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MPs slam the Met for a “catalogue of failures’in phone hacking probe

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

July 20, 2011 | 2 min read

MPs today lambast the Metropolitan Police for “a catalogue of failures" over the News of the World phone-hacking investigation in a damning report rushed out overnight - just hours after Scotland Yard’s top cops had faced a Commons committee.

And the Home Affairs Committee has also criticised the "deliberate attempts by News International to thwart the various investigations".

According to the Committee, there was no "real will" on the part of the Met to overcome the news organisation's failure to co-operate.

Sky News reports that the committee has asked the Government to provide more funds for Operation Weeting, the police phone hacking probe, or risk a "serious delay" to the start of the public inquiry already announced by the Prime Minister.

Otherwise, points out the committee, it will take years to inform all potential victims without extra money.

MPs said they agreed with the Met’s former assistant commissioner John Yates' own assessment that his 2009 review of the investigation was "very poor", that he did not ask the right questions and that he was guilty of a "serious misjudgement".

The report also criticised the conduct of Andy Hayman, who oversaw the investigation, as "both unprofessional and inappropriate".

The committee highlighted its concern over Hayman’s appointment to oversee anti-terrorism policing and criticised his role as a columnist for The Times only two months after his resignation.

Meanwhile, the head of public affairs for the Met, Dick Fedorcio is also criticised having apparently failed to conduct proper background checks on Neil Wallis, former deputy editor of the News of the World before he was hired as a PR adviser.

Wallis has now been arrested in connection with phone hacking at the newspaper.

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