Welsh bishops forgo pay rise in solidarity with recession-hit parishioners
September 21, 2011 No Comment
By giving up their 1.6% increase as a ‘symbolic gesture’, bishops will save church a total of £18,000 Welsh bishops are giving up their annual pay rise as a symbolic gesture for people hit by the recession. The Church in Wales said 35 people including its most senior cleric, the archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, would forgo the 1.6% increase next year. Diocesan bishops are paid £39,576 and the collective gesture of solidarity represents a gross saving of almost £26,000 – around £18,000 net. The church will absorb the money, rather than give it away. Speaking at the Church in Wales’ governing body meeting, in Lampeter, Morgan said: “We recognise this is a difficult time for many of our parishioners as the recession bites and many are losing their jobs or having their salaries frozen or even reduced. “Turning down our pay rises will save the church some money and will, I hope, be a symbolic gesture to show we understand what the communities we serve are going through at the moment and we want to support them.” According to the church, parishioners gave £7.79 each Sunday in 2010 – an increase of 1.8% on the previous year. It represents 2.5% of the average Welsh gross weekly adult income. But, as attendance declines, so does the amount on the collection plate. The move comes as Welsh unemployment figures continue to rise – by 7,000 in the last quarter – with 8.4% of the working population not having a job. Bishops in the Church of England have had a 1.5% pay increase this year – from £38,440 to £39,020. This sum does not include working costs, such as travel and hospitality, or pensions. A 2009 report revealed that the Church of England was struggling to persuade parishioners to part with more money as a way of funding its clergy and maintaining its buildings. Churchgoers were giving 3% of their disposable income compared with the 5% recommended and requested by its parliament, the General Synod, during its first significant debate on donations and giving since 2000. Wales Recession Anglicanism Religion Christianity Riazat Butt guardian.co.uk
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Troy Davis to die by lethal injection in Georgia on Wednesday as protesters appeal to stop execution going ahead Death row inmate Troy Davis faces execution on Wednesday evening, despite a furious campaign in the US and Europe to win clemency for Davis over his conviction for a murder he says he did not commit. Vigils outside Georgia’s death chamber were set up, and protests were planned across the US. Davis’s attorneys said he was willing to take a polygraph test if the pardons board would consider its results. Davis’s lawyers also drew up a late appeal asking a local judge to block the execution over evidence Davis’s legal team object to. Defense attorney Brian Kammer told The Associated Press he would file the appeal in superior court in Butts County, home of the state’s death row, when it opens on Wednesday. The motion argues that ballistic testing that linked Davis to the shooting was flawed. In Europe, where the planned execution has drawn widespread criticism, politicians and activists were making a last-minute appeal to the state of Georgia to refrain from executing Davis. Amnesty International and other groups planned a protest outside the US embassy in Paris, and Amnesty also called a vigil outside the US embassy in London. Parliamentarians and government ministers from the Council of Europe, the EU’s human rights watchdog, called for Davis’s sentence to be commuted. Renate Wohlwend of the council’s parliamentary assembly noted doubts raised about Davis’ conviction by his supporters and said: “To carry out this irrevocable act now would be a terrible mistake which could lead to a tragic injustice.” After winning three delays since 2007, Davis lost his most realistic chance at last-minute clemency this week when the state pardons board denied his request. He is set to be executed by injection at 7pm ET for the 1989 killing of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard in Savannah when he was shot dead rushing to help a homeless man who had been attacked. Davis refused a last meal. He planned to spend his final hours meeting with friends, family and supporters. According to an advocate who saw him late on Tuesday, he was upbeat, prayerful and expected last-minute wrangling by attorneys. Attorney Stephen Marsh said he had asked state prisons officials and the pardons board if they would allow a polygraph test. A prisons spokeswoman said she was unaware of the request, and the pardons board did not immediately respond for comment. “He doesn’t want to spend three hours away from his family on what could be the last day of his life if it won’t make any difference,” Marsh said. Davis has received support from hundreds of thousands of people, including a former FBI director, former president Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI. The US supreme court gave him an unusual opportunity to prove his innocence last year, but his attorneys failed to convince a judge he did not kill MacPhail. State and federal courts have repeatedly upheld his conviction. Prosecutors have no doubt