Witness Protection, Anyone?

The latest from my regular contributor.

"The Rogue Element of the Private Investigation Industry and Others Unlawfully Trading in Personal Data"

The first version Serious Organised Crime Agency report (2008) was made public in July 2012. It said (p5) there was evidence that private investigators were
(c) accessing details of current investigations against a criminal or criminal group;
(h) attempting to discover location of witnesses

A second version SOCA report (2008) was published July 2013. That version gave more detail, stating private investigators were also (p6)

(j) attempting to discover identity of CHlSes; (Covert Human Intelligence Sources)
(l) attempting to discover location of witnesses under police protection to intimidate them:

July 2nd 2013
The Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) took evidence from SOCA's Chair SIR IAN ANDREWS and Director General TREVOR PEARCE. (transcript here)

HASC Chair Keith Vaz cited recent press reports brought to the Committee's attention: "We have also read that private investigators were hired by criminal gangs to infiltrate the witness protection programme... there are criminal acts that have taken place here. The breaking into the witness protection programme is a pretty serious issue.

Trevor Pearce: Other than seeing in the media reporting, I have never heard anything formerly. As a law enforcement officer who has had some significant engagement with the undercover world and the protected persons’ world, I have not heard of that before."

July 9th 2013 
HASC took evidence from Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations (ACSO) CRESSIDA DICK. Nicola Blackwood MP asked about the security and integrity of the MET witness protection programme given press reports of breaches by corrupt private investigators, as mentioned in the 2008 SOCA Report. CRESSIDA DICK responded by clarifying that the SOCA Report was a "strategic analysis of MET material". so it gave nothing to the MET by way of NEW information. She said however that the MET Directorate of Professional Standards and Witness Protection were "highly alert to the media coverage." A scoping exercice is currently underway. Though it was "not surprising serious organised criminals" might attempt to access information on those in witness protection, "we have not had any examples."

"There is risk..., intelligence sometimes that they are seeking to do so...(but) we are not aware of anything in the Metropolitan Police of infiltration of witness protection."

SOCA REPORT SOURCE MATERIAL
The SOCA strategic analysis utilised five indicative serious crime investigations, plus incorporated intelligence from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) investigation Operation MOTORMAN. (for background see here)

There was a joint Devon and Cornwall Police/ICO raid at the premises of private investigator John BOYALL which revealed that he and another private investigator - Steve WHITTAMORE- were both engaged in illegal data procurement (here).

The seizure included evidence of attempted access to extremely confidential material, according to ICO investigating officer Alex Owens (p4 here):

One VRM (Vehicle Registraion Mark) particular was of great concern to me because clearly written alongside it was ’Protected Number’; Having served within Special Branch during my Police service I knew this particular VRM must relate to a very sensitive individual or operation within the Police. This was subsequently confirmed to me by the Metropolitan Police although I requested no detail.

Boyall sold information on as he was "Sub-contracted to supply information to Stephen Whittamore. Whittamore, Boyall, King and Marshall (Operation Glade) were charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. Boyall and Whittamore were later charged with obtaining information contrary to s55 of the DPA 1998 and received conditional discharge 15.4.05." (p213 here)

OPERATION CARYATID
One of the five serious crime investigations assessed by SOCA was Operation CARYATID which had resulted in custodial sentences for Clive GOODMAN and private investigator Glenn MULCAIRE. The Investigating Officer (IO) Keith Surtees described the initial handling of the chaotic Mulcaire papers seized on his arrest (p50 here)

I don't recognise a notebook, because I don't recall actually finding one or seeing one. I do recall lots of loose-leaf A4 pieces of paper, as I've said, with various stages of research on, and I think I refer to that within this decision. I see that through the process of -- I think it's probably from August 9, 10 (2006) onwards. I firstly negotiate a group of officers, I think somewhere in the region of 20 or 30 officers, who I negotiate because they're not anti-terrorist branch officers because they're all busy doing Operation Overt and everything else. They're Special Branch officers, they're vetted to the highest level, and it's those officers, I negotiate their overtime, because they're working through weekends when they should be off, and they work through I think for a period of five to seven days to go through all of the documentation, and with that they're briefed by me at the beginning around what I want them to do with that in the first instance, which is to ascertain whether there's anything to undermine or assist the police case with regard to Goodman and Mulcaire, because by then we've charged both Goodman and Mulcaire and my obligations under CPIA kick in

