Police Inquiries: Operations Weeting, Elveden and tuleta

¶Introduction

¶1.1 Operation Weeting commenced on 26 January 2011. Its immediate spur was the provision to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) by News International (NI) of what the MPS has characterised as significant new information relating to allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World (NoTW) in 2005-2006.1 Its remit was initially to investigate these allegations, but evidence relating to other dates and print titles is now being considered. The operation falls under the aegis of the Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD) of the MPS, and at all material times until 31 October 2012 has been headed by DAC Sue Akers, head of organised crime and criminal networks with the SCD, who has received universal praise for her work. E DAC Akers also headed Operations Elveden and Tuleta.

¶1.2 Operation Elveden began on 20 June 2011 following the MPS being handed by NI a number of documents containing evidence relating to alleged inappropriate payments to a small number of police officers by journalists at the NoTW in exchange for confidential information.2 Since its early stages however, the ambit of Operation Elveden has widened significantly: additional print titles are now being investigated, as well as a range of public officials.3

¶1.3 Operation Tuleta commenced as a scoping exercise in June 2011 to consider the possibility of investigating allegations of computer hacking at the NoTW falling outside the remit of Operations Elveden and Tuleta.4 In due course it became a fully-fledged investigation, and again its scope has broadened considerably.

¶1.4 DAC Akers attended the Inquiry on 6 and 27 February, and 23 July 2012, to provide updates as to the current status of these three operations. On each occasion she helpfully provided a witness statement which she elaborated in oral evidence.5 On 31 October 2012 DAC Akers filed a fourth witness statement which brings the position as up to date as it can be.6 She was not asked to give oral evidence in line with that statement. This section of the Report is heavily based on her evidence, as well as other material which is in the public domain.

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¶Operation Weeting

¶1.5 As at 6 February 2012 there were 90 officers including support staff dedicated to Operation

¶Weeting; of these, approximately 35 worked full time in relation to notifying and supporting the victims.7 As DAC Akers has explained in evidence, in its initial phases Operation Weeting focused on seeking to notify the victims and on analysing the numerous pages of the

¶Mulcaire notebooks,8 which had been seized as part of Operation Caryatid on 8 August 2006.9

¶Subsequently, however, Operation Weeting acquired possession of substantial quantities of email data from a variety of sources.10 In due course, the MPS was provided with the content of NI's main server from 2005, containing a vast number of permanently deleted emails.11

¶Officers working on Operation Weeting have been able to complete the reconstruction of these deleted emails recovered from storage devices obtained from NI, restoring three hundred million emails. DAC Akers has informed the Inquiry that:12

"…we've rebuilt – experts have rebuilt material that we thought had been lost, and that was completed towards the end of November last year. So we're now going through that material."

¶1.6 The first arrest carried out under Operation Weeting was in April 2011, and the last (to date) E at the end of August 2012. So far,²⁵²⁵ p52, lines 7-9, Dominic Mohan, http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Transcript-of- Afternoon-Hearing-9-January-2012.pdf people13 have been arrested in connection with phone hacking, ten of whom are non-journalists.¹⁷¹⁷ http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Key-Questions-Module-2.pdf individuals have been arrested for conspiring to intercept communications and/or in relation to the substantive offence. Of these, seven former NoTW employees have been charged with an overarching, general offence of conspiracy to intercept communications, and an additional former employee has also been charged with a number of date-specific substantive offences. A provisional court date has been fixed for 9 September 2013. Of the 17 arrested, six individuals have been released from police bail with no further action taken; the remaining three individuals remain on police bail for conspiracy offences.14

¶1.7 It is clear that Operation Weeting has expended a considerable amount of police manpower and resource. It is also clear that its work has not finished.

¶1.8 Eight individuals have been arrested for perverting the course of justice: this operation has been named Operation Sacha. Seven of these have been charged with conspiring to commit that offence, and have been sent to the Crown Court for trial. A hearing for the defendants' applications to dismiss is scheduled for 12 and 13 December 2012.15

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¶Operation Elveden

¶1.9 In February 2012 there were 40 police officers and staff working on Operation Elveden and the MPS was in the process of increasing this to 61.16 The investigation has entailed going through large quantities of NI business records and emails, seeking evidence relevant to suspicious payments. As of 26 October 2012 a total of 52 individuals had been arrested by officers working on Operation Elveden; of these,²⁵²⁵ p2, para 7; p5, paras 14-15, http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Witness-Statement-of- Lord-Patten1.pdf are current and former journalists (including journalists from The Sun; the Daily Mirror and its sister paper, the Sunday Mirror; and the Daily Star Sunday).17 The arrests made thus far under Operation Elveden are for offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906, misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to commit these offences, aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office, money laundering contrary to s328 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and bribery contrary to s1 of the Bribery Act 2010;18 the gravamen of the allegations being that they offered money to public officials in exchange for stories. As at 26 October 2012 files had been submitted to the CPS to advise on appropriate charges for three public officials and four current and former journalists.19

¶1.10 In an important piece of evidence, DAC Akers pointed out that offences20 of this nature are suspected to have been committed in at least three separate newspaper titles right up to early 2012.21 DAC Akers expects further arrests to be made in due course.22

¶E Operation Tuleta

¶1.11 Operation Tuleta began with an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the hacking into computers of Ian Hurst by or at the instigation of NoTW journalists in 2006.23 As at October 2012, Operation Tuleta was undertaking an assessment of 142 separate allegations of data intrusion, including allegations of phone hacking, computer hacking, and improper access to banking, medical and other personal records.24 This has entailed interrogating between 8-12 terabytes of data across 70 different storage devices; a vast undertaking.25

¶1.12 In April 2012, officers working on Operation Tuleta discovered inconsistencies with regard to the origin of material they had received from the Management Standards Committee (MSC).26 Some of the information provided by the MSC had been traced to material which appears to have been obtained from two stolen mobile phone devices. DAC Akers has said that:27

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"…it seems that on occasions we've found that material has been downloaded from and is in possession of News International titles which appear to have come from stolen mobile telephones. It appears from some of the documentation, and that's dated around late 2010, that one of the mobile phones has been examined with a view to breaking its code, its security code, so that the contents can be downloaded by experts."

¶1.13 Officers working on Operation Tuleta are anticipating the identification of the individuals responsible for the download of the content of these stolen devices, and are also seeking to establish whether the downloading of stolen data may have been a common practice at the other NI titles. DAC Akers has told the Inquiry that it is her firm intention to request further documentation from the MSC in respect of this discovery, with the purpose of establishing:28

¶"…whether in fact these are just isolated incidents or just the tip of an iceberg."

¶1.14 As at 31 October 2012,¹⁷¹⁷ p8, para 24-25, http://www.bahamousainquiry.org/linkedfiles/baha_mousa/key_documents/rulings/ standardofproofruling7may2010.pdf arrests had been made under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and/or in respect of offences of handling stolen goods, by officers working on Operation

¶Tuleta.29 This figure includes a former Times journalist who, on 29 August 2012, was arrested by Operation Tuleta officers on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and conspiracy to pervert to course of justice.30 All these individuals are on police bail pending E completion of the arrest phase and CPS advice on charging.31

¶1.15 As with Operations Weeting and Elveden, it is clear that there is considerable potential for further arrests of journalists, and not merely those previously employed by the NoTW.