they charged the right person, and MacPhail’s family lobbied the pardons board Monday to reject Davis’ clemency appeal. The board refused to stop the execution a day later. “He has had ample time to prove his innocence,” said MacPhail’s widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris. “And he is not innocent.” Spencer Lawton, the district attorney who secured Davis’ conviction in 1991, said he was embarrassed for the judicial system that the execution has taken so long. “What we have had is a manufactured appearance of doubt which has taken on the quality of legitimate doubt itself. And all of it is exquisitely unfair,” said Lawton, who retired as Chatham County’s head prosecutor in 2008. “The good news is we live in a civilized society where questions like this are decided based on fact in open and transparent courts of law, and not on street corners.” Davis supporters said they will push the pardons board to reconsider his case. They also asked Savannah prosecutors to block the execution, although Chatham County district attorney Larry Chisolm said in a statement he was powerless to withdraw an execution order for Davis issued by a state superior court judge. “We appreciate the outpouring of interest in this case; however, this matter is beyond our control,” Chisolm said. MacPhail was shot dead on 19 August 1989, after coming to the aid of Larry Young in a Burger King parking lot. Prosecutors say Davis was with another man who was demanding that Young give him a beer when Davis pulled out a handgun and bashed Young with it. When MacPhail arrived to help, they say Davis had a smirk on his face as he shot the officer to death. Witnesses placed Davis at the crime scene and identified him as the shooter. Shell casings were linked to an earlier shooting that Davis was convicted of. There was no other physical evidence. No blood or DNA tied Davis to the crime and the weapon was never found. Davis’s attorneys say seven of nine key witnesses who testified at his trial have disputed all or parts of their testimony. The state initially planned to execute him in July 2007, but the pardons board granted him a stay less than 24 hours before he was to die. The US supreme court stepped in a year later and halted the lethal injection two hours before he was to be executed. And a federal appeals court halted another planned execution a few months later. The supreme court granted Davis a hearing to prove his innocence, the first time it had done so for a death row inmate in at least 50 years. At that June 2010 hearing, two witnesses testified that they falsely incriminated Davis at his trial when they said Davis confessed to the killing. Two others told the judge the man with Davis that night later said he shot MacPhail. Prosecutors, though, argued that Davis’ lawyers were simply rehashing old testimony that had already been rejected by a jury. And they said no trial court could ever consider the hearsay from the other witnesses who blamed the other man for the crime. Troy Davis State of Georgia Capital punishment Human rights United States guardian.co.uk
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Storm leaves four dead in central region as 130mph winds threaten to cause damage at Fukushima nuclear plant A powerful typhoon is heading for Japan’s Fukushima prefecture and other areas hit by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, after leaving at least four people dead in the country’s central region. The meteorological agency warned that the typhoon, the second to strike Japan this month, was generating winds of up to 130mph (209 km/h). Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said strong winds and torrential rain had so far not caused damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, although the area had yet to feel the full force. “The biggest cause for concern is the rise of [radioactive] water levels in the [reactors'] turbine buildings,” said Junichi Matsumoto, a Tepco spokesman. The firm said cooling systems used to keep the reactors stable would not be endangered by the typhoon, adding that every possible measure had been taken to prevent leaks of radioactive water. “We expect to be able to withstand [an overflow] even if water levels rise suddenly,” Matsumoto said. According to Tepco estimates, the plant’s reactor buildings contained more than 1m litres of radioactive water as of the middle of September. Earlier, more than a million people in central areas had been urged to evacuate. Evacuation advisories had been issued to 1.3 million people, including 800,000 in the city of Nagoya, 170 miles west of Tokyo. Most advisories had been lifted by early afternoon, but remained in place for 330,000 people in the most vulnerable regions. Typhoon Roke does not appear to have caused as much damage as some had initially feared, but strong winds and driving rain led to the cancellation of train services in Tokyo, stranding tens of thousands of commuters. Power was cut to more than half a million homes in Tepco’s service area, including the capital. The firm said more than 575,000 households were without electricity, while several other companies, including Toyota and Nissan, were forced to close plants as a precaution. Media reports said four people had died in central and western