Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
1100-1119)
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
CRESSIDA DICK
QPM
18 JANUARY 2010
Q1100 Chairman: On how many occasions
did you speak to him, can you recall?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: It
is slightly difficult for me to remember precisely because I was
also, curiously, dealing with Mr Wright on another matter in that
time period, actually an Official Secrets matter and another leak
matter. I spoke to him, I know, on at least three occasions over
that couple of week period and I think I spoke to him on each
occasion about this matter. Initially I spoke to him about the
scoping and what we would intend to do.
Q1101 Chairman: You were also familiar,
I take it, with the terms of the letter dated 8 September but
which, in fact, should have been 8 October which was addressed
to Mr Quick?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: Yes.
I saw that letter shortly after Mr Quick went abroad.
Q1102 Chairman: You are familiar
too, I think, with the letter of 29 October written by Mr Wright
on this occasion to yourself?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: Yes,
that is right.
Q1103 Chairman: He says: "Further
to my letter of 8 September", which should have been 8 October,
"addressed to AC Bob Quick and his agreement to undertake
an investigation, I am happy to confirm the following investigation
terms of reference for the investigation ... " then there
are some redactions for good reason " ... that X and Y from
the Cabinet Office have drafted together. The terms of reference
are written against the background of a number of serious unauthorised
disclosures". How common is it for the complainant to provide
terms of reference?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: He
did not provide the terms of reference, Sir. The terms of reference
were actually drafted in the first instance by X, who was the
senior investigating officer, a Metropolitan Police officer. I
was very keen, as was Mr Quick and, indeed, the Deputy Commissioner
that (a) the scoping would be complete and we would be very clear
about that, as in we would not go into an investigation until
we were certain that criminal offences had been committed, and
(b)—
Q1104 Sir Alan Beith: Sorry, could
you repeat what you just said.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: A
criminal investigation would not go ahead until we were sure that
it appeared that criminal offences may have been committed. I
should have been more careful with my language, Sir. Not just,
"Yes, okay, we will investigate this on the basis of the
first letter", but we would do a proper scoping exercise.
In my statement I lay out some of the things that were going to
take place in the scoping exercise. Secondly, all three of us
felt it was important that the Cabinet Office were aware of the
terms of reference if we did go into in an investigation. They
are carefully drafted. They are the SIO's terms of reference,
although I did make a couple of changes in them. I wanted and,
indeed, Mr Quick and the Deputy Commissioner wanted the Cabinet
Office to be aware of those and to let us know they understood
what they were, and that was why he said in the next paragraph:
"We understand that the Metropolitan Police intend to ...
" There are terms of reference agreed with the Cabinet Office.
Q1105 Chairman: This seems to have
all the appearance of a negotiation, Assistant Commissioner.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
would not describe it as a negotiation. They saw them, they knew
they were ours, they understood them, and I did ask Mr Wright
to send this letter back to me. Looking back on it, because I
have followed your transcripts, I can see that has caused some
confusion in itself. It might have been better if I had written
to him in the first instance and said formally, "These are
the terms of reference" and then he had written back to say,
"Yes, I understand them". How common is it? Quite often
we would formally agree with the complainant, "These are
the terms of reference and, yes, you do understand them, don't
you?" On every single occasion when we are dealing with a
complex or sensitive crime, or a series of crimes, we will have
a conversation with the complainant about what we appear to be
dealing with and what we are now going to do about that. There
is a conversation that goes on.
Q1106 Chairman: But does it lie within
the power of the complainant to confirm those terms of reference?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
simply think he is confirming that he understands them. I really
do think that.
Q1107 Chairman: That is not what
he says.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: All
I can tell you is what happened, which was that they were our
terms of reference that X wrote, who was the SIO, with some input
from me.
Q1108 Chairman: And that blank from
the Cabinet Office—
Assistant Commissioner Dick: Blank
is Mr Wright's deputy, so they had had a conversation about the
terms of reference. This is us at the most senior levels agreeing
that this is what the Met is now going to do.
Q1109 Chairman: It is not just they
had a conversation but "had drafted together". That
is what it says at the end of the sentence.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: What
I have said in my statement, which I stand by, is that I have
got no reason to think at all that the Cabinet Office officials
at any stage tried to influence the terms of reference. They were
aware of what we were intending to do and, as I said, we all thought
that was very important. If you look at the terms of reference
they are carefully drafted and make it clear, for example, that
we are not going to deal with all 31 of these, we are going to
start with the one on 1 September, which was the one which appeared
to be going to give us the best initial leverage, and we were
going to identify the chain of that disclosure and any other related
ones. Then it also makes the point that we will only go to proactive
measures, by which I mean covert measures, if it is necessary,
appropriate and authorised. It was really a matter of trying to
get clear with them what we would and would not be doing.
