Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
480-499)
DEPUTY ASSISTANT
COMMISSIONER JOHN
MCDOWALL
MBE AND CHIEF
SUPERINTENDENT ED
BATEMAN
23 NOVEMBER 2009
Q480 Mr Howard: There is a big difference,
is there not, between misconduct in a public office on the one
hand, which is a common law offence, and impeding the effective
conduct of government on the other hand, which is not any kind
of offence?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
Absolutely.
Chairman: Some would say the role
of Her Majesty's Opposition!
Mr Howard: Indeed.
Q481 Sir Alan Beith: I may have misunderstood
you but I took you to be saying that the Government was very exercised
about the impediment to its conduct of business of suffering a
lot of leaks but that that was not your problem, not one in which
you should be engaged. The question for you was whether offences,
either against the Official Secrets Act or because of the choice
that had been made of misconduct in a public office, had been
committed, and only those questions.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
Yes.
Q482 Sir Alan Beith: If I can just
turn to the arrest itself, the Johnston Report makes clear that
the conditions set by PACE as amended by the Serious Organised
Crime and Police Act of 2005 are quite stringent that there are
necessity reasons which have to support an arrest to allow prompt
and effective investigation of the offence or the conduct of the
person in question, and I draw the inference that these necessity
reasons might include a need to stop material being destroyed
or a witness becoming unavailable. However, none of these conditions
applied, did they, because Mr Galley had been arrested and released
on bail a week earlier? So if Mr Green had any motive to destroy
evidence or anything of that kind, he had already had ample opportunity
to do so. Why was it necessary to arrest him rather than invite
him for interview?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
It is our experience that, even when people have a great deal
of notice that they may or may not be arrested—and I understand
Mr Green may have said he was not expecting to be arrested—either
they are unaware of where evidence exists or, if they have not
particularly gone and looked to try and remove it or destroy it
or make it unavailable, it is quite often the case that people
leave all sorts of things around.
Q483 Sir Alan Beith: So there was
not a problem, because if he did not know where it was, he was
not going to destroy it, was he?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
I think it comes to whether it is reasonable to suppose that there
may be an effort or not on his part to destroy or remove evidence
but the point I am making is that that absence of time, that gap
in time, does not necessarily have the impact that you may think
it does. That is what experience will tell us.
Q484 Sir Alan Beith: You had had
a week, so whether you were aiming to arrest him at nine o'clock
in the morning or he appeared voluntarily at the police station
in response to your invitation at two o'clock in the afternoon,
for example, was immaterial, was it not?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
Sorry, I am not sure I fully understand.
Q485 Sir Alan Beith: You did not
need to arrest him because there was not a time pressure. It was
a reasonable assumption that, if you asked him, he would come
to the police station to talk to you at a mutually convenient
time.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
Unless you actually exercise that power of arrest, you never know
when a person may or may not agree to actually come and speak
to you.
Q486 Sir Alan Beith: Then when you
did try to arrest him, you did not tell the Kent Police, and Mr
Green alleges you went to the wrong house. Is that so?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
No, it is not so. The search for the address in Kent was narrowed
by the investigators down to two premises that were adjacent.
It was a deliberate decision not to go to Kent Police, again,
for the reasons that I have already outlined, that in these sorts
of investigations, where there are sensitivities, the inclusion
of people is kept to an absolute minimum. What we did know was
that there were two driveways which were very close by. We knew
that one of those houses would be the address of Mr Green. Rather
than pursue that inquiry, and open up knowledge of this case,
it was decided to just take a rather more softly-softly approach,
if I can put it that way.
Q487 Sir Alan Beith: You did not
trust the Kent Police to deal with an inquiry as to which was
Mr Green's house and driveway without alerting him that his arrest
was imminent?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
No, I am not saying we did not trust the Kent Police. I am saying
that experience has shown over the years that when you expand
the knowledge of certain cases beyond the "need-to-know"
basis, if I can put it that way, quite often that information
is compromised or people take an interest and that becomes an
unhealthy interest. So it was decided, in order to do this in
as low a key way as possible—
Q488 Ann Coffey: That is in criminal
cases. This is an MP we are talking about, not a criminal.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
Yes, and it is very much his interests that at that point we were
trying to protect.
Q489 Sir Alan Beith: He would almost
certainly have responded to an invitation from you to come in
for interview, would he not?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
We did not know that.
Q490 Sir Alan Beith: So you believed
it quite likely that he would evade a police interview by some
means or other?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
No, of course not.
Q491 Ann Coffey: Abscond, leave the
country?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
Of course not, but the timing of that interview would have been
out of our particular gift.
Q492 Mr Howard: Mr McDowall, does
this mean that you disagree with the conclusion reached by the
Johnston Report, which says very clearly that the Metropolitan
Police's operational aims could have been achieved by the use
of less intrusive methods, such as inviting Mr Green to attend
a police station for arrest and interview accompanied by his legal
representative?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
I think that is not a conclusion that I disagree with. I think
that the report as written was certainly written at a time when
the investigation had not been concluded—in fact, was nowhere
near its conclusion—and, as I understand it, the officers
who were involved in the investigation were not spoken to. So
I would not say that I disagree with that assessment and, with
hindsight, clearly perhaps would have done things in a different
manner.
Q493 Sir Alan Beith: You just did
disagree with it. You just told us that the Metropolitan Police
had to act in a particular way because you could not be certain
how Mr Green would behave.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
We certainly felt that the arrest was an appropriate way to ensure
that we could secure evidence if it was available.
Q494 Mr Howard: Do you now accept
that it was disproportionate?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
Yes, I think with the benefit of all the discussion that has gone
on, I would probably do lots of things differently. I think some
of the suggestions around a protocol for the way in which we might
investigate these things in future is a very sensible way of approaching
things. There are certain other things in the course of an investigation
that I would not change, but yes, of course, I would be open to
consider any change that appeared to be rational and sensible.
Q495 Chairman: I am intrigued by
the notion that it was difficult to work out which was Mr Green's
house. There must be many sources of information—the Electoral
Register, for example, or you could have rung up the local authority.
It is often a bone of contention in the House of Commons that
there are so many sources of information about individuals, and
in particular about MPs. How was it that one of these obvious
sources was not tapped into in order to be sure that you got the
right house?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner McDowall:
I think, sir, that the obvious sources would have been tapped
into. As I stated a few moments ago, the anxiety was to preclude
the widening of knowledge in relation to the investigation, so
I think at the point that they had narrowed it down to a certain
two dwellings in what I understand to be a relatively rural area,
they felt that was good enough for their purposes in the morning,
and that would preclude them from having to ring others or go
to other agencies or whatever it was.
Q496 Chairman: Mr Bateman, you have
been very patient. Have you been in your present position since
before what we call the Tebbit reforms? How long have you held
your present post?
Chief Superintendent Bateman:
Since November 2007.
Q497 Chairman: That is after Tebbit—is
that right?
Chief Superintendent Bateman:
Yes.
Q498 Chairman: So you have no direct
knowledge of the relationship between your predecessor in office
and the previous Serjeant at Arms. You do not know how that worked.
Chief Superintendent Bateman:
That is correct.
Q499 Chairman: Can I ask you this:
perhaps you could describe for us in operational terms what your
relationship is with the current Serjeant at Arms based upon the
Tebbit reforms which preceded your taking up your present post.
Chief Superintendent Bateman:
It is close. I have three access points to Parliament. I have
Black Rod, I have the Serjeant at Arms and I have the Parliamentary
Security Co-ordinator. On a daily basis I will talk with the Serjeant
at Arms and Black Rod.
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