THE MET GIVES EVIDENCE
A flawed victim notification policy was challenged later, in September 2011, when there was the Judicial Review -

THE QUEEN on the application of (Claimants) ,CHRIS BRYANT MP, BRIAN PADDICK, LORD PRESCOTT, 'HJK', BEN JACKSON
and the COMMISSIONER of the POLICE of the METROPOLIS (Defendant)

The claimants alleged the MET had failed to notify them that they had been phone hacking targets of private investigator Glenn MULCAIRE. The MET's Mark Maberly was required to give a statement in evidence. He had been Case Officer of the original investigation into Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire - Operation CARYATID. Maberly's statement said (para 50)

On 23rd November 2006 a report was produced by the Directorate of Professional Standards which detailed the results of the examination of the computers and other storage media recovered during the original searches. The report would have been collected shortly after. Included within the report was a computerised address and phonebook of contacts including potential targets. The contents of the report were brought to the attention of the Investigating Officer Keith Surtees. Following on from receipt of this report and in consultation with the SIO, DC Green and I met with an officer from the witness protection unit. There was concern that within the contents of the report were the details of persons who were given new identities as part of a witness protection programme. Those in the programme would include both witnesses and defendants to high profile serious crime. I provided the list for him to view and it quickly became apparent that contained within were names of interest to him. I provided him with a copy of the report to take away. I had no further contact with this officer about the report or the details contained within.

Keith Surtees' evidence to Leveson concurred (p72-73 here):

MR JAY: There were names though in the project list, as it were, that according to Detective Sergeant Maberly were on the witness protection programme. Is that something you knew about?
A. Yes. It was brought to my attention that some names here within this document may well have been from the witness protection programme. What I instructed DS Maberly to do was to contact the witness protection unit, get them to come across to our office, show them the document, get them to look at it, and if there were any risks to people they were protecting, take whatever mitigation they needed to take to protect them. I didn't ask or seek information from the witness protection people around the quantity or individual details of who --
LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Not individual details, but weren't you interested to know whether it was in fact the case?
A. I knew it was the case on some of them because it was quite obvious it was the case.
LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Didn't that itself create an enormous issue for you? This must be among some of the most confidential information that's held.
A. Yes, and the officer from the witness protection unit was best placed to take whatever remedial action needed to be taken in regards to that. In terms of the provenance of the information, that also concerned me, yes.
LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But you didn't do anything about that.
A. I had conversations throughout May, June, July and August in terms of the investigation. I had conversations August, September, October, November with regards to the various drips of information that were coming through, and briefed those up.
Q But in that context, if the conspiracy was limited to Goodman and Mulcaire, there would be concern but there wouldn't be enormous concern, but if the conspiracy went wider, as you suspected it did, to others at News International, that concern would be multiplied, wouldn't it, in relation to possible prejudice to those on the witness protection programme?
A. Witness protection programme, access to government ministers, access to military, right across. There were lots and lots of concerns, yes, including the witness protection issues, yes. 

CONCLUSIONS
To sum up, this seems to be the chain of communications:

- Metropolitan Police Service SPECIALIST OPERATIONS undertook the original phone hacking investigation - Operation CARYATID - into Goodman and Mulcaire.

- The CARYATID Team borrowed a crew of expensive SPECIAL BRANCH officers with elite Developed Vetting status to undertake a preliminary sift and summary of the Mulcaire papers.

- The resultant summaries revealed that multiple, highly sensitive witness information had been compromised. That sensitive information was communicated to the WITNESS PROTECTION UNIT by the Investigating Officer, who also briefed it up through SPECIALIST OPERATIONS.

- Then the MET provided SOCA with extensive information on the Goodman/Mulcaire investigation for strategic assessment. SOCA undertook its crucial risk analysis , including CARYATID and MOTORMAN, and circulated their restricted Report to key senior policy-makers and agencies.

