No stone unturned

A pledge by the Metropolitan police to conduct a “robust” probe into phone hacking allegations has been undermined before investigations have got underway.

As Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin was telling the London Police Authority that the force was “not afraid of accountability', former top cop Brian Paddick was claiming that police were “congenitally afraid” of upsetting newspaper editors.

Yesterday, the Met was claiming to have suddenly come by “significant information” which a series of targeted individuals (and their legal teams) have been claiming has been readily available for the last two years - if someone had taken the trouble to examine the files.

With the departure of Andy Coulson and the resignation of Ian Edmondson and a full-blown CPS review in progress, it is inevitable that the fall-out will encompass high-ranking police officers who had previously failed to find evidence of endemic tapping of private voice-mails by journalists.

A growing number of observers think that the appointment of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers – who has had no involvement in previous investigations – will not be sufficient to appease widespread misgivings among press and politicians that the Met is as badly tainted as News International. Some even go so far as to suggest that a decision to bring in an outside police force will be quietly announced over the weekend. Time to check Teresa May’s diary.