Thank you.

Absolutely. I met a number of times afterwards with CPS and counsel, and that was the decision that was made by them ultimately.

Yes.

That's the case, sir, yes.

That's a very fair summary. Thank you, sir.

Yes, there was.

Okay.

Absolutely. It that was entirely our case and our view, that's why the individuals who were systematic in that abuse were charged with the offences that they were charged with.

Absolutely. Name, date and court, you can then go and for a fee collect that, which is what those companies were doing, and turning them into certified copies of convictions which they then passed on to their customers.

Absolutely. You have to go with the name, the date and the court.

Absolutely.

The evidence is the point as to my statement indicates at the end of the inquiry we didn't have the evidence. That's not to say we weren't searching for that information at the time, and every single customer -- and as I said, sometimes two or three links ...

Yes, very.

Yes.

Yes.

I think the key point there, sir, is you've used the words "may be" and "might". That was the point. We were looking for the information, we were searching for the evidence, so it was part of the inquiry. We did not find that as to who those customers ...

Yes.

There could be and was some speculation at the time. As I've said, I was dealing with at the time, and still do now, information, intelligence and evidence. There was legislation that was investigated, and when I say investigated, when we're dealing with those particular issues, every single ...

It did, yes.

As I've said right from the outset, the mindset of myself as the senior investigating officer and my team, who were thoroughly professional throughout, was we were open-minded as to what we would find and we would have dealt with that and pursued that based on information or evidence ...

Yes, that would appear to be the case.

That's correct, yes. We then carried on with our investigations to what we were dealing with, leaving the Information Commissioner's investigators to deal with their own matters.

Yes.

In liaison, yes, in the true spirit of that word. Actually what did happen is we went to them to brief them on our operation and investigation, invited them along on the search so that they could seize any information that was relevant to what they were doing, that they ...

I think I need to make clear they weren't out of scope. The whole inquiry right from the outset was extremely open, an open-minded approach as to what we would discover. The initial information, as we said, linked pretty much specifically to a local investigation, detective private investigation agency ...

Mm-hm.

Yes. I actually went on that search myself.

Yes.

That's right.

Yes. Obviously I'm aware of previous evidence that's been given to this Inquiry in respect of that. Having done a lot of the investigative work, and clearly intending and needing to search and make arrests at Data Research based on what we knew at that point, we actually ...

If I can start by saying once we'd commenced the investigation, because of the potential scale of it right from the outset we involved the as were then Police Complaints Authority, the PCA, pre-IPCC, and the Crown Prosecution Service were involved right at the early stages, so that we ...

That's correct, yes.

To various different people and that's why the scope and the range of the investigation was very wide. As I've said, on most occasions it went to ultimately three or four links up the chain, national companies, insurance companies, who were instructing their own investigations into civil claims ...

As I said, the instructions were coming from various different customers. The predominant basis of my investigation was based on previous conviction information, and on occasion vehicle keeper information, addresses and that sort of thing, so the main areas of focus were from the Department of Work and Pensions, a ...

Yes, that's correct.

There were many different consumers and customers, and that was why the investigation was very extensive and wide-ranging. Predominantly we were looking at members of past and present police officers in Devon and Cornwall accessing the initial information and that was going through private investigators, private detectives, and on to ...

Yes.

Yes. Reproof started, if I just briefly cover that because I'm sure you'll ask me some further questions, as a result of a blackmail investigation inquiry down in Plymouth in 2001 whereby a member of the public produced at a local action group meeting some previous convictions of ...

I was the deputy senior investigating officer. The actual senior investigating officer retired some years ago.

I was, yes, with some 14 years' service at the time.

Yes. I was in the temporary role for seven months, yes.

Yes.

That's correct. Please don't read anything into that.

That's right.

Russell Charles Middleton.