No, I don't think so.

But I think that there is a general feeling that unfortunately the directorate of public affairs really was so close to many journalists and media organisations that their voices wouldn't be heard anyway, so what was the point?

I think with regard to the training for police officers, I've sort of gone into that briefly in terms of complaints. I think there's a lot of frustration around, "What do I do if I've given an interview to a journalist and they completely change what I ...

Absolutely. I don't necessarily feel that there need to be additional constraints, but I just think there should be a process by which they can show some transparency in how that decision -- and justify it in some way, because the huge effect that it has on people's lives ...

No. I think there are only a number of bits of legislation, and it may be if there's more controls brought into police interaction with journalists, maybe the Freedom of Information Act needs to be looked at again, but I'm not a lawyer by any stretch of the ...

Exactly.

I mean, there are two issues, actually, probably I should mention. Firstly, the date on the notes, which gives rise to the suggestion that this was the date the information was received. It was some week or so before the surveillance on us started. They would have known in ...

Well, all sorts of things went through my head, some which I probably shouldn't go into, but certainly I was very -- I think initially I was shocked, and very angry. It's very difficult. I spent 30 years in the police service, and do you know what? I loved ...

In 197 -- January 1978 I moved in there, and I was there a few months. It wasn't something that was a topic of conversation amongst -- even my friends wouldn't have known that, necessarily.

Oh, crikey, they'd have to do an awful lot of digging around, an awful lot of talking. Things like your payroll number, it's an extension of your warrant number. As a woman, when I joined, we had separate, different types of warrant numbers, and mine was only four ...

Yes. So, I mean, if, for instance, I was making some enquiries and somebody was giving me information, I would write little notes on a piece of paper. It didn't appear to me to be written at different times or over a course of a period of time or ...

No, it was very much contained within a page or so of the notebook, as if somebody was on the telephone and just writing notes as and when.

Certainly, sir, and I'm more than happy to discuss my findings in response to the Mulcaire notes.

I think -- and I'm grateful for your kind thoughts. It is very difficult, because in some ways, by coming here, you stick your head above the parapet because you're angry and distressed about what has happened, and the impact on us, I think, is important because I think ...

I do apologise. I'm sorry.

Sorry.

No, it's fine. You ...

This is obviously a very difficult area because -- I mean, as a police officer you learn to compartmentalise. You put your private and your public and your business life into two different places. You -- excuse me.

No. As you can imagine, various thoughts went through my head as to what we could do about it, but we were serving police officers and it was important that -- and perhaps more important that the murder enquiry was allowed to continue without any interference. I know that David made ...

Well, David took on this initially public face of the enquiry in order to make this appeal. Up until that moment, not one word of this -- one event had happened that would support that. He made that appeal on Crimewatch, and I was actually on the same programme, and the ...

Well, we'd been together for 11 years. He was a detective chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, who had investigated quite a number of high-profile murders himself. We were well-known as a couple within the police service. We'd appeared -- I'd done some publicity, I think it was ...

Having been a police officer for 30 years, I'm always willing to try and see the other side of things, and to be fair. But scratching my head and being as kind as I possibly can, I cannot think of one reason why that would be in any way ...

That's right, yes.

No.

Yes, certainly with Crimewatch. Don't get me wrong; I think a lot of families of victims and victims themselves of serious crimes like to be involved in publicising their cases. It gives them a feeling that they are doing something positive to solve their own cases, and I would ...

I couldn't make that judgment now, because I've been away for a few years now, so it be would unfair of me to make that judgement, sir.

Mainly on sort of the more emotive high-profile cases I think it becomes more of a free for all. I think in lesser cases or perhaps in terms of size of the enquiry, it tends not to happen so much.

I think certainly -- my experience of dealing with major crime, which tends to sort of involve that sort of activity, when you have a victim particularly who is of interest, or they think is of interest to their readers, or even a suspect, as we'll hear later, the idea ...

They'll generally know what can be disclosed without a problem and to help -- use the expression "feed the beast", if you like. Because if there is a gap, they will want to fill it with something. We live in a world of 24-hour news coverage, of the Internet, and ...

Not in every murder case by any means. There are many that go on which receive no press interest whatever, there's no doubt about that, and you're actually knocking on the door of broadcasters and print journalists and asking them to help solve cases and to publicise them ...

I think it was the first ten days, yeah.

Again, it's sort of a cultural thing, almost, within the police service, and certainly within a high level of investigators, you know, who are at the top of the major criminal investigation sections -- you know, specialist crime directorate and anti-terrorist function and things like that -- who have spent many ...

21, yes.

Sorry, what paragraph?

And that's very difficult for an officer to deal with.

Yes, but there is a huge demand by the media and they quite often will find out things for themselves that the police officers haven't given to them, and will be following and investigating the case almost in parallel, and that can be very tricky, and they will report ...

No, I think you're absolutely right. There clearly are -- you know, you just don't make judgments about suspects who have come into the enquiry for whatever reason -- or persons of interest, perhaps, is a better phrase to use. The word "suspect" holds far more weightier connotations. But people ...

You can have some, yes.

Of course you do. Absolutely you do, and I think you can focus in on rules, but as you can see from the rules that are currently in place, they are open to interpretation, and I think there's a lot to be learnt from experience, and what happens in ...

That's extremely true, and the way I approach it -- I mean, I may be right or wrong and I'm sure there are people who have better ideas than I do, but the way I approach it is by way of debate, in posing the question: is it possible ...

No, there weren't.

Mm.

Yes.

I think we've -- and certainly in the police service, we have -- always suffered from a reaction to the bad behaviour of a few impacting on the normal daily process of the many. To constantly bring up and write new rules and regulations for the one or two that abuse ...

Since 2006, when I started giving this input, there was such a positive feedback, not necessarily because I was doing it but because they had at last had an opportunity to get some media training and to discuss the issues. It became very apparent from their feedback and comments that ...

I've always tried to create an atmosphere where they can talk open and frankly. As an ex-detective myself, I've always tried to encourage them to exchange frankly their views a honestly as possible and to learn from each other's experiences, and within that environment, and I've ...

I think over -- what are we talking about? -- six years that I've been delivering this, I've always tried to create an atmosphere where -- I'm sorry, is there something I could ...?

The number of courses varies. It can be as little as three, sometimes five, and probably between 15 and 18 detective inspectors on each one.

Yeah, I -- I'll give you a bit of a background to it. In 2006, I was approached by the detective training school, the crime academy, who were writing a course for newly promoted detective inspectors. There hadn't been one in existence prior to then. They were endeavouring to ...

No, I don't hand it out. I do indicate where it's available on the police intranet, but generally, by the time they come to me, they're detective inspector level, and it is surprising the number that probably haven't read it or haven't found the need ...

I think in general principle I think the document is quite wide-ranging. I think it's a bit too superficial and doesn't go into enough detail. Unfortunately I feel that the word "victim" doesn't appear at all, which I think is a huge hole. There's no policy ...