WATCHING THE DETECTIVES

Yesterday I watched the Home Affairs Select Committee grilling the key senior police officers involved with the News International phone hacking affair, amongst them Andy Hayman former Assistant Commissioner. Mr Hayman’s tone during his attendance before the committee was astonishing, his swagger, bluster and braggadocio jaw dropping. Here was somebody who had been a senior police officer, a public servant parading the moral character of the spiv, he did not actually say ‘leave it out,’ or ‘do me a favour,’ but his grinning demeanour spewed contempt for the committee. Here was Private Walker from Dad’s Army with all the charm of the Kray twins. Here was a man who at the same time as having oversight of the investigation into News International was wined and dined by them and who, having been forced to resign from the Met for inappropriate conduct, emerged two years later as a News International hack. This route incidentally followed by the supervising official at the Crown Prosecution Service .
As we, in my own case gleefully, watch the slow collapse of News International the smell in the nostrils can turn quickly to a rush to the toilet bowl.

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