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Ex-Met officer demands key Leveson probe role

Tom Harper
11 Jan 2012



A former Scotland Yard officer arrested over allegations of unauthorised leaks to a journalist has asked to play a key role in the judicial inquiry into press standards.

Ex-detective chief superintendent Dave Cook yesterday requested core participant status, which means he is able to cross-examine witnesses who appear before Lord Justice Leveson.

Mr Cook, 52, who returned to work as an investigator for the Serious Organised Crime Agency this week after six months off sick, is understood to have encountered "obscene corruption" while at the Met. A source close to the inquiry claimed he is due to give evidence to Leveson and could reveal the full scale of alleged wrongdoing he encountered at the force.

Mr Cook was questioned yesterday on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and bailed. The Independent Police Complaints Commission had been passed information by Met detectives from Operation Elveden, investigating alleged payments to police officers by newspapers.

In 2002, Mr Cook led a Met investigation into the axe murder of private eye Daniel Morgan in Sydenham 25 years ago. Main suspects included Met officers and private investigators who also worked for the News of the World. The investigation collapsed last year amid criticism of police evidence.

Soon after Mr Cook made a fresh appeal about the case on Crimewatch in June 2002, he discovered he was under surveillance by men working for the defunct Sunday tabloid.

Mr Cook, whose phone was hacked by the NoW, challenged then editor Rebekah Brooks in December 2002. She admitted the paper had been following him but claimed it was investigating whether he was having an affair with Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames. However, it was well-known the pair were married.

Today, a friend said of the leak allegations: "I believe this arrest is a measure to quieten him down ahead of his involvement in the Leveson inquiry. He knows where all the bodies are buried. This is an attempt to blacken his name."


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There are similarities to Amaral....Efforts to blacken his name when he is to give evidence in good faith to show the truth

benfentonBen Fenton

Richard Desmond leads Express/Star team at #leveson Will be asked why not in PCC and why fixated on Madeleine McCann #Desmond will be last

36 minutes



BBCNewsBBC News (UK)

Daily Express and Daily Star owner Richard Desmond to give evidence to #Leveson Inquiry. Follow #BBC's @rosschawkins [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

1 hour

»






gordonraynerGordon Rayner





Whittow: PCC should have reined in press over McCanns. 'Nobody was intervening so the story went on and on and on.' #Leveson #hacking

6 minutes ago




njbennettNick Bennett

@JBLittlemore Yes, unsettling to see a UK judge apparently toing the McCanns' line so overtly. Does not bode well. #McCann #Leveson

6 minutes ago










Skyman64Ian Woods

Whittow supports decision to withdraw paper from PCC. Says nobody from PCC was intervening on the McCanns story. They should have. #Leveson

8 minutes ago

This made me titter - or should I say twitter

YG_MitchellY.G. Mitchell

are witnesses at #Leveson being called in descending order of intelligence?

6 minutes ago




No wonder we are still waiting for certain people

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Written by someone who worked with David Cook.
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Sometimes we meet people in our lives who impress us immediately with their personality, their honesty and their integrity. Many former colleagues happily fell into that category. Others are just s***s and you know that about as quickly. I don’t remember getting it badly wrong. It therefore came as a BIG surprise to find that the ex-police officer arrested by the IPCC is one of our former colleagues. (Met then Surrey then Met again.) I have to say I don’t think my very positive opinion of him is wrong. What makes me very concerned is he was arrested after he offered to testify. See for yourself.

By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, January 11, 2:57 PM

LONDON — A person familiar with the situation says a former British police detective was arrested the same day he offered to testify about police corruption linked to Britain’s phone hacking scandal.

David Cook was arrested at his home outside London on Tuesday and questioned at a police station. He had offered to speak before the U.K. inquiry on media ethics.

The source spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on Cook’s behalf.

Britain’s police watchdog said there was no link between the arrest and Cook’s offer to testify. A media inquiry spokesman declined to comment.

Cook unsuccessfully re-investigated a notorious 1987 murder amid allegations that police corruption had sabotaged the probe.

When people in power and close to News International are invited to see detectives it is even more concerning that David was arrested at his home. No courtesy there then for an experienced detective with numerous commendations.

