The Metropolitan police have quite a few problems including the death of Ian Tomlinson, kettling and mistreatment of protesters and now this. The Met pressured The Guardian newspaper about their stories on the News Corp phone hacking, though failing to mention that a former News Corp employee had recently joined the police force. This is not good. The Met is long overdue for their own overhaul so maybe they can follow their close friends at News Corp and start the process of cleaning themselves up. The Guardian:
Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, as an adviser.
The first meeting in December 2009, which included the Metropolitan police commissioner Paul Stephenson, was two months after Wallis was employed by the Yard as a public relations consultant.
Wallis, 60, who was deputy to Andy Coulson, the NoW editor at the time of the phone hacking, was arrested on Thursday as part of Operation Weeting. Coulson has also been arrested and bailed.
