UK’s top policeman secretly taped phone calls

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s top policeman, already under
pressure over the mistaken shooting of a suspected suicide
bomber, faced calls for his resignation on Monday after his
office admitted he secretly recorded a phone call with the
government’s senior legal adviser.

Sir Ian Blair, London’s police chief, also taped calls with
members of a commission investigating the shooting of Brazilian
Jean Charles de Menezes, Scotland Yard said at the weekend.

Rights groups and a member of the authority that oversees
London’s police force both demanded his resignation.

Oxford University educated Blair, 52, took charge of
London’s 30,000-strong force last February.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said he had taped a call from
Attorney General Peter Goldsmith in September.

Goldsmith was reported to be “extremely angry,” according
to the Times newspaper.

The police spokesman said Blair also taped calls with
members of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC),
a government-funded watchdog investigating Blair’s conduct
after the shooting of de Menezes last July.

“We can confirm that a conversation was recorded with the
attorney general,” police said in a statement. “Three
conversations with senior IPCC personnel were recorded during
the inquiry (into the Brazilian’s death).”

“The Metropolitan Police Service has not sought to conceal
that conversations were recorded.”

The Times said the conversation with Goldsmith was about
the admissibility of telephone wire tap evidence in British
courts.

Under English law it is legal to record a telephone call
for personal use, according to the Web site of the
communications regulator, Ofcom. A recording breaks civil law
only if it is shared with a third party.

BLAIR “SHOULD CONSIDER POSITION”

Richard Barnes, a member of the Metropolitan Police
Authority (MPA) which oversees the London police force, said
Blair should “be considering his position.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group
organization Liberty, said the revelations “beggared belief”
and that Blair had to provide an explanation for his actions.

“If it doesn’t ring true … I think it’s very hard for any
of us to have trust in him as the senior law enforcer, police
officer, in this country,” she told BBC radio.

“His behavior appears to be unconstitutional, unethical
quite possibly unlawful.”

Home Office minister Hazel Blears said it was a “serious
matter” and the situation would be considered carefully.

Blair has faced intense scrutiny since last July’s suicide
bombing attacks on London’s transport network.

The family of the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician has
called for his resignation, accusing him of lying and
misleading the public over the July 22 shooting on a London
train.

Blair was also criticized by sections of the media after
saying “almost nobody” understood why the murders of two
schoolgirls in 2002 received such widespread media attention.

He issued an apology to the parents of 10-year-olds Holly
Wells and Jessica Chapman, whose killings received blanket
coverage for months.

Days later, Scotland Yard issued a statement denying
newspaper reports that Blair faced a revolt from 140 leading
officers who thought he should quit.

“These extraneous activities are making him the story
rather than the Met and that is always a dangerous place to
be,” the MPA’s Barnes told the BBC.

(additional reporting by Mike Holden)