More reading makes me even more uncomfortable. Whilst investigating this murder David was subject to intrusive surveillance by NoTW (NI) journalists and Mulclaire working for NI. He was followed taking one of his children to nursery and it was found the vans following him were leased by the NoTW – the Met did nothing. His personal details were obtained by Mulclaire including addresses and mobile phone numbers and even payroll details. It is understood that no arrests or charges were made relating to that.

The tabloid allegedly claimed that it was investigating whether or not Dave Cook was having an affair with Jacqui Hames, a co-presenter on Crimewatch, to whom he was actually married at the time. All this whilst Dave was investigating the murder of Mr Morgan was the subject of a long-running and complex investigation.

Thousands of lines of inquiry were pursued and over three quarters of a million documents examined.

No-one was brought to justice despite five police inquiries and three years of legal hearings, estimated to have cost around £30 million.

Five people were arrested in 2008 but two, including a former detective accused of perverting justice, were discharged after a string of supergrasses were discredited.

In March this year, Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, a senior Scotland Yard detective, apologised to Mr Morgan’s family after the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case against the remaining three suspects, admitting that police corruption was a “debilitating factor”.

Now go back to the headline. If Dave Cook is corrupt I will eat my hat. If he is, like anyone else he should be punished. It does not make sense to me. It simply strikes me that the Met, in handing it to the IPCC found it too hot to handle given Davids intention of lifting the lid on corruption. If David, having gone through all he has at the hands of the press has spoken to a reporter he trusts, and there can’t be many he does trust, then he did so because he probably has no faith in his former colleagues in the Met.

I know I am an ex-cop and I do not wish to think badly of former colleagues and sadly some have let us down. I can’t help thinking that this will run on and on and the public will lose faith with policing especially the Met.

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5 Responses to UK detective arrested after he offered to testify about corruption, person close to case says

1. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Dick Grundy says:
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   Kevin, I can only but agree with your sentiments. He was an upfront and to me, honest policeman and after what he had to put up from the press this whole thing stinks.
   
   
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2. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] says:
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   Bizarre in the extreme. This explains the post I put up at -- [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
   
   Whilst you have briefly mentioned it Kevin, here is fuller excerpt from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] which is enlightening to say the least:-
   
   A Guardian investigation suggests that surveillance of Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook involved the News of the World physically following him and his young children, “blagging” his personal details from police databases, attempting to access his voicemail and that of his wife, and possibly sending a “Trojan horse” email in an attempt to steal information from his computer.
   
   The targeting of Cook began following his appearance on BBC Crimewatch on 26 June 2002, when he appealed for information to solve the murder of Morgan, who had been found dead in south London 15 years earlier. Rees and Fillery were among the suspects. The following day, Cook was warned by the Yard that they had picked up intelligence that Fillery had been in touch with Marunchak and that Marunchak agreed to “sort Cook out”.
   
   A few days later, Cook was contacted by Surrey police, where he had worked as a senior detective from 1996 to 2001, and was told that somebody claiming to work for the Inland Revenue had contacted their finance department, asking for Cook’s home address so that they could send him a cheque with a tax refund. The finance department had been suspicious and refused to give out the information.
   
   It is now known that at that time, the News of the World’s investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, succeeded in obtaining Cook’s home address, his internal payroll number at the Metropolitan police, his date of birth and figures for the amount that he and his wife were paying for their mortgage. All of this appears to have been blagged by Mulcaire from confidential databases, apparently including the Met’s own records.
   
   Mulcaire obtained the mobile phone number for Cook’s wife and the password she used for her mobile phone account.
   
   Paperwork in the possession of the Yard’s Operation Weeting is believed to show that Mulcaire did this on the instructions of Greg Miskiw, the paper’s assistant editor and a close friend of Marunchak.
   
   About a week later, a van was seen parked outside Cook’s home. The following day, two vans were seen there. Both of them attempted to follow Cook as he took his two-year-old son to nursery. Cook alerted Scotland Yard, who sent a uniformed officer to stop one of the vans on the grounds that its rear brake light was broken. The driver proved to be a photojournalist working for the News of the World. Both vans were leased to the paper. During the same week, there were signs of an attempt to open letters which had been left in Cook’s external postbox.
   
