Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
300-319)
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
ROBERT QUICK
QPM
10 FEBRUARY 2009
Q300 Chairman: Who else was told?
Mr Quick: A message was left for
the deputy commissioner. I believe that he was in a meeting at
that time, but Sir Paul Stephenson was told at 28 minutes past
via a message. At 2.30 Sir David Normington's office was briefed
by DAC Dick, and at 2.33 Christopher Wright of the Cabinet Office
was left a message to the effect that an arrest had been made.
At 2.36 CPS headquarters staff were informed, and at 2.39 Mr Wright
from the Cabinet Office returned the call to DAC Dick.
Q301 Chairman: Just to complete the
timeline, you were not present at Southwark Cathedral for the
memorial service for Damilola Taylor?
Mr Quick: No.
Q302 Martin Salter: To get it clear,
the arrest of Damian Green took place before your officers had
sight of the evidence obtained from the search, because the search
took place after the arrest?
Mr Quick: Yes.
Q303 Martin Salter: So, you were
acting on other evidence?
Mr Quick: We were acting on reasonable
grounds. Obviously, I cannot discuss that in any detail, but it
was our intention that Mr Green might have been arrested earlier
in the day but for the fact that he proved difficult to locate.
Q304 Martin Salter: So, you had sufficient
reasonable grounds to effect an arrest irrespective of what the
search might or might not have turned up?
Mr Quick: Yes.
Q305 Mr Streeter: You said that Mr
Green was arrested outside London. Was he arrested by officers
from Kent?
Mr Quick: No, officers of the
Metropolitan Police.
Q306 Mr Streeter: Was it a surprise
to you that he was arrested? You seemed to indicate that you were
not aware he had been arrested. Was it the intention that he would
be arrested that day?
Mr Quick: Yes.
Q307 Mr Streeter: Why did you not
mention this in the various phone calls that you made to people?
Why did you not allude to the fact that he would be arrested?
Mr Quick: Because the arrest took
place 20 miles away from where I was in my office and the message
that he had been arrested did not get to me until after I had
made the first series of phone calls.
Q308 Mr Streeter: Why did you not
tell the Leader of the Opposition, for example, that you intended
not only to search the offices of one of his party members but
to search the office and arrest him?
Mr Quick: I spoke to Mr Cameron
and alerted him to our intention to conduct searches of premises
relating to Mr Green and I sought his assistance in locating Mr
Green because we required to speak to him urgently. Mr Cameron
agreed to ask Mr Green to call my office, so it was my expectation
that Mr Green would telephone my office and I would make an appointment
for him to meet the senior investigating officer.
Q309 Chairman: I think Mr Streeter's
point is that if you had said to Mr Cameron that you were looking
for Damian Green to arrest him you might not have got the same
degree of co-operation.
Mr Quick: I now understand your
question.
Q310 Chairman: Had you told all those
other people that you were looking for Damian Green but could
not find him and had said, "Please, Mr Cameron, help me find
him because the first thing I am going to do is arrest him",
you might have had a different reaction?
Mr Quick: I may have received
a different reaction. I really do not know what the reaction would
have been, but I felt I was within my rights to ask for Mr Cameron's
assistance in asking Mr Green to call my office.
Q311 Mr Streeter: That was not quite
the point I sought to make. As you were taking a lot of time and
trouble to proceed with caution and alert all these different
people I am not sure why you did not give them the full story,
namely that an MP was about to be arrested and searched.
Mr Quick: Because I think there
was a risk until the police had located Mr Green that one could
set in motion a train of events that might not be helpful to the
police inquiry.
Q312 Mr Streeter: Do you know from
your notes whether when your three officers went to see the Serjeant
at Arms she saw them on her own or had advisers with her?
Mr Quick: To my knowledge, she
met them in the presence of the chief superintendent of police
here at the Palace of Westminster. It is my understanding that
she left that meeting to take advice and returned.
Q313 Bob Russell: It was therefore
a deliberate, conscious decision not to inform Mr Cameron's office
that Mr Green was about to be arrested?
Mr Quick: Yes. It was a conscious
decision to seek assistance to locate Mr Green; that was my intention.
Q314 Bob Russell: It was a deliberate,
conscious decision not to say that Mr Green was about to be arrested?
Mr Quick: Yes.
Q315 Chairman: That applies to the
other people to whom you spoke?
Mr Quick: Yes, absolutely.
Q316 Margaret Moran: In any contact
prior to the arrest was that message being given out to anybody?
For example, was Sir Paul Stephenson giving the same message?
In other words, were you all co-ordinated in your intent to invite
Mr Green to speak to you rather than tell people that he was about
to be arrested? As far as you are aware nobody said that he was
about to be arrested?
Mr Quick: I cannot speak for those
conversations where I was not present, but the inclusion of people
in terms of their knowledge of our intention to arrest Mr Green
at that time was very limited for operational reasons.
Q317 Margaret Moran: Was it an operational
decision by everybody involved as part of the Metropolitan Police,
wherever they might be located, not to tell anybody that there
would be an arrest?
Mr Quick: Yes, until that arrest
took place.
Q318 Margaret Moran: You said that
at one point you contacted the Serjeant at Arms and received the
reply that she had no concerns about proceeding to the MP's office.
Can you give us a bit more detail? Were you speaking to her directly?
What was the context? The words "no concerns" sound
rather a mile response to an inquiry of that sort.
Mr Quick: To elaborate slightly,
after the meeting on 26 November my understanding is that an arrangement
was made for officers to return next day. At that stage consent
to search had not been given and it was understood that the officers
would return next morning and seek consent to search during which
time the Serjeant at Arms would take legal advice and consider
that request for consent the next morning. Later that day I telephoned
the office of the Serjeant at Arms before the search commenced
just to seek assurance that she was content with police action
and that there were no problems or difficulties. Unfortunately,
she was not available at 1.46 but I was briefed by one of my staff
officers that we had received a call to my office from the Serjeant
at Arms or her office—I cannot say absolutely that it was
the Serjeant at Arms herself—to say that there were no issues
to be raised with me.
Q319 Chairman: Do you regret that
you telephoned the Leader of the Opposition to seek his assistance
in finding one of the members of his own party when it was your
intention to have him arrested when he was found?
Mr Quick: If I am brutally honest,
in a sense that would not have changed our course of action. Our
intention was to arrest Mr Green earlier in the day. It was right
and proper to ring Mr Cameron because I think it would have been
unforgivable had he learned of an arrest and not been aware of
it. That was why my deputy telephoned him immediately. We knew
that the arrest had been made. She telephoned Mr Cameron to brief
him to that effect.
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