Well, I think the only thing I would say is it was quite obvious that, having spoken to people that were involved with that, there was a need -- in terms of the volume of media that attended and the thirst for information, it outstripped anything that we would normally deal ...

Yes.

I'm not in a position to say that, no.

Yes.

That would be a far more eloquent way of putting it, yes.

I wouldn't normally advocate lying. It doesn't strike me as usually the best course of action, so my sort of initial response to that is: no.

No, I haven't.

I think the first point to make is I'm probably not your best witness, because obviously I wasn't Chief Constable at the time, but having made enquiries over the last week, I've not been able to find any information to support the first assertion, namely that the ...

That's correct.

The reason I included it is because at a time when there is a pressure from government to keep as many police resources on the front line as possible, at the same time as taking significant sums of money out of our organisations, this is one area that is a ...

That's correct.

That's correct.

I think we are all of the view we take the rough with the smooth, but my overriding objective is to create trust and confidence in the policing in Suffolk. Clearly, I want to promote all that is good, but as we all know, occasionally things don't go according ...

It is working satisfactorily, but it's a considerably smaller size than the combined department that previously existed and pressures are evident in terms of it's a considerably smaller department than the composite of the previous two.

Yes. Yes, and along with all chief constables, we're having to make some very tough decisions as the size of our workforce is shrinking, and consequently people, as you say, are misguidedly questioning some of the choices we're having to make, and, as you say, hoping that it ...

No, that's certainly my strong belief, as you described.

Yes, I think the point I'm making there is people need to know that if it were proven, there would be a consequence.

Yes, that's correct. I invited them in, discussed the situation that is outlined as you indicated, and they were pleased to lend their support to this message, and whilst leaking information in itself is unacceptable, this was having a consequential knock-on to many of their members, who were subject ...

That's correct.

That's correct.

That's correct.

Yes, I completely agree with that, and the handbook we've just referred to, it would be useful if there was a national framework that we were all operating to, and I think that would be a very helpful outcome.

There is a possibility, I think, and -- but I sort of sense, speaking to colleagues, there is a degree of -- certainly there's been the Filkin report, there's been the HMI, there is your Inquiry and I think there is a sort of sense in the service that at ...

That's correct.

Well, the "Without fear or favour" report offered a checklist in one of its appendices that we're using as a reference to health check ourselves, but the sort of areas where, quite obviously, we need to make some judgments is -- the document you were referring to there was dated ...

There are two registers. There's one for chief officers, which is maintained within our own office by our own executive services, and then there is a second one, which is for the rest of the force, which is maintained by the professional standards department, who maintain oversight of that ...

That's correct.

Yes, that's correct.

That is correct.

Yes.

We share a lot of very similar objectives, yes.

That's absolutely correct, yes.

No, and I think there's an acceptance that -- the mere fact of this Inquiry, that may be things need to change, and I think against that backdrop, our officers seem to be working with it and following the spirit of what is intended.

I've not, and I went and visited our team last week to flick through a few records and have a look what was there. I guess my bigger concern is ensuring police officers continue to notify the contacts. That's where I think the weakest link in this process ...

Yes. And the role of the corporate communications department is to provide support to those individuals, and the corporate communications department has people at headquarters as well as people distributed around the county, so most officers would know their local media liaison communication officers and they would be their first ...

Yes, it can, yes.

Yes.

We've not created that distinction, no.

Yeah. We've sought to introduce something that aims to be a step beyond where we were, ie recording nothing in a very formal way, but not creating something that is bureaucratically prohibitive, and to try and strike that middle ground, and we feel that the information as referred in ...

Um ...

That's correct.

Yes, that's correct. The date for this was October 2011.

That's correct, since we introduced this, yes.

Yes, that's correct, and this was a benefit from our collaborative work with colleagues in Norfolk that were already using this system. Our communications department have taken it on in the way you describe, and it's a very comprehensive method of recording contacts and then being able to ...

I think the professional relationship that I enjoy with the local media and the ability to get business done usually means we meet, for the majority of the time, on police premises or premises of the media, and at those locations light refreshments are usually the order of the day ...

That's correct.

That's correct.

That is the point, and I'm sure editors will speak for themselves. They would probably say even as soon as we knew three violent people had escaped, we should have been putting something out into the public domain in terms of our responsibility to protect the public, and in ...

Yes.

Yes. The training involved representatives from our local media, and what we were trying to do was to bridge this issue I referred to earlier, where the media wanted early notification of issues, and this example I quoted here was a perfectly justifiable request where we were slow putting into ...