Japan, including a middle-aged man whose body was discovered in a river in Nagoya on Wednesday morning. Police in Gifu prefecture said a nine-year-old boy and an 84-year-old woman were missing after reportedly falling into a swollen river. The typhoon caused strong winds, heavy rain and high waves in central Japan before heading towards Tokyo and north-eastern regions. The government advised people to remain vigilant until the storm had passed. “We need to exercise maximum caution against heavy rains, strong winds and high waves in wide areas from eastern to northern Japan,” the chief cabinet secretary, Osamu Fujimura, told reporters. The meteorological agency warned that rivers in parts of central Japan were overflowing. NHK television showed residents in some areas wading through knee-high water. The typhoon dumped as much as 400mm (16ins) of rain in some areas on Wednesday. “In Aichi the heavy rain is causing some rivers to overflow,” an agency official told reporters. “I would like to ask people to exercise caution against potential disasters from torrential rain, strong winds and high waves.” Roke’s arrival comes two weeks after typhoon Talas triggered floods and mudslides that left 67 people dead and 26 missing. In 2004, typhoon Tokage killed 95 people. The meteorological agency described the eye of Roke as “very strong” and advised residents living in its path to exercise the “greatest possible vigilance”. The approaching typhoon also caused disruption to factories and power output. Chubu Electric Power, which supplies the central region, said it had lost 1,870 megawatts of hydropower output but there was no threat of electricity shortages. About 450 domestic flights were cancelled and some bullet train services were suspended, including the busy route between Tokyo and Osaka. Toyota, meanwhile, said it would close 11 factories in central Japan early to ensure the safety of employees. The carmaker said it would make up for lost output on subsequent shifts. Many commuters in Tokyo have been advised to leave work early. Heavy rain was expected to continue in many areas of Japan’s main island of Honshu until Thursday morning, according to Kyodo news agency. Japan Natural disasters and extreme weather Japan disaster Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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In the second part of this series about people controlling the internet, Jon Ronson returns to the theme of online astroturfing Jon Ronson
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Group of about 20 caravans claims to be from Dale Farm, where residents are awaiting judgment on council’s eviction plans A group of around 20 caravans, believed to be from the Dale Farm Travellers’ site in Essex, has travelled 60 miles north-west and arrived at a park near Luton. The Travellers have stopped at Stockwood Park, Bedfordshire, saying they have nowhere else to go. They say more caravans could arrive from the Essex site. Residents of Dale Farm and Basildon council are locked in a standoff after residents won a last-minute emergency injunction to prevent an eviction that was due to start on Monday . Both parties now await a judgment at the high court in London on Friday, which will decide whether the planned eviction, estimated to be costing Basildon council up to £18m, can go ahead. Luton borough council has begun legal action to remove the Travellers from the park, a public area with a golf course, gardens and a horse-riding school. One of the Travellers who had made the 60-mile trip to Luton said they had lost everything. “I moved to Luton rather than wait for the bailiffs because my health was suffering,” he told the Sun . “My son and daughter were already in schools in Essex. Then we had to move and lost it all.” He said he thought more families would join. “The word has now spread back to Dale Farm. There will be 30 or 40 more caravans coming from Dale Farm. We have nowhere else to go.” A spokesman for Luton borough council said: “The council was made aware of the encampment and immediately started the standard legal procedure for eviction. We expect to move them on very soon.” Meanwhile on Dale Farm, Travellers were due to start clearing a six-metre barricade in order to let officials on to the site, in line with a court order granted on Monday. The last-minute injunction prevents the council from clearing 51 unauthorised plots until after this Friday’s hearing and requires the council to provide a detailed plot-by-plot breakdown of what it plans to remove. After the court ruling, the council has repeatedly asked residents – and up to 100 protesters who have been supporting the Travellers – to leave the site and stop blocking access to it. Dale Farm residents said they would start removing barricades blocking the entrance to the site, allow access for emergency vehicles and families to move back onsite, but said they would oppose any attempt at entry by bailiffs. “With this court ruling we’re finally hopeful that common sense will prevail, so we’re moving our caravans back into Dale Farm,” resident Michelle McCarthy said. “We’re reasonable people and we urge the council to find a way that we can continue to live in peace as a community. We’re all working together to open the gates, and we’re so