Dodgy Geezer

Arthur Daley, Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter and now Andy Hayman. Welcome to the slippery world of a top copper at the Met. From his early days as a beat policeman from Essex he rose quickly to become Chief Constable of the Norfolk force. He joined his old chum Sir Ian Blair at the Met as Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Anti-terror unit. He seems to have made some serious enemies on his journey. He also did some decidedly dodgy doings. 

Craig Murray, the ex-ambassador wrote on his blog following the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes. “The Met maintained that De Menezes was a terrorist for 24 hours after they knew he was innocent. The Met then proceeded to tell a series of lies about De Menezes behaviour to justify his killing. They said he had:

- Run into the tube station

- Vaulted the ticket barrier

- Raced through the subway and dashed onto the train

- Been wearing a bulky jacket from which wires protruded

These were 100% lie. In fact De Menezes had

- Picked up a newspaper in the station

- Used a ticket in the normal way

- Walked calmly through the station

- Been wearing tight clothing with no wires

These lies by the Met are inexcusable. In fact the IPCC were unable to get to grips with much else for lack of evidence – the cover-up went much deeper. Especially

- The CCTV footage of De Menezes throughout the station and at the shooting got “Lost” or corrupted. The IPCC named only Andy Hayman, the Head of counter-terrorist operations at the Met, as guilty of these lies.” (my emphasis)

Private Eye took the case against Hayman further.

“Hayman of course is the former assistant Met commissioner who so spectacularly mishandled the original investigation into phone-hacking at the News of the Screws.

Hayman resigned from Scotland Yard in a hissy fit in 2007, complaining of “unfounded accusations” about his expenses, his foreign business trips with a woman police sergeant and his blizzard of messages to a female ex-colleague who worked for the Independent Police Complaints Commission – which was then investigating the Met over the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. (The IPCC said that his 400 phone-calls and texts to the woman were “not work related”.)

The News of the Screws had a story about his private life at the time, but it was spiked. And, shortly after returning to Civvy Street, he joined the payroll of News International as a columnist for the Times. (my emphasis)

In February this year Scotland Yard gave the Metropolitan Police Authority a list of all the private dinners hosted by Screws executives for senior officers. In September 2006, for instance, the then deputy commissioner Paul Stephenson dined with the paper’s deputy editor, Neil “Wolfman” Wallis, only a month after the arrest of royal correspondent Clive Goodman. In November 2009, shortly after deciding not to reopen the hacking inquiry, assistant commissioner John Yates dined with editor Colin Myler and crime editor Lucy Panton. In all, the list disclosed eight previously unacknowledged private dinners and five other meetings with NI executives. But Andy Hayman’s name was curiously absent.

Two weeks ago, after an FOI application, the Yard listed a number of meetings between Hayman and News International, including a lunch at the Times in February 2006. But it omitted to reveal that he had three lunches and two dinners at the News of the Screws between 2005 and 2007, even while he was investigating the paper for criminal offences. The embarrassing belated disclosure of these contacts with the Screws was lamely described by acting commissioner Tim Goodwin – on April Fool’s Day, fittingly enough – as “an oversight”. (My emphasis)

To bring matters up to date here from Simon Hoggart’s piece in today’s Guardian is a little snippet from the Select Committee.

“Lorraine Fullbrook, another Tory, asked outright if he had ever accepted money from NI.

You would have thought she'd accused him of being a predatory paedophile, not someone who had conducted a hopelessly inadequate inquiry into a firm which had wined and dined him, and then given him a well-paid job.

"Good god!" he exploded. "Absolutely not, I can't believe you suggested that! That is a real attack on my integrity!"

Imagine this response spoken by  Arfur Daley or Del Boy. Andy Hayman is a truly dodgy geezer.