Mr Hogan-Howe said -- he was referring to -- his comment was: "I believe we stopped serving alcohol to suspects a long time ago." I refer to the same thing. We are being treated almost like criminals to a certain extent.

The problem I have, in speaking to officers about this, is that these standard operating procedures that the Commissioner referred to, they're not only for association with reporters but also for association, for example, with criminals. What's happened, I understand, in the past is that say, for example ...

I would encourage training of any sort for police officers, certainly media training, because in my experience you have some officers who are quite confident in dealing with the press, and they, in my experience, know what they can and cannot say. Other officers clam up and will not speak ...

No, I don't believe so.

(Nods head)

It depends. On these occasions, I certainly would have declared the name.

I think there needs to be a common sense approach. I mean, you can see from my records I've lunched with the senior officer you've mentioned once. I'm hardly showering them with hospitality, and I think that, yes, if you are taking the same officer out on ...

I think this story was a unique position, in the sense of Mr Stevens was declaring himself as a suspect. I think you'll read there he actually said, "If I was the police, I'd arrest me too." I mean, you know, that is a unique situation. That's ...

Well, I believe that the tapes we then handed over to the police as a result of our interview would do more to help the investigation than hinder it, sir.

I -- sorry if I appear flippant, but I almost laughed out loud when I heard that quote.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

Not as far as I'm aware.

Well, I was in Suffolk at the time, but my job was largely to deal with the police, but I was aware in the morning that -- one morning, we were going through the newspapers and Mr Stevens' name was referred to as someone who had associated with prostitutes. I can ...

No, not that I recall.

Yes, it didn't happen very often.

It tends to be -- regional forces only tend to really engage with the national press when they have a huge story on their grounds. Say, Surrey Police with Milly Dowler, Kent Police with the Securitas robbery. Apart from that, they don't tend to engage in the same way as ...

Couple of handfuls, a dozen or so.

Well, it's just that. You know, it has to be in the public good, in the sense of releasing information that would not come out otherwise. I think part of our job is certainly to hold the police to account, and, as I have found in my time, the ...

Oh, yes. As I say, the example that you referred to about the mess-up in the night-stalker investigation. Other times where a police officer has been fired for gross misconduct, you could argue that's certainly in the public interest, that the public have a right to know if a ...

How do you define whistle-blower? In the sense of the night-stalker story that you mentioned?

In my experience, a lot of celebrity stories tend to be from members of the public or people that are associated with those celebrities rather than from the police. I think there's a real perception that the police are a leaky sieve, and in my experience that's not ...

From a police officer? Not that I recall.

It's not something I've been made aware of, no.

Occasionally, but it's not something that I would ever then use in a story. I see it as one officer's opinion.

When you say "opinion", you mean opinion on --

Yes.

I do find it helps build up trust, because the more you get to know somebody, the more you know about them, the more you can work out whether you can trust them or not.

It's to cultivate trust, as far as I'm concerned. I think the trust is all important because I think what's being lost is that these are highly professional people, who -- some have been in the job for 20, 25 years, but when they're dealing with heinous ...

It could be anything between sort of going for a coffee, going for a sandwich, going for a pint after work. I mean, it's just general normal social situations such as those, really.

Between constable and chief superintendent.

In my experience.

Yes.

Yes, the story that you make reference to there is -- as I say, we had a story about --

No, that's the story that is the one afterwards.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, I just think that they won't put out bad news as a general rule, because I think it would damage the image of the Metropolitan Police. If I was to get a story about the Metropolitan Police that was negative, and I went to them with that, they ...

In general? No, I find that when you go to the Met with a negative story, they will be -- as far as I'm aware -- honest and open about it. Whether they would be proactive with that information is, of course, another matter.

Who are you referring to here?

I wouldn't know, sir.

Well, I hadn't been out with them on any occasions and I think I may have had -- I'm -- I mean, I don't know if I did, but I was certainly given cards at briefings by other officers. I couldn't tell you if they had their mobile ...

I wouldn't have thought so.

Yeah, absolutely. I don't think it was a degree of favouritism for the dailies. It's just I think the mindset was generally: "We need to get this out."

I think -- so there's a distinction that needs to be made, really, in that daily and Sunday newspapers are very different beasts and by the very nature of things happening during the week, they will be reported in daily newspapers. There's always going to be a greater emphasis ...

It -- to be honest with you, it did nothing to my relationship with Mr Fedorcio. I mean, he knew who I was. I would like to say at this point though that at that lunch he made it very clear that it was paramount that the Metropolitan Police didn't ...

No.

We hadn't had an opportunity, apart from the occasional word at press briefings, to really get to know each other, and it was simply on that basis of introducing myself better than just going: "Hello".

Myself and Mr Fedorcio.

It's a restaurant close to the Home Office.

I believe that was at Shepherds.

I couldn't judge, sir. I think maybe I just had not been to lunch with others. That doesn't mean that other people weren't having lunches. I just -- I couldn't really comment.