Appearing before the Metropolitan Police Authority, Tim Godwin confirmed that a 'full and live' investgation was underway and said the Met was 'not afraid of being held accountable'
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The Metropolitan Police is "not afraid of being held accountable" for its investigation into phone hacking, acting commissioner Tim Godwin said today.
Appearing before the Metropolitan Police Authority today, where he was asked to release more details from the force's earlier inquiries, Godwin added that he "would hate for anyone to think we are being evasive in terms of answering challenging questions, as that is not our nature".
"We are not afraid of being held accountable for the decisions and actions that we take," he added.
Godwin confirmed that a "full and live" investigation into signficant new information provided by the News of the World is now being carried out by the specialist crime directorate under deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers.
"We do understand how people who perceive themselves to have been potential victims feel, we can understand frustrations, we can understand concerns," he said.
"We don't want to do anything that will undermine any prospects of prosecution or any action that may occur.
"But we do need to allow Sue Akers and her team to go through that evidence robustly and pursue those lines of enquiry.
One member of the authority, Dee Doocey, questioned the confidence in the Met, recommending instead that the investigation is carried out by an independent body "for the Met's sake".
Godwin said phone hacking is a "fairly unique offence" and that it is vital that the force takes direction on it. Yesterday the News of the World confirmed that its assistant editor (news), Ian Edmondson, had been sacked following an internal investigation.
Earlier today the tabloid accused the BBC of running a "misleading report"
which claimed to have seen documents that suggest hacking may have been going on as recently as last year. "We have carried out an extensive investigation led by a team of independent forensic specialists and we have found no evidence whatsoever to support this allegation," a statement from the paper said.
"The civil litigation is ongoing, as is the internal investigation and until both are concluded it would be inappropriate to comment further. However we are disappointed the BBC chose to lead with this misleading report without giving the News of the World an opportunity to respond."
In a statement the BBC responded to say it stands by the story but "acknowledge that we should have put the allegations directly to the News of The World and have apologised to them for not doing so".
"We have carried their subsequent press statement on all outlets covering the story," the statement added.
