Scotland Yard backs down over Guardian sources demand
Scotland Yard have conducted an abrupt U-turn in their bid to force Guardian reporters to reveal their sources for their coverage of the phone hacking scandal.
Having yesterday demanded that journalists divulge the sensitive information today officers have changed their tune after their call was rejected by the Crown Prosecution Service and stirred widespread outrage – even from the Daily Mail.
The Metropolitan Police had been engaged in a campaign to elicit the source behind the news that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked after claiming that guardian reporter Amelia Hill could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act and could have been in breach of the Act herself.
The Guardian's editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: "We greatly welcome the Met's decision to withdraw this ill-judged order. Threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists' confidential sources. We would have fought this assault on public interest journalism all the way. We're happy that good sense has prevailed."