Thank you.

Indeed.

Yes.

Yes.

It is, yes. And I think add to that the -- for me it's often the when rather than whether. Your point about the story getting out, it's not -- it's rarely about it being -- that we're never going to tell the story, it's about the fact ...

Yes.

Yes.

I think I have. I think -- I mean, I'm a newspaper junkie, I read through three a day, and so I have a great interest in newspapers telling the public what's going on. I learned something a long, long time ago, which is that you open a newspaper ...

No, I think the rules for politicians