Leveson inquiry hears details of engagements of two former Scotland Yard chiefs caught up in phone-hacking scandal
The old song has it that a policeman's lot is not a happy one, but from time to time there is a nice plate of food and a glass of something welcoming.
The Leveson inquiry on Thursday heard details of the engagements of two former Scotland Yard chiefs caught up in the phone-hacking scandal.
John Yates, until last summer Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, saw details of where he dined and with whom he dined combed over and questioned in public.
The inquiry heard that Yates met his friend Neil Wallis, the News of the World's deputy editor under Andy Coulson, for football matches and also for meals, along with a property developer, Nick Candy.
According to Yates's diary, on 3 June 2009 they met at Scalinis in Chelsea. Yates told the inquiry: "It was a private appointment. It was friends. It had nothing to do with policing at all. That's why it says 'private appointment'."
They also met on 25 May 2010 at Bar Boulud in the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Knightsbridge.
Less than four months after Yates decided not to reopen the phone-hacking case, on 5 November 2009, he went to the Ivy Club with the NoW editor, Colin Myler, and crime editor, Lucy Panton. According to Scotland Yard's hospitality register the reason was: "Dinner, News of the World (to improve understanding of each other's operational environment)".
On 9 April 2010, Yates, who said his diary was packed with work from dawn to dusk, lunched at Racine's in Knightsbridge, to brief Panton and two other journalists. A Met press officer was also present.
Yates said that former Met deputy commissioner Tim Godwin had advised that contact with the media should be reduced. Godwin's style was not to go for drinks or meals with journalists, in contrast to Yates's attitude: "I think Tim was of the view that the media were the enemy and we shouldn't be in contact with them. Now, I don't concur."
Yates' meals with the media were paid for by their news organisations.
Andy Hayman, who also testified, said he had bought champagne for an unnamed NoW reporter.
Hayman is a former head of counter-terrorism at the Met, who quit after being challenged, among other things, about his expenses.
In February 2007 he spent £566 on a meal for colleagues at London restaurant Shepherd's, paid for by a police credit card, and then spent £47 buying champagne for a reporter from the Sunday tabloid.
Hayman was in charge of special operations at the Met when it conducted the first phone-hacking investigation, which was later criticised for being too narrow in its focus.
The inquiry heard he met seven times with NoW executives and reporters between November 2005 and February 2007. As officers from his own department investigated hacking, on 25 April 2006 Hayman had dinner Coulson and Wallis at Soho House. He met Panton and Wallis again, on 29 March 2007 at Santini.