Thank you, Mr Jay.

I believe I have, and I thank you, sir, for that opportunity.

Well, no, from a position now I can see, and I think Mr Yates has said it, at the time what it felt like was that everybody was saying that this was a conspiracy and we'd hidden it, and actually I believe what we were trying to say: that ...

I agree in hindsight --

Yes.

Thank you, sir. What I'd like to say, and I know we talked about for lunch, I really would like to assure you sir that that original investigation with my team, and we were working with our senior management, and yes, Mr Clarke from my perspective was that threshold ...

Absolutely.

Can I make a comment, sir?

Yes.

I do, sir.

Yes, I understand.

I understand now what you're saying, yes.

No, you're absolutely right. I can see the interpretation. I'm thinking the actual from the point of view of actual intercept, as I would have thought about it, was a far smaller group than many hundreds, in which case I would have had in mind that smaller group.

Thank you very much. (Pause).

My intention to convey to him is there may be many hundreds of people here, potential people, as we've said here. That is unknown. In terms of my investigation, our enquiry to the tactics, yes, okay, I see the word "tactics". Now we're ...

Do you mind if I have a look at that document?

Okay.

I believe it's 28.

I think if you're talking the period 2005 to 2006?

I do see the difference. Yes, I do.

Yes.

Well, it's not -- not all people, because of course I believe -- strictly speaking it's not accurate because actually we did a particular group of people, the police, as I've outlined, and as I believed, the other people were being dealt with by the mobile phone companies.

Yes, and I understand that, and you're asking me about this document and why I wrote it, and you're picking on, yes, particular expressions that I've used. What I'm trying to explain, I've written this from the memory -- yes, and from the reviewing over the ...

Yes. And there is a completely unknown. We actually don't know who has actually suffered from this at all.

Yes.

I believed it was a correct statement, because in my mindset it's about the people -- I'm thinking about the people that had been intercepted in terms of our prosecution. I understand in my victim strategy that I was looking to inform a wider pool of people, and potentially ...

Yes.

It was from my perspective of what would constitute an interception. I totally understand that there is a different view on that now.

Yes.

I did see it. We'd all contributed in terms of the background to that statement. He would have prepared that in conjunction with our department of DPA.

Yes.

I'd seen what they'd written in the original investigation, yes, and it was material that we, the police, had all released in terms of Mr Taylor's private prosecution, and again, maybe it's the wrong perception, my feeling was that they were very much saying we were ...

No, I see what you're saying. I've written this at a time -- I'm writing this in the point of view I'm thinking of it in my head as the evidence I didn't have in my mind of what I would have needed to take that ...

Well, I personally -- this is my personal belief as an investigator, and maybe others will judge my threshold is too high, but given my experience of investigations and presenting a case before a court, I obviously have a personal higher threshold than others as to what I believe in terms ...

It may be my lacking, sir, and I apologise, but I --

I believe this is purely that decision around resources, because of the conflicting operations.

I don't know.

Yes, he was briefed.

It's all my senior management, and -- yes, up to Mr Clarke, and obviously when the investigation became public, I know those briefings went higher in my organisation.

Yes. Mr Yates is being asked a whole series of questions, and he's asking me to articulate in writing some of the thinking behind the investigation.

Yes.

I believed -- what I've written here is my genuine belief, that I would have needed a lot more to be able to take that case forward. I'm not trying in any way to hide anything from Mr Yates or distort the truth.

It is a plausible picture, but I have no evidence of that to put before a court.

I know we know that now. At the time my genuine belief was yes he's doing that, definitely, but he may well be doing a raft of other things.

Largely, yes, but at the time I was open to he could be doing any number of other things. I know now, as a result of everything, everyone shows that, but --

In terms of those journalists, those names, whoever they were, in terms of me approaching them as an investigator, where is the evidence, I'm asking myself, to show that they knew exactly what he was doing? Yes, my supposition is they're tasking him with information and he may ...

I don't believe so. I don't believe that I had any evidence which would show that they actually knew what was going on.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Oh sorry, yes. Forgive me.

Yes. I seem to -- can you just read that out. It's slightly different. Are you reading from paragraph 15?

It may well include additional detail, particularly when it goes into quoting figures, because then we had retrieved the investigative documents from storage and so I would have been able to do that. On the day, I would -- of 9 July, I would have been doing it to the best ...