- The MET was provided with the SOCA Report in Feb 2008. The Director General of SOCA believes it would have gone to the Directorate of Professional Standards and/ or to the Deputy Commissioner.

But five years later, in 2013, neither SOCA nor current ACSO MET SPECIALIST OPERATIONS have ever heard of any private investigator compromising highly secret witness protection data. And that is despite two senior (still serving) officers giving very public evidence twice - to the Judicial Review and to the Leveson Inquiry.

Hackgate has certainly prompted senior rank resignations at the MET. But this can only partially account for the apprently poor 'corporate memory'.

Related Articles
Mayor Boris And The Met Payoffs
Project Riverside And The SOCA Report
All Rise - Justice Saunders At Southwark
The Met - Red Flags And Red Tops
Hackgate - Issues For The Burnton Inquiry Into The Murder Of Daniel Morgan
Hackgate - The IPCC and Surrey's "Collective Amnesia"
Hackgate - Alex Marunchak - Presumed Innocent
Hackgate - Springwatch

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Varec Revisited - Dissent In The Ranks

The latest from my regular contributor.

Operation Varec is a little fuzzy round the edges.  It has its own formal 2010 inception date and terms of reference, but in some senses, it pre-dates that and grew out of John Yates' response to The Guardian article on the News of the World (NOTW) phone hacking, published July 8th 2009. This was Yates' 'Ratner moment' - undertaking a hasty fact-finding, presenting a same day, televised press statement, and later pronouncing on his own actions as "crap".

Lord Justice Leveson took the view that Yates could have, perhaps should have, excused himself from quasi-review of the phone hacking investigation - given his longstanding friendship with former NOTW executive, Neil Wallis.  Yet, even though his premature 'no new evidence, no re-investigation' press announcement was dismissive, should Yates accrue a little more credit?  After all, he didn't just let it drop there.

A series of meetings was convened by Yates over the next few months to establish if there were still skeletons in the closet of that original 2006 Goodman/Mulcaire investigation (Operation Caryatid).  Amongst those attending were DCS Phil Williams and DS Keith Surtees (investigating officers from 2006 operation), Steve Kavanagh (now sucessor to Sue Akers overseeing Operations Weeting, Elveden, Tuleta), DS Dean Haydon (Staff Officer to John Yates) and Sara Cheesley (Specialist Operations Press Desk, MET Directorate of Public Affairs).  The minutes of many of these are included as Exhibits to John Yates evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.  They seem characterised by a hyper-defensive mindset and a focus on presentational issues rather than evaluating the 2006 investigation.  Much effort was dedicated to developing responses to criticism of the Met from victims, government departments and Select Committee - reputational risk priortised perhaps at the expense of a more rigourous scrutiny of Operation Caryatid.  There is extensive background here in Sara Cheesley's witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry.

Recently, insights into those meetings have emerged which show a distinct lack of agreement on what action was needed - dissent in the ranks.  Tom Watson MP (3rd Dec 2012) raised this issue in the House of Commons:

May I draw his attention to a very late submission to the Leveson inquiry from Detective Chief Superintendent Surtees, which appeared on the (Leveson) website this week? He states that in July 2009, he argued internally that there was enough intelligence to warrant reopening the investigation into phone hacking. The hon. Gentleman will know that at no point was that raised with the Culture, Media and Sport Committee during its inquiry. That might be something that he and the Committee want to look at.  

Surtees 2nd Leveson witness statement (here) clearly spells out his trenchant view that the phone-hacking Investigation SHOULD be re-opened.  He says that he also suggested that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) be called in.

Surtees assertions are echoed by Phil Williams (here).

Both submissions appear to be tardy attempts to mitigate criticism of the investigating officers contained in the Leveson Report. Presumably, these MET-sanctioned statements were prompted by Section 13 letters.

