Murdoch Is Served (82)

REES, THE SCREWS, AND THE MET

[Update at end of post]

Just when the press was starting to pretend it was now behaving itself, and the usual suspects were getting their retaliation to Leveson in first, IndyVoices has produced a significant exclusive that suggests wholesale corruption in the Met – worse that previously thought – about which the Murdoch press had to know, as it was close to the force, and the private investigators doing the corrupting.

Jonathan Rees

Those private investigators were Southern Investigations (SI), domain of Jonathan Rees, whose dealings with Andy Coulson the Guardian could not report when the first Phonehackgate revelations were made, because of the impending trial relating to the murder of Daniel Morgan. But what is yet more interesting about today’s story is one name that IndyVoices does not mention.

Tom Harper considers the information provided by Derek Haslam, who worked undercover for the Met inside Southern Investigations for nine years, and who said “They saw filth on Police and politicians as a way to control them”. Rees then dismissed the allegations as “nonsense”, but here we can check with the man who brought us Phonehackgate, Nick Davies.

Davies, in an article penned last year, confirms that “Police contacts [of SI] are said to have been blackmailed into providing confidential information”. Rees made his job easier by becoming a freemason, and later bringing in Sid Fillery as his business partner (the latter being the name that Harper didn’t mention). Fillery was a serving officer in the Met. He recruited more of his fellow officers.

Rees has previously asserted that he had also recruited bent Customs officers, a VAT inspector and bank workers. So the idea that Harper’s piece in IndyVoices might be easily dismissed is complete crap. It’s the real deal. Small wonder that Labour MP Tom Watson asked in the Commons about Rees targeting politicians, Royals and even terrorist informers on behalf of the Screws.

At the time that Rees was thus engaged, the paper was edited by the twinkle toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Wade (now Brooks), who also enjoyed what appears to have been a rather close relationship with the Met, as was revealed when DCI Dave Cook and his then wife Jacqui Hames found themselves under surveillance by SI and the Screws working together.

Those targeted by Rees appear to have included Baron Mandelson of Indeterminate Guacamole and his colleague Jack Straw, who approached the Met over potential email hacking. There may have been many more (Davies mentions Gerald Kaufmann, “Shagger” Mellor, Tone, and then spinmeister Alastair Campbell). The Harper piece is serious stuff – the lid is coming off the worm can.

[UPDATE 18 September 0940 hours: so what did I tell you? The Harper piece has been shown to be serious as the Independent has followed it with an exclusive this morning asserting "Detectives have evidence which suggests that [SI] carried out a burglary while working for the News of the World".

The article once again names former Screws executive Alex Marunchak as SI's contact at the paper, although he has stated "I have never commissioned SI or any other third party to carry out any burglaries or any illegal acts whatsoever". So that leaves the door open to a bit of the old nod and wink, or of course to getting someone else to do the commissioning for him.

Another name cropping up like the proverbial bad penny - or perhaps that should be bent copper - is that of Sid Fillery. It was while investigating him that the Met found the information linking the Screws to the burglary. Sid told the Indy "We committed no criminal offences", which again leaves the door open to getting someone else to do the dirty work, while SI enjoyed the fruits of their labours.

And while Jonathan Rees denies allegations of burglary of an MP's garage, Tom Watson, a Labour MP, is known to have had his garage broken into. Watson's characterisation of the Murdoch empire as a kind of Mafia business looks more and more accurate with every revelation.

Moreover, although there is only one burglary link to the Screws right now, there was supposedly only one rogue reporter and one instance of phone hacking, and look what was eventually unearthed. This one has a long way to go]