Hacked Off In The UK, Part 3

Another Scotland Yard resignation happened today in the wake of the Rupert Murdoch phone hacking scandal as the man who chose not to investigate News of the World five years ago has now quit.  Deputy Commissioner John Yates has resigned in disgrace, following his boss, Sir John Stephenson.

Mr. Yates is a high profile officer who had been involved in earlier inconclusive police investigations of the scandal. The Metropolitan police announced his resignation and said he would make a statement later on Monday. He and other officers have been underscrutiny by trying to determine why the Metropolitan Police decided to strictly limit the initial phone-hacking inquiry in 2006.

Speaking in South Africa, Mr. Cameron said Parliament would be extended beyond the start of its scheduled summer recess for an emergency session on Wednesday, a day after Mr. Murdoch, his son James and Ms. Brooks are set to testify to a parliamentary inquiry into the scandal.

The announcement came a day after Sir Paul Stephenson, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, commonly known as the Met, said that he had decided to step down because “the ongoing speculation and accusations relating to the Met’s links with News International at a senior level” had made it difficult for him to do his job.

But he said that he had done nothing wrong. He also said that because he had not been involved in the original phone-hacking investigation, he had had no idea that Neil Wallis, a former News of the World deputy editor who had become a public-relations consultant for the police after leaving the paper, was himself suspected of phone hacking, as the unauthorized accessing of voice mail is known.

Mr. Wallis, 60, was arrested last Thursday. 

Scotland Yard hired a former News of the World editor to advise them, only it turned out he was as crooked as the rest of them.  Meanwhile, Rebekah Brooks is indeed testifying Tuesday in front of Parliament, despite her arrest over the weekend.

Former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks will testify before British lawmakers investigating phone hacking as scheduled Tuesday despite her weekend arrest and release by police, her spokesman told CNN Monday.


Brooks wanted to appear, and "following discussions with her lawyer her wish has prevailed," Dave Wilson said, adding: "The committee members will have to be mindful of the criminal proceedings" when asking the questions.

She's the highest-profile figure to be held over the scandal that has forced the country's top police officer to resign, closed its best-selling newspaper and called Prime Minister David Cameron's judgment into question.

Who will be the first to implicate the Murdochs, Rupert and/or his son James?  Stay tuned.