Stephenson: Resigned in summer 2011
The former Metropolitan police (MPS) commissioner who quit last summer over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has acknowledged that the police force was too "defensive" when it faced calls to reopen the inquiry in 2009.
Giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry into press standards today, Sir Paul Stephenson said there was a "very closed mindset" in the force at the time and a misheld belief that the original 2006 investigation, Operation Caryatid, had been a wide-ranging success.
He told the inquiry: "There was a feeling, around 2009, that the Met was more and more convinced that the original operation was a success in its totality. What we didn't do is actually go back and challenge the reasons for those decisions in 2006."
Stephenson added: "We got ourselves almost hooked on a defensive strategy that we would not expend significant resources without new or additional evidence. That was a perfectly logical situation to be in, provided your assumption about the original success of the operation was correct.
"The mindset that we had - and this is not a defence or an excuse - was wrong. There was clearly substance there [to investigate hacking further]."
The Guardian published a series of allegations in summer 2009 about phone hacking, but Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan police probe, was not launched until January 2011.
Stephenson resigned last July after coming under fire for hiring former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis as a PR consultant in 2009.
The inquiry heard that Stephenson was made aware around April 2011 that Wallis was a person of interest in the investigation, and in July that he had formally become a suspect.
In written evidence, Stephenson said: "With the benefit of hindsight I regret that the MPS entered into a contract with Mr Wallis."
He told the inquiry today: "I always held a view that if the story becomes about the leader as opposed to what you do, that is a bad place to be. I didn't think I had any other alternative, out of all sense of honour."
Stephenson also suggested that restrictions should be introduced, limiting senior police officers from joining the media when they leave the force.
"I would be very reticent about recommending a restriction around junior officers. I think that would be a disproportionate response," he said.
"But it might be worthy of consideration in terms of engendering public confidence for further thought to be given to should there be some time bar before a senior officer takes up full time direct employment in the media.
"I'm nervous about any restraint of trade and stopping people making a contribution. It's a debate that has many sides."
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