Members of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee found themselves with more questions than they had started after listening to Acting Deputy Commissioner John Yates today. He told MPs that Labour’s Chris Bryant had been "materially wrong" by alluding to a police conspiracy linked with the News of the World to shield journalists from phone-hacking allegations.
Mr Yates insisted that a prosecutors' advice had been that interception of a voicemail message was only an offence if the true recipient had not yet listened to it. On that basis, he contended, only "a very small number of cases" could be proven.
However the Crown Prosecution Service has denied this was the guidance given. A spokeswoman for the CPS referred all press enquiries to a letter written by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, (Ripa and the phone-hacking investigation) published in the Guardian last week and which criticises John Yates for quoting guidelines out of context.
The former Labour junior minister claims he was a victim of phone hacking and says the Met failed to "join up the dots" of their original inquiry. Yates’ appearance before MPs was scheduled following his request for an opportunity to rebut Bryant's allegations. The general view is that the high-profile cop achieved nothing of the sort but simply entrenched already widely held views that police & prosecutors have misled parliament
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