SENIOR METROPOLITAN Police officers held dinners with News of the Worldexecutives as detectives were investigating allegations that the newspaper's reporters had illegally intercepted voicemail messages, it has emerged.
The news is yet another embarrassment for the Metropolitan Police, which has been accused by politicians, lawyers and others of failing properly to probe the conduct of the News International-owned Sunday tabloid.
A list of the contacts handed over to the Metropolitan Police details eight private dinners and five other occasions during which officers met with executives.
London Assembly leader Dee Doocey said: "I find it quite extraordinary that when allegations about illegal phone-hacking relating to the News of the World were still unresolved, that the Met commissioner thought it was appropriate to be regularly dining with the News of the World.
“Imagine the outcry there would be if the commissioner was seen dining with a member of the public who was the subject of a police investigation.”
One of the dinners in September 2006, between Metropolitan Police commissioner Paul Stephenson, his director of public affairs Dick Fedorcio and deputy editor Neil Wallis, took place just a month after the newspaper’s royal correspondent Clive Goodman had been arrested.
Detectives at the time were still investigating whether reporters besides Mr Goodman, who was jailed for four months in 2007, had illegally intercepted voicemails, with the help of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
In November 2009, assistant commissioner John Yates, who had decided four months earlier not to reopen the inquiry, dined with the newspaper’s new editor, Colin Myler, and crime editor Lucy Panton, who is married to a serving Scotland Yard detective.
Despite seizing files from Mr Mulcaire that indicated scores of other famous people had their voicemails intercepted, the Metropolitan Police never issued an order to force the tabloid to hand over all related documentation.
A new inquiry has now been launched following the sacking in January of assistant editor Ian Edmondson and News International’s declaration that it had found a series of e-mails showing that others were involved.
Labour MP Chris Bryant, who suspects his messages were intercepted, criticised Mr Stephenson: “What on earth was Stephenson thinking dining all the time with the editor of the NOTW?” he tweeted.