On 1st September 2010, the New York Times published their exposé ' Tabloid Hack Attack on Royals, and Beyond'.  On the face of it, the article included new information, new informants, and new victims of phone hacking - including Andy Coulson who was then Director of Communications at 10 Downing Street.  Obviously, a disinterested and objective consideration of NOTW phone-hacking was again necessary.  This was a crucial point at which John Yates had another chance to step back, recuse himself, and request that the Commissioner task a different senior officer team without the baggage and closeness to NOTW.  However, Yates chose to have oversight of the new enquiries - Operation Varec - himself.  His own Staff Officer, Dean Haydon, was appointed Senior Investigating Officer (SIO).  Haydon had been closely associated with the 2009 scrutiny as a member (and minutes taker) of the Gold group meetings.

Started formally on 2nd September 2010, Varec's primary objective was

To assess whether allegations being made in the media since 1st September 2010 provided any new evidence of criminal offences, namely unlawful interception of communications, at News of the World, in 2005/6 

It has been alleged that, within ten days of Varec commencing, a senior MET officer contacted NOTW offering to supply information. (Daily Telegraph) The media stories addressed by Operation Varec covered the New York Times story, Guardian follow up, and the Channel 4 Dispatches October 2010 documentary 'Tabloids, Tories and Telephone Hacking'.  When Dean Haydon contacted The Guardian for information, Alan Rusbridger replied in a scathing email

Nick Davies was further able to reveal incontrovertible evidence of the involvement in phone hacking of other NoW reporters and executives: the material is sitting in your own files,... Seeking to obtain evidence from the Guardian should, it seems to us, be a matter of last resort for the police... But the fact that three separate news organizations have been able to uncover this story must give you hope that you, too, could get to the bottom of it without too much trouble   

Twenty one strands of inquiry by Operation Varec were followed, including:

• Asking the New York Times to supply names of their anonymous sources.  They declined.
• Interviewing ex-NOTW's Sean Hoare.  Contraversially, he was interviewed under caution and so refused to answer any questions. Another ex-NOTW journalist simply refused to speak with the police - let alone attend an interview.  
• Other NOTW executives and journalists were questioned about Operation Caryatid and refused to answer, denied any knowledge, or (on legal advice) submitted pre-prepared written statements.
• Anonymous allegations were received by the MET, implicating three NOTW journalists in phone hacking. Each was written to by Operation Varec requesting information. None of the three responded.
• Colin Myler, NOTW Editor, was asked to provide a list of journalists still employed since 2006 (in addition to those above).  Myler did so.  Every one of the list of 19 journalists was individually written to by Varec to ask for cooperation and interview.  Not a single one of the 19 even replied.

Unsurprisingly, Operation Varec came to the conclusion that they were unable to obtain any admissible evidence to warrant re-investigating phone- hacking at the News of the World. For details of the 21 investigatory strands, see here.

The genesis of Operation Varec still leaves some key questions unanswered:

• On the first opportunity to recuse himself from the 2009 quasi-review, why did John Yates not do so?
• On the second opportunity to recuse himself from the 2010 investigation, Operation Varec, why did John Yates not do so?
• Given the obduracy, obstructiveness and disregard shown by such a large number of former and serving NOTW journalists, why did the MET continue to collude with News International's thin veneer of cooperating with the police?

Assistant Commissioner Yates resigned on 18th July 2011.

Related Articles
Hackgate - Dacre's Dodgy Dossier - War Of Attrition 
Hackgate - Sue Akers' Swansong
Hackgate - "Newsdesk Here, Kelvin Speaking..."
Hackgate - Andre Baker - A Hackgate Footnote?
Hackgate - Ten To Watch For
Hackgate - Dear Surrey Police


You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

The John Boyall Files

The latest piece from my regular contributor.

You win some, you lose some.

Following a four-day hearing last week, the large group of phone-hacking civil claimants won the right to see 9 key Glenn Mulcaire emails. On the downside, Justice Vos said they have enough disclosure material for the current cases so they lost on one issue -

The phone-hacking claimants were seeking further disclosure in relation to Mulcaire's activities before 2001 in an effort to establish whether voicemail interception had taken place earlier than admitted by News International during the course of the civil litigation proceedings

So, restricting the disclosure window  to post-2001? Narrowing the parameters? Isn't that one of the strategies that drew criticism to Operation Caryatid - the original phone hacking 2006 investigation? Has nothing been learnt?