Q1110 Chairman: I appreciate you
did not write this letter.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: Yes.
Q1111 Chairman: But use of words
like "confirm" and "drafted together" suggest
something rather different from what you have just described.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: As
you say, I did not write the letter and knowing you were calling
me I have not discussed this letter with Mr Wright, in fact I
have never discussed these issues with Mr Wright since November
2008, but I am quite confident that these were our terms of reference
and at no stage did they try to influence them at all. They simply
made available to us all the material that they had, told us about
the investigations that they had done and assisted us as we were
trying to work out whether this was an appropriate thing for us
to take on as an investigation or not. My view is that having
this on the record was in support of the senior investigating
officer and was designed in part to ensure that he did not come
under any improper influence or pressure. I saw no sign of it.
Q1112 Chairman: From what source
might that have been?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
have been an ACPO officer for nine years and have on occasions
seen government departments forget that the police are independent.
I have on occasions seen politicians forget that the police are
independent.
Q1113 Chairman: That is exactly what
we are really concerned about here.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
did not see any sign of it here whatsoever. This letter and those
terms of reference were designed to ensure that as we went forward
the SIO would be given a direction where everybody could say,
"Yes, that's what we agreed".
Q1114 Chairman: If the matter had
been as independent as you say then it would have been for the
police to determine the terms of reference and say, "These
are our terms of reference, we are proceeding in accordance with
them".
Assistant Commissioner Dick: Yes.
Q1115 Chairman: There would not have
been any need for confirming or drafting together.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
do not agree, Sir. I agree that the phraseology "drafting
together" may be slightly clumsy but—
Q1116 Chairman: Or even wrong.
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
think it was important for me, for the record, that the Cabinet
Office understood what our terms of reference were and what we
were going to do, and they wrote to tell us so.
Q1117 Chairman: Did you speak to
anyone else in the Cabinet Office about these matters or meet
anyone else in the Cabinet Office on which these matters formed
the subject of a conversation?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
did not, no, Sir, but my senior investigating officer and, indeed,
his detective chief superintendent did. During the time period
that we are talking about, ie the scoping exercise, there were
several meetings involving Cabinet Office officials at various
levels and my senior investigating officer, and on occasion the
detective chief superintendent, which is the normal level at which
we would engage in this sort of matter.
Q1118 Chairman: Do you have a view
about the use of the offence of misconduct in public office being
used in circumstances of the kind we are considering where the
high threshold for using the Official Secrets Act has not been
obtained?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: I
am quite familiar with misconduct in public office and it is an
offence which is not regularly like theft, for example, but quite
regularly used in matters of what you might call professional
standards in a variety of circumstances, certainly in policing
but also I am familiar with this in the Prison Service and in
various government departments. I am familiar with it also in
cases of unauthorised disclosure of information of one sort or
another. I checked the figures before I came and in the Metropolitan
Police district in the 18 months leading up to December last year
we had about 58 people arrested and about 31 people charged with
it. It is not a particularly obscure offence. It is one that I
think is useful and important. There have been at least two cases
that you will probably be familiar with recently where the Official
Secrets Act prosecution has failed for one reason or another and
the misconduct has succeeded; one being in relation to an interpreter
in Iraq and another relating to a member of police staff who leaked
top secret material, and on that occasion it was not that the
prosecution failed but the CPS chose not to use it because they
felt that the threshold was not reached for Official Secrets.
I think there are occasions, and they may be limited, when it
is an entirely proper and respectable, if I can put it that way,
offence to use, including in unauthorised disclosure cases where
there has been a gross abuse of trust.
Q1119 Sir Alan Beith: Is it useful
because it allows you to defeat the intention of the reform of
the Official Secrets Act which included that leaks which did not
involve matters of national security should be treated as disciplinary
offences and investigated and proceeded with on a disciplinary
basis and use of the Act should be confined to matters of national
security?
Assistant Commissioner Dick: That
is not why I think it is useful. There is simply a gap without
it. Where one does need to be very cautious, of course, and the
Director has made it abundantly clear in his decision in this
case, is where we are talking about disclosure to the media, which
may be argued to be in the public interest or may quite clearly
be in the public interest, and we need to be extremely cautious
in cases which are political. There are lots and lots of other
cases where it might be Official Secrets and end up being charged
potentially with misconduct, and I think that is entirely reasonable.
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