Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
740-759)
MS JILL
PAY
7 DECEMBER 2009
Q740 Chairman: The Speaker made it
clear that when that language was used to him he immediately thought
that this might involve some kind of terrorism, some attack on
the House, I think he sought to imply, or perhaps some element
of Irish terrorism. Was that what you first understood?
Ms Pay: No. Even when I knew it
was to do with Home Office leaks, there could have been a terrorist
connection there because national security may have been involved
but I did not ever think it was anything to do with Ireland or
a direct terrorist attack on the House, no.
Q741 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: You were
told that it was to do with leaks from the Home Office. Did that
result in you being slightly sceptical when you were told that
the possible penalty might be imprisonment for 20 to 25 years?
Ms Pay: That was related to the
allegation, so when I had heard the allegation that is when I
asked about how serious a criminal offence this was and what the
possible sentence could be. For me, that framed it as being very
serious. I did not question it.
Q742 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Did you
think it was at all likely that someone would be sentenced to
25 years' imprisonment for being involved in leaks from the Home
Office?
Ms Pay: I did not know whether
the leaks were to do with the Official Secrets Act or terrorism.
I did not know what the leaks contained at that stage.
Q743 Sir Malcolm Rifkind: You thought
that might be the potential punishment that might be imposed,
given that you had been told this by the police?
Ms Pay: I accepted the police's
word that that was a possible sentence related to that allegation,
yes.
Q744 Mr Howard: Serjeant, you were
at pains to refute any suggestion that you had been intimidated
by the police.
Ms Pay: Yes.
Q745 Mr Howard: Indeed, I think you
were reluctant to assent to the proposition that you were misled
by the police, or do you think you were indeed misled by the police?
Ms Pay: I am not sure that I was
misled. I think I was steered down a certain route.
Q746 Mr Howard: You have described
their approach as being a drip, drip, drip in the way in which
they made information available to you.
Ms Pay: Yes.
Q747 Mr Howard: Do you think that
was a tactic employed by the police deliberately to put you at
a disadvantage?
Ms Pay: I think it was a tactic
so that I did not have the whole picture early, yes.
Q748 Mr Howard: It is accepted by
the police that you were not told that you need not consent to
the search, as you should have been under the provisions of the
Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Had you been told that, what
would have been your response?
Ms Pay: That would have put a
question in my mind that, if I had been told that I could insist
on a warrant, there would have been an avenue there that I did
not know about.
Q749 Mr Howard: Although you were
not told about the need for a warrant, the police repeatedly said
to you, "We need your consent". Does not that in itself
contain an implication that you need not have given your consent?
Ms Pay: I did not take that implication
from what they were saying.
Q750 Mr Howard: They never for example
said, "You must give your consent."
Ms Pay: No, they did not pressure
me into giving my consent by saying, "You must give your
consent."
Q751 Mr Howard: When it came to your
conversations with the Speaker, the impression I get from what
you have told us is that what you were really doing was informing
the Speaker more than anything else.
Ms Pay: Yes, that is correct.
That was from the very first Tuesday afternoon. That was what
I said: "I must inform the Speaker." I could not let
all this be happening and him not know. That was my view.
Q752 Mr Howard: You certainly were
not asking the Speaker for authority because you thought you had
it.
Ms Pay: Exactly. No, I was not
asking for authority because I believed I had the authority.
Q753 Mr Howard: You were not even
really, in any meaningful sense, consulting the Speaker, were
you? You were informing him.
Ms Pay: I was consulting him and
there was opportunity for questions but he did not ask any questions.
He accepted what I was telling him.
Q754 Mr Howard: If I may suggest
this to you, consultation implies that you might have put a question
to the Speaker: "This is what I propose to do. Do you agree?"
but you did not ask him for his agreement at all.
Ms Pay: No, I did not ask for
his agreement about what I was going to do.
Q755 Mr Howard: You were merely informing
him of what you were going to do.
Ms Pay: Yes, in the very last
conversation I did inform him of what I was going to do.
Q756 Mr Howard: In respect of the
previous conversations, you were merely informing him of what
had happened with the conversations you had had with the police.
Ms Pay: Yes, I was. As soon as
I had some information from the police, I informed the Speaker
about it but it was minimal information. That is what I was doing,
keeping him informed of what was happening.
Q757 Mr Howard: You did not tell
the Speaker at any stage, as I understand it, that what was being
investigated had nothing to do with terrorism.
Ms Pay: I did not use those words,
no.
Q758 Mr Howard: You did tell him
that it was the counter-terrorism police.
Ms Pay: Yes, I did. It is the
Counter Terrorism Command. That is one of the units of the Metropolitan
Police that we work with and I did tell him what the allegation
was when I telephoned him on the Wednesday afternoon.
Q759 Ann Coffey: I asked Sir William
McKay who was here before you how it could possibly happen that
the Speaker thought that there must have been a warrant to search
this office, but maybe it is a question I should ask of you. How
could that possibly have happened?
Ms Pay: I have reflected on this
a lot obviously and I think it is the same with Malcolm Jack because
when I went to see him he said, "Where is the warrant?"
I think there is an assumption that when you say "search"
"warrant" follows it, so "search warrant"
is the phrase that is in people's minds.
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