. Time and again I was told by the Metropolitan Police that I had not been targeted by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World. But I refused to accept this was the case.

"Thanks to this judicial review, the Metropolitan Police has finally apologised for its failure to properly investigate, and inform victims, of the criminal acts of phone hacking committed by the News of the World."

(GK)