grateful to our friends and supporters for helping us.” Basildon council has said the Travellers would be liable for any costs caused by the delay, which campaigners have estimated to be £1.2m a day. Hannah Roberts, from the campaign group Dale Farm Solidarity, said: “In their bloody-minded overzealousness, the council are paying £1.2m a day for police to sit in hotel rooms and drink coffee when they could be funding schools and hospitals and building their community.” Basildon council’s leader, Tony Ball, said the council had complied with the judge’s order and provided the plot-by-plot schedule. He said: “The injunction also places obligations on the Travellers to discourage any further protest from non-Dale Farm residents, and to dismantle the barricades and any obstructions preventing access on to the site. We have made repeated pleas to the Travellers to ensure health and safety is considered on site, and these measures would help enable a safer operation for all concerned.” Dale Farm Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Protest Housing Communities Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Group of about 20 caravans claims to be from Dale Farm, where residents are awaiting judgment on council’s eviction plans A group of around 20 caravans, believed to be from the Dale Farm Travellers’ site in Essex, has travelled 60 miles north-west and arrived at a park near Luton. The Travellers have stopped at Stockwood Park, Bedfordshire, saying they have nowhere else to go. They say more caravans could arrive from the Essex site. Residents of Dale Farm and Basildon council are locked in a standoff after residents won a last-minute emergency injunction to prevent an eviction that was due to start on Monday . Both parties now await a judgment at the high court in London on Friday, which will decide whether the planned eviction, estimated to be costing Basildon council up to £18m, can go ahead. Luton borough council has begun legal action to remove the Travellers from the park, a public area with a golf course, gardens and a horse-riding school. One of the Travellers who had made the 60-mile trip to Luton said they had lost everything. “I moved to Luton rather than wait for the bailiffs because my health was suffering,” he told the Sun . “My son and daughter were already in schools in Essex. Then we had to move and lost it all.” He said he thought more families would join. “The word has now spread back to Dale Farm. There will be 30 or 40 more caravans coming from Dale Farm. We have nowhere else to go.” A spokesman for Luton borough council said: “The council was made aware of the encampment and immediately started the standard legal procedure for eviction. We expect to move them on very soon.” Meanwhile on Dale Farm, Travellers were due to start clearing a six-metre barricade in order to let officials on to the site, in line with a court order granted on Monday. The last-minute injunction prevents the council from clearing 51 unauthorised plots until after this Friday’s hearing and requires the council to provide a detailed plot-by-plot breakdown of what it plans to remove. After the court ruling, the council has repeatedly asked residents – and up to 100 protesters who have been supporting the Travellers – to leave the site and stop blocking access to it. Dale Farm residents said they would start removing barricades blocking the entrance to the site, allow access for emergency vehicles and families to move back onsite, but said they would oppose any attempt at entry by bailiffs. “With this court ruling we’re finally hopeful that common sense will prevail, so we’re moving our caravans back into Dale Farm,” resident Michelle McCarthy said. “We’re reasonable people and we urge the council to find a way that we can continue to live in peace as a community. We’re all working together to open the gates, and we’re so grateful to our friends and supporters for helping us.” Basildon council has said the Travellers would be liable for any costs caused by the delay, which campaigners have estimated to be £1.2m a day. Hannah Roberts, from the campaign group Dale Farm Solidarity, said: “In their bloody-minded overzealousness, the council are paying £1.2m a day for police to sit in hotel rooms and drink coffee when they could be funding schools and hospitals and building their community.” Basildon council’s leader, Tony Ball, said the council had complied with the judge’s order and provided the plot-by-plot schedule. He said: “The injunction also places obligations on the Travellers to discourage any further protest from non-Dale Farm residents, and to dismantle the barricades and any obstructions preventing access on to the site. We have made repeated pleas to the Travellers to ensure health and safety is considered on site, and these measures would help enable a safer operation for all concerned.” Dale Farm Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Protest Housing Communities Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