It is to be hoped that an arbitrary 2001 date in the civil cases is not taken as a precedent for ongoing and future police investigations or Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) charging decisions into journalist/private investigator 'dark arts'.  Clearly, the phone hacking victims are not the only ones needing to know the genesis and extent of the 'dark arts' - it is in the wider public interest.

Irrespective of Mulcaire having or not having a direct contract with News International pre-2001, it is in the public domain that he was undertaking investigative work for them.

All through the late 1990s, the paper had been hiring an investigator called John Boyall, who, among other services, specialised in acquiring information from confidential databases. He had a wiry young man working as his assistant, named Glenn Mulcaire. In the autumn of 2001, John Boyall fell out with the News of the World's assistant editor, Greg Miskiw, who had been responsible for handling him. Miskiw replaced him by poaching Glenn Mulcaire and giving him a full-time contract.

John Boyall - at the time that he was employing Mulcaire - came to police attention.  Devon and Cornwall Constabulary scoped intelligence that a nationwide network of private investigators was illegally obtaining information from the Police National Computer (PNC).  That scoping led to an investigation called Operation Reproof.  In turn, Operation Reproof led to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) investigation Operation Motorman into data offences, and a Metropolitan Police (MET) investigation - Operation Glade.  For more information, see 'Revisiting Operation Reproof and Other Police Operations'

Devon and Cornwall police organised a raid of business premises outside London associated with Boyall.  ICO investigators were invited to accompany, to deal with suspected Data Protection breaches. Material was seized which indicated corrupt DVLA sources, plus a wealth of other incriminating documentation including commissions from Steve Whittamore (see Alex Owens' evidence to Leveson).

What is less clear is what happened to the wealth of evidentiary material.seized in the Boyall raid.  This of course begs questions - what time period do the 'Boyall Files' cover? Do they include material that may shed light on Boyall and Mulcaire's pre-2001 'dark arts' activities for journalists? Were their specialist corruption and blagging skills commissioned and deployed for other private investigators? Is there material relevant to other contemporaneous police investigations, for example, Operation Nigeria?

Given the MET's past record of effective searches of 'unused material' and their vague, hazy explanation of how long they keep it safe after convictions (five, six, seven years..?) one could be pessimistic. If it weren't for Nick Davies' reports in the Guardian, the Mulcaire material in bin bags may well have found their way into a MET incinerator.  But the best place to start may be via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Information Commissioner's Office itself.  As the entity responsible for ensuring FOI compliance, doubtless they would welcome the opportunity to answer a few questions - in the public interest:

Where are the Boyall Files and unused material?

Were the Boyall Files passed on or copied to the MET for use in Operation Glade?

Did Devon and Cornwall Constabulary retain the Boyall Files and unused material for use in the abortive Operation Reproof prosecutions?

Were the Boyall Files incorporated into the spreadsheets of the more-famous Motorman Files?

Where is the unused material from Operation Motorman, given that the earliest data relate to 1996?

Were copies of the Boyall Files and unused material provided to the MET for use in Operation Caryatid?

Have the ICO been asked, or given, permission for the destruction of any or all of the Boyall Files and/or related material?

At least two allegations of pre-2001 phone hacking were given in evidence to Lord Justice Leveson:

• James Hipwell's evidence asserted phone hacking at The Mirror 1998-2000
• Dominic Mohan described how newspapers, in 1998, hacked into the mobile phones of members of the Irish Government to expose lax security.

Therefore there seems to be an argument for locating and preserving pre-2001 material - especially relating to Mulcaire - before it is lost, destroyed or compromised.  The clock is ticking to get it preserved fast.

Related Articles
One Rogue Email And The Indestructible Archive 

John Yates And Neil Wallis - A Mutual Understanding
Alex Marunchak - Presumed Innocent
News Corp - Diplomatic Immunity?
The Cook-Hames Surveillance : A Watched Kettle...
Alastair Morgan On The Latest Hackgate Revelations

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com