Request prompts response from editor Alan Rusbridger criticising the Met's handling of witnesses and calling the request for Guardian evidence 'a last resort'
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The Metropolitan Police has asked the Guardian to share any new evidence it has about phone hacking at the News of the World with the force.
The request has prompted a response from editor Alan Rusbridger criticising the Met's handling of witnesses so far and defending the investigative work carried out by the Guardian and other news organisations. In a letter written on Monday to the Metropolitan Police Service's detective superintendent Dean Haydon , Rusbridger asks the Met to clarify its request and give more details about the nature of its new criminal inquiry .
He describes the force's approach to obtain evidence from the Guardian as "a matter of last resort".
"[T]he fact that three separate news organizations have been able to uncover this story must give you hope that you, too, could get to the bottom of it without too much trouble," he says, referring to the New York Times and the Channel 4 Dispatches investigations into the phone hacking allegations. The Guardian published a series of articles in July 2009 looking into claims of phone hacking at the News of the World and the fallout for its victims. Since the New York Times investigation in September, the Guardian has published new reports, featuring evidence from former News of the World journalist Ross Hall . The new material has prompted calls for a judicial review of the Met's original inquiry and for the resignation of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, now Prime Minister David Cameron's chief communications officer.
"If the intent of your inquiry is to uncover the extent of criminal behaviour within the NoW [News of the World] at the relevant time we would suggest you try to speak to as many of the paper’s former or current journalists as you can and to examine the evidence, such as the Gordon Taylor transcripts, which you already possess. That, it seems to us, would be a more productive route than seeking to interview other journalists who have looked into the story," he writes.
"This explains my confusion. It has been open to the MPS to pursue this path at any point since your colleagues arrested Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman in 2006. But the MPS decided at the time that they would interview no other NoW journalists than Mr Goodman himself."
In his response, Rusbridger says the Met's letter to the Guardian suggests "a narrower intent" for the current inquiry, looking at only new material, including interviews with at least two former News of the World journalists, who have recently come forward.
But the Guardian editor warns the Met from acting in an intimidating way when seeking to interview these whisteblowers by placing them under caution.
"If the police were to follow a less threatening approach - by treating these people as potential witnesses, and possibly offering them immunity from prosecution - it might well be that you could obtain "new" evidence from them directly in the way the media organizations have done," he says.