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The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has abandoned its aim to remove all traces of contamination from the north coast seabed Radioactive contamination that leaked for more than two decades from the Dounreay nuclear plant on the north coast of mainland Scotland will never been completely cleaned up, a Scottish government agency has admitted. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has decided to give up on its aim of returning the seabed near the plant to a “pristine condition”. To do so, it said, could cause “more harm than good”. At a board meeting in Stirling on Tuesday , the Scottish government’s environmental watchdog opted to encourage remediation “as far as is practically achievable” but to abandon any hope of removing all the radioactive pollution from the seabed. Tens of thousands of radioactive fuel fragments escaped from the Dounreay plant between 1963 and 1984, polluting local beaches, the coastline and the seabed. Fishing has been banned within a two-kilometre radius of the plant since 1997. The most radioactive of the particles are regarded by experts as potentially lethal if ingested. Similar in size to grains of sand, they contain caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, but they can also incorporate traces of plutonium-239, which has a half-life of over 24,000 years – meaning that is the time period for half of the material to break down. The particles are milled shards from the reprocessing of irradiated uranium and plutonium fuel from two long-defunct reactors. They are thought to have drained into the sea with discharges from cooling ponds. In 2007, Dounreay, which is now being decommissioned, pled guilty at Wick sheriff court to a “failure to prevent fragments of irradiated nuclear fuel being discharged into the environment”. The plant’s operator at the time, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, was fined £140,000. Since 2008 over 2,300 radioactive particles have been recovered from the seabed, with 351 removed by a remotely operated underwater vehicle this summer. Since 1983, over 480 particles have also been found on three local beaches and the Dounreay foreshore. Sepa recommended in 1998 that the seabed around Dounreay should be returned to a “pristine condition”. Since then, it pointed out, the contamination had been extensively investigated and new regulations on radioactively contaminated land had come into force “It is now widely accepted that a literal return to a pristine condition is a far from simple or even achievable concept,” a Sepa spokeswoman told the Guardian. “Trying to achieve it might also cause more harm than good. There is the potential that ecosystems may be destroyed on trying to get to something which does not pose a significant hazard.” An expert committee set up by Sepa warned in 2006 that disturbing the seabed could cause particles to escape and be swept ashore, putting members of the public at risk. The most radioactive particle found “could have had life-threatening consequences if it had been ingested”, the committee said. Sepa’s board agreed yesterday to change its policy to encourage further remediation “provided that this achieves more good than harm and accepting that at some sites it will not be practical to return the land to a pristine condition”. Dounreay, which is now managed by a consortium including the UK engineering firm Babcock, welcomed Sepa’s new policy. It was still aiming to remove “the majority of the most hazardous particles, together with the removal of any other particles encountered,” said the site’s senior project manager, Phil Cartwright. “The best practicable environmental option, which was welcomed by the government agencies, is focused on doing more good than harm and was publicly discussed on the basis that it would never be possible to retrieve every particle.” Friends of the Earth Scotland , however, condemned the decision. “Once again, we see the nuclear industry causing a problem it can’t solve, and dumping the cost and consequence on the rest of us,” said the environmental group’s chief executive, Stan Blackley. “Nuclear power is neither safe, clean, cheap nor low-carbon and it continues to cause problems and cost the taxpayer a hidden and open-ended fortune. Let’s learn from our past mistakes and consign it to a lead-lined dustbin.” Nuclear waste Nuclear power Scotland Energy Coastlines Oceans Marine life Pollution Rob Edwards guardian.co.uk
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Iran’s judiciary confirms that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal have been released on $1m bail after two years in jail Iran has freed two Americans held as spies for over two years on bail of $1m after Iraq and Oman mediated for their release. The country’s judiciary confirmed on Wednesday that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29, had been released a month after a court sentenced them each to eight years in jail for espionage and illegally crossing the border into Iran . The two men are reportedly preparing to return home. “Branch 36 of Tehran’s appeals court has agreed to commute the detention sentences of the two US nationals to release on a bail of $500,000,” the judiciary said in a statement reported by Iran’s state-run Press TV. In July 2009, the men along with their friend, Sarah Shourd, 33, were arrested by Iranian security forces after walking across an unmarked border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. Shourd was released last September on