   Scotland Yard chose not to mount a formal inquiry. Instead a senior press officer contacted Brooks to ask for an explanation. She is understood to have told them they were investigating a report that Cook was having an affair with another officer, Jacqui Hames, the presenter of BBC Crimewatch. Yard sources say they rejected this explanation, because Cook had been married to Hames for some years; the couple had two children, then aged two and five; and they had previously appeared together as a married couple in published stories.”The story was complete rubbish,” according to one source.
   
   For four months, the Yard took no action, raising questions about whether they were willing to pursue what appeared to be an attempt to interfere with a murder inquiry. However, in November 2002, at a press social event at Scotland Yard, Brooks was asked to come into a side room for a meeting. She was confronted by Cook, his boss, Commander Andre Baker, and Dick Fedorcio, the head of media relations. According to a Yard source, Cook described the surveillance on his home and the apparent involvement of Marunchak, and evidence of Marunchak’s suspect financial relationship with Rees. Brooks is said to have defended Marunchak on the grounds that he did his job well.
   
   Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Fedorcio, who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World. In March Marunchak was named by BBC Panorama as the News of the World executive who hired a specialist to plant a Trojan on the computer of a former British intelligence officer, Ian Hurst.
   
   Rees and Fillery were eventually arrested and charged in relation to the murder of Morgan. Charges against both men were later dropped, although Rees was convicted of plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that her ex-husband would get custody of their children, and Fillery was convicted of possessing indecent images of children.
   
   Cook and his wife are believed to be preparing a legal action against the News of the World, Marunchak, Miskiw and Mulcaire. Operation Weeting is also understood to be investigating.
   
   Similar reports appeared the same month in several daily papers [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
   
   And read this post from the brother of the murdered man -- [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
   
   
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3. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Dick Grundy says:
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   Makes you wonder whether or not Weeting and/or the IPCC have been compromised in some way.
   
   
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   • [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Kevin Morris says:
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     It does indeed and “stink” is about the politest thing I could say!
     
     
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[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Loki says:
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Just so I understand this. The persons actually suspected of being involved in paying officers, interfering with phones etc are “invited in for interview” at a time and nick of choice whilst someone who was one of their victims AND offering to assist is arrested at H/A and undergoes the full custody treatment?

Hmmmmmmmmmm? Doesn’t sound that fair or unbiased.


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@ProfilerPatB
PAT BROWN
Please do not believe those spreading rumors I am backing out of going to Portugal next month. I will be there and I will search. #McCann

@Cerebralis
Cerebralis
JATYK common sense 'Cabrita advised Amaral to settle for about half of what was being asked' So #mccann tried to settle out of court then!

@ProfilerPatB
PAT BROWN
Why are the #McCann s complaining their fund is low on money? They now have the best investigators in the world for free! #stopaskingforcash

@ProfilerPatB
PAT BROWN
The #McCann s should not need much money now, especially since Scotland Yard is (mis)using the taxpayer's money to follow up on 8 new leads!

Rebekah Brooks becomes a mother. See Bell Pottinger acting as her PR.

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I haven't read the article. I just looked at the photograph. I have a little problem that perhaps can be resolved. It's a bee in my bonnet if you like. So help me out here all the mums on this forum. When you pick up a baby which side of your body do you hold it to? Regardless of whether we are right or left handed, a mother IMO holds a baby in her left arm (the one nearest her heart). I have seen so many photographs of celebs recently who hold their babies in their right arm (perhaps that's for photo-shoot reasons who knows) but it doesn't seem natural to me. Tell me if it's just me with these thoughts.

aquila wrote:I haven't read the article. I just looked at the photograph. I have a little problem that perhaps can be resolved. It's a bee in my bonnet if you like. So help me out here all the mums on this forum. When you pick up a baby which side of your body do you hold it to? Regardless of whether we are right or left handed, a mother IMO holds a baby in her left arm (the one nearest her heart). I have seen so many photographs of celebs recently who hold their babies in their right arm (perhaps that's for photo-shoot reasons who knows) but it doesn't seem natural to me. Tell me if it's just me with these thoughts.

My mother-in-law had a bee in her bonnet about this too. I held mine in my right arm, I think because I felt more stable that way. She insisted it was wrong :-D

Off topic, but interesting question.. I am lefthanded, and have always carried my babies on my right arm. It made me feel more secure i guess to have my more agile arm free to protect/hold onto something in case i fell, and to pick up stuff/do stuff for the baby. Your heart is practically in the middle of your chest anyway..
I also read it has to do with which eye is dominant for viewing up close.

