Industry | 2009.04.16
Damian Green will not face charges
CPS says there is insufficient evidence to charge shadow immigration minister in connection with leaks of information from Home Office
Footage of police searching Damian Green\'s office, from WebCameron
Damian Green, the Conservative immigration spokesman, will not be charged in relation to his involvement in the leaking of information from the Home Office, it was announced today.
The Crown Prosecution Service statement brings an end to a case that began more than four months ago when Green was arrested and held for nine hours on suspicion of collaborating with Christopher Galley, a junior Home Office civil servant, in the leaking of information to the Tories.
The CPS also said Galley would not face any charges.
In a short statement outside parliament today, Green described the affair as "the first arrest of an opposition politician for doing his job since Britain became a democracy".
He laid the blame directly at the government\'s door in a clear signal that the Tories intended to use the affair for political advantage.
"I cannot think of a better symbol of an out of touch, authoritarian, failing government that has been in power for too long," Green said.
"I believe in the Italian proverb that fish rots from the head. The only thing I am guilty of is exposing the government\'s failed immigration policy.
"It has been in power for 12 years now, and it seems to have forgotten that a parliamentary opposition is legitimate and must be allowed to do its job.
"They make serious mistakes on immigration policy and, rather than correcting those mistakes, they try to cover them up and when the coverup is exposed they lash out and, in this case ... they massively exaggerated the security implications."
Today\'s decision is an embarrassment for the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, whose department decided to call in the police after an internal inquiry failed to find the source of more than 20 leaks.
Smith today defended the decision to ask police to investigate the leaks, saying it would have been "irresponsible to take no action".
Speaking in Glasgow, where the cabinet is meeting, she said: "In the Home Office, we deal with some of the most sensitive information in government that relates to terrorism, it relates to serious organised crime.
"It\'s our responsibility to make sure that information is kept safe."
Government sources said Galley – who has been suspended on full pay for six months – is likely to face disciplinary action.
In a statement, Keir Starmer, the head of the CPS and the director of public prosecutions , said that although there was evidence that the leaks "damaged the proper functioning of the Home Office", there was no evidence that national security had been put at risk.
"I have concluded that the information leaked was not secret information or information affecting national security," he said.
"It did not relate to military, police or intelligence matters. It did not expose anyone to rise of injury or death. Nor, in many respects, was it highly confidential.
"Much of it was known to others outside the civil service, for example the security industry or the Labour party or parliament.
"Moreover, some of the information leaked undoubtedly touched on matters of legitimate public interest that were reported in the press."
Starmer said that, as a result, there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution to have a realistic chance of success.
But he stressed this did not mean that, in other circumstances, the leaking of similar information could not constitute a criminal offence.
A spokesman for Green said the MP was "delighted with the announcement".
"The police need now to learn the lessons from their operation," he added.
"There was no necessity to arrest Mr Green – he should have been asked to attend the police station voluntarily.
"No credible reason has been advanced for the covert tape recording of him from arrest to arrival at the police station, and then failing to reveal this to him and me.
"The police themselves have now referred this to the surveillance commissioner. The search of his parliamentary office in the way it took place was highly questionable, and no proper regard was given to issues of parliamentary privilege."
The Green arrest caused outrage at Westminster, where opposition MPs have routinely used information leaked from within Whitehall to embarrass the government.
Many MPs were also angered by the fact that police were allowed to raid Green\'s House of Commons office without a warrant.
That move was criticised by the Commons home affairs committee today .
In a report, the committee said government officials had given "an exaggerated impression of the damage done by the leaks" in a letter asking police to intervene.
Green has always insisted that, in releasing leaked information to the media, he was merely doing his job as an opposition MP in holding the government to account.
Following the announcement, the former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell demanded a full inquiry into the circumstances that led to Green\'s office being raided.
MPs narrowly voted down a proposal for a committee without a Labour majority to conduct such an inquiry.
"There is now no sensible obstacle to a full parliamentary inquiry into the circus which allowed police officers to raid Damian Green\'s offices, except the government\'s silly and partisan requirement that any such committee must have a government majority," Campbell said.
"The government only defeated my amendment to delete that requirement by four votes.
"It should now accept the spirit and the letter of the amendment and let an inquiry get under way as soon as possible by senior MPs chosen by the Speaker."
The Commons did vote for an inquiry to be carried out by a committee with a Labour majority.
But the Tories and the Lib Dems have said they will not participate because they think it would be biased in favour of the government.
When deliberating whether to press charges, the CPS considered whether Galley could be charged with the offence of misconduct in public office and whether Green could be charged with conspiring with Galley to commit misconduct in public office, and aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the alleged misconduct in public office offence.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/16/damian-green-police