health grounds, on bail of $500,000 (£324,000) in a similar move . While in prison, Shourd became engaged to Bauer. Their release comes a week after president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told two US media organisations that the pair had been granted a “unilateral pardon” . But the following day, Iran’s judiciary cast doubt on the release. It is not clear why Iran has finally decided to grant the two clemency, but analysts have interpreted the move as an attempt to reduce tensions with the international community at the time when negotiations over its nuclear programme are in a stalemate. Iran United States Middle East Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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Prime minister writes to National Trust to reassure it that planning reforms will ensure ‘appropriate protections for our magnificent countryside’ David Cameron has written to the National Trust to reassure the organisation over proposals to shake up the planning system. The prime minister said new laws were designed to “achieve a balance” between the environmental, social and economic dimensions of developments, saying the “beautiful British landscape is a national treasure” and expressing determination to protect the UK’s “magnificent countryside”. “Poorly designed and poorly located development is in no one’s interest,” he wrote. The trust has been leading a campaign to oppose the reforms, which are currently the subject of consultation. Cameron’s letter, seen by the Daily Telegraph , reads: “Let me say at the outset that I absolutely share and admire your commitment to the countryside, and wholeheartedly agree that policymakers have an enormous responsibility to our environment. “Both as prime minister, as a rural constituency MP and as an individual, I have always believed that our beautiful British landscape is a national treasure. We should cherish and protect it for everyone’s benefit.” Ministers are pushing through plans to replace more than 1,000 pages of planning regulations with just 52 in the National Planning Policy Framework . The change is controversial because it writes into the rules a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”. Campaigners fear swaths of England could be concreted over as urban sprawl gathers pace. Cameron insisted sustainable development would be defined to include a reference to the environment and the social impact of proposed projects. He wrote: “Our reform proposals are intended to simplify the system, strengthen local participation and secure sustainable development. “I believe that sustainable development has environmental and social dimensions as well as an economic dimension, and we fully recognise the need for a balance between the three. “Indeed, the purpose of the planning system as a whole, and of our proposals for it, is to achieve such a balance.” Cameron added: “We must ensure the appropriate protections for our magnificent countryside. “This is why our reforms will maintain protections for the green belt, for national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. “It will introduce a new local green space designation which local communities can use to protect open places they value.” However, he also warned campaigners that new developments were essential to boost Britain’s stalling economy. He said businesses should be able to expand and that the difficulty encountered by first-time buyers in getting on the property ladder was “unacceptable”. Fiona Reynolds, the director general of the National Trust, welcomed the comments, saying: “Our primary concern for the planning system is that it should be a neutral framework which balances the needs of society, the environment, as well as the economy. “It is a great relief to hear from the prime minister that there is no intention to change this over-riding purpose. “We will now do everything in our power to help shape the National Planning Policy Framework into a robust system which enables the people making the decisions to guide good development to the right places. “Planning minister Greg Clark has invited us to work with him to ensure the detail of the document reflects this brief, and we are keen to do so.” David Cameron The National Trust Planning policy Rural affairs guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Senior Met officer: we should not have tried to force Guardian to reveal sources
September 21, 2011 No Comment
Deputy assistant commissioner says using Official Secrets Act on journalists investigating phone hacking was ‘not appropriate’ The deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police has admitted that invoking the Official Secrets Act in attempts to make the Guardian reveal its confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal was “not appropriate”. Speaking a day after the Met announced an abrupt climbdown in its bid to make Guardian reporters disclose their sources for articles relating to the phone hacking of the murder victim Milly Dowler, Mark Simmons, head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard, defended the police’s duty to investigate “robustly” leaks of information to the media. But he said claims that Amelia Hill , one of the reporters who broke the