Left-handed and held baby in right arm. It's the logical thing to do, so that your left hand is free to give bottles, etc.

Thank you for for the posts and taking the bee out of my bonnet (I am very grateful for that). I too am left handed. So, enough of my question and back to the article. Sorry for the interruption.

skymartinbruntmartinbrunt

#policebribes Twelve suspects now been arrested over police bribes allegations which stem from NOW phone hacking investigation

34 minutes ago




skymartinbruntmartinbrunt

#policebribes Scot Yard getting sensitive. Insist arrests not attempt to force hacks to reveal sources on legitimate stories

39 minutes ago



skymartinbruntmartinbrunt

#policebribes One man, 29, is a police officer, three others arrested thought to be journalists. Cops searching News International offices

46 minutes ago




skymartinbruntmartinbrunt

Four men arrested by Scot Yard in police/journalist bribes investigation

Leveson Inquiry - Sir Christopher Meyer


benfenton Ben Fenton
If McCanns don't want intervention, "you can't do it. It is as simple as that, Mr Jay...You must respect complainants' wishes." #leveson
5 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply .



rosschawkinsRoss Hawkins

Meyer at #leveson : treatment of McCanns was abominable but doesn't need big inquiry or systematic review to see it

34 minutes ago



rosschawkinsRoss Hawkins





Meyer at #leveson : did say Gerry McCann was right to sue Express titles, didn't advise him to sue, said this on #R4PM interview

30 minutes ago



skymarkwhiteMark White

Don't think I've seen a more combative (some would say arrogant) witness than the former PCC Chair, Sir Chirstopher Meyer #Leveson

30 minutes

hackinginquiryHacked off

Meyer: we made particular efforts with the McCanns to make ourselves available #leveson

53 minutes ago

Selkie T Portilho-Shrimpton

Meyer said to G McCann: "If you want damages, if it comes to that, we do not do money, the courts do money, so you'll have to make a choice"

Skyman64Ian Woods

Edmondson evidence on McCann diary contradicts that given to #Leveson by editor Colin Myler.

4 minutes ago

******************

carricknowDawn M

So who's lying then re #mccann diary? Myler or Edmondson? #Leveson

5 minutes ago

************************************

benfentonBen Fenton

[ I wonder if Myler will be recalled. Edmondson contradicted his evidence on the McCann diary. #leveson]

5 minutes ago

It's a shame we will have to wait until tomorrow for the transcript, as I would love to know what he said.

matt prodger‏@MattProdgerReply

Guardian's Nick Davies of #phonehacking investigation fame says details will emerge of TV news networks engaging in practice #notw #leveson




Ian Puddick‏@ianpuddickReply

@afneil PSB LAW LLP #murdochs lawyers trying to get Monday's BBC #Panorama banned #publicinterest #policecorruptionhttp://goo.gl/VCNTP


nick tolhurst‏@nicktolhurstReply

Talk that BBC #Panorama Monday on #Murdoch will contain shocking new scandal on Newscorp involving #police, ileagal behaviour & #corruption

Just a heads up for 2 good Panorama programmes to watch


Tonight revelations about Murdoch and pay TV ( I presume they mean Sky) Repeated on Thursday

And Thursday new revelations about the Derwani case.


This week

• 
  Mon 26 Mar
  
  
  
  
  
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    • 20:30 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
      
    
    
    
    
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
    
    
    Fresh hacking allegations striking at the heart of News Corp's pay-TV empire are revealed.
    
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]: 26 Mar 2012
    
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• 
  Thu 29 Mar
  
  
  
  
  
  • 
    
    
    
    • 04:30 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
      
    
    
    
    
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
    
    
    Fresh hacking allegations striking at the heart of News Corp's pay-TV empire are revealed.
    
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]: 26 Mar 2012
    
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
    
  • 
    
    
    
    • 21:00 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
      
    
    
    
    
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
    
    
    Panorama special examining in detail the hours leading up to the death of Anni Dewani.
    