scandal, could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act – and broken the act herself – should not have formed a part of Scotland Yard’s strategy. The Met had been due to apply on Friday for a production order to obtain all the material the Guardian holds that would help identify sources for the phone-hacking stories. “The view I came to when I looked at the matter was that the Official Secrets Act was not an appropriate element of the application,” Simmons told the BBC. “We have acknowledged, and I have acknowledged, the role the Guardian has played in the history of what brought us to where we are now both in terms of its focus on phone hacking itself and indeed its focus on the Met’s response to that. “But in all the glare that’s been thrown on to our relationships with the media, we have had to ask ourselves the question about how do we do more to ensure that public confidence in our officers treating information that is brought to them in confidence … is maintained.” Simmons said that, although he had been aware that an application was underway, he had not been aware of its detailed content or of the reference to the Official Secrets Act. After an intervention by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Scotland Yard abandoned its bid to force the Guardian to disclose its sources on Tuesday night. Simmons said: “What I have clearly done is taken a view, based on consultation with the DPP [director of public prosecutions], based on, as I say, our own legal advice, that the use of the Official Secrets Act this time … was not appropriate, and that’s the basis for withdrawing the application.” The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but the Guardian’s lawyers have been told that the police have dropped the application. A senior Yard source said: “It’s off the agenda.” The Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, cautioned against moves to curb responsible journalism. “I just hope that in our effort to clean up some of the worst practices we don’t completely overreact and try to clamp down on perfectly normal and applaudable reporting,” he told Radio 4′s Today programme. “This was a regrettable incident, but let’s hope it’s over.” The police application was formally made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, but with an assertion that Hill had committed an offence under the Official Secrets Act by inciting an officer from Operation Weeting – the Met’s investigation into phone hacking – to reveal information. The Yard source said: “There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. Obviously, the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. In hindsight the view is that certain things that should have been done were not done, and that is regrettable.” Many lawyers had expressed astonishment at the police resorting to the Official Secrets Act. Their surprise was reinforced on Monday when the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, revealed that the CPS had not been contacted by officers before the application was made. Neil O’May, the Guardian’s solicitor, said: “This was always a misconceived application for source material. Journalists’ sources are protected in law. For the Metropolitan police to turn on the very newspaper which exposed the failings of the previous police inquiries and reported on hacking by the News of the World was always doomed to failure. The Metropolitan police need to control the officers who are involved in these sensitive areas.” In a statement, the CPS said: “[On] Monday the Metropolitan police asked the CPS for advice in relation to seeking a production order against Guardian Newspapers. “The CPS has asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and has said that more time will be needed fully to consider the matter. As a result, the scheduled court hearing will not go ahead on Friday. [The Metropolitan police] will consider what application, if any, it will make in due course, once it has received advice from the CPS.” The Met said in a statement: “The Metropolitan police’s directorate of professional standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. “The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. In addition the MPS [Metropolitan police service] has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps. “This decision does not mean that the investigation has been concluded. This investigation, led by the DPS [directorate of professional standards], not Operation Weeting, has always been about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that. Despite recent media reports, there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources.” The picture painted by Met insiders is that a relatively junior officer took the decision to take on the Guardian without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Met condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. The senior source said: “There were not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO [senior investigating officer]. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been.” Metropolitan police The Guardian Phone hacking Official Secrets Act London Police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Owen Bowcott Vikram Dodd Lizzy Davies guardian.co.uk
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