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]: 29 Mar 2012
    
  
  

Tim [email=Gatt‏@TimGattITV]Gatt‏@TimGattITV[/email]
IPCC: Dick Fedorcio resigns as Met Police Service Director of Public Affairs

Sean O'Neill‏@TimesCrime
Dick Fedorcio's resignation from Yard means he cannot face gross misconduct allegations over hiring of ex-NotW man Neil Wallis

Leveson inquiry: ex-police chief defends not preventing false McCann DNA reports

Matthew Baggott says it was correct 'not to put the record straight' over false reports about Madeleine McCann case.

Lisa O'Carroll
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 March 2012 18.40 BST

The UK police were right not to "put the record straight" over false reports claiming Gerry and Kate McCann were implicated in their daughter's disappearance, the Leveson inquiry has heard.

Matthew Baggott, the former chief constable of Leicestershire police, told the inquiry on Wednesday he could not have released information about DNA tests conducted in the UK to counter leaks by the Portuguese police that falsely claimed they showed the McCanns had hidden Madeleine in the boot of a hire car in Portugal.

Baggott said there were both legal and professional reasons for this. Portuguese secrecy laws made it "utterly wrong to have somehow, in an off-the-record way, have breached what was a very clear legal requirement upon the Portuguese themselves", he told Lord Justice Leveson.

He also said the Leicestershire force's priority was to maintain a positive relationship with the Portuguese police, with a view to "eventually ... resolving what happened to that poor child".

Last November the Leveson inquiry heard how the Daily Express reported there was DNA evidence that could show the little girl's body had been stored in the spare tyre well of a hire car.

It turned out the analysis conducted in the UK was "inconclusive" and there was no foundation for making that allegation. Express Newspapers paid £550,000 damages to the McCann's in 2008 for inaccurate reporting by the Daily Express and the publisher's three other titles.

Leveson asked Baggot about evidence submitted by a Daily Star crime reporter two weeks ago that the Leicestershire police "knew perfectly well that the results didn't demonstrate that", and could have given off-the-record briefings to British journalists not to report a DNA link.
"Even with the benefit of hindsight, sir, I'm still convinced we did the right thing and I think integrity and confidence, particularly with the Portuguese, featured very highly in our decision-making at that time," said Baggott.

He added: "So the relationship of trust and confidence would have been undermined if we had gone off the record in some way or tried to put the record straight, contrary to the way in which the Portuguese law was configured and their own leadership of that."

When they appeared before Leveson late last year, Gerry and Kate McCann told how they were left distraught by false claims in the UK press that they were responsible for their daughter's disappearance or her death.

Leveson later accused the Daily Express of writing "complete piffle" and "tittle tattle" about Madeleine McCann.

Thanks russiandoll, already thread here on the topic you posted.........

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sorry doubled up, please delete my post.

Tweet from the polictical editor of the Guardian..........

Patrick Wintour‏@patrickwintour


Cameron expects to give evidence to Leveson inquiry along with other senior politicians - PM spokesman. No date set

Nigel Smith‏@nigelpwsmith

@StevenNott I feel the DPP may be very busy soon. They need to hear from the Murdochs first. #Leveson


Retweeted by Steven Nott
In reply to Steven Nott


2m Steven Nott‏@StevenNott

Sensing that #Leveson hasn't had a good Easter. He's already had two small outbursts at Head of SkyNews' John Ryley



3m Steven Nott‏@StevenNott

John Ryley agreed with #Leveson that email hacking was in breach of criminal law.



4m Steven Nott‏@StevenNott

#Leveson : has just jumped in and said SKY NEWS was breaching the criminal law. Going to be a good week I can feel it in my bones


Steven Nott‏@StevenNottReply
Retweet

Favorite
· Open

#Leveson Barr - talking about code 'gathering information-means of obtaining material must be proportionate' but doesn't address subterfuge

Hacked off‏@hackinginquiry

#Leveson jumps in."What you were doing wasn’t merely invading somebody's privacy, it was breach of the criminal law."



Ross Hawkins‏@rosschawkinsReply
Retweet

#leveson: where does Ofcom code give any authority for breach of criminal law? Sky News' Ryley : it doesn't

Shelley Gooderick‏@shelleygoodersReply
Retweet

Favorite
· Open

What is the 'Smith' email hacking case that Sky's John Ryley referred to at #Leveson?

Ben Fenton‏@benfentonReply
Retweet

Favorite
· Open

John Ryley is being asked about another email hacking case involving a family called Smith. [Fraid I don't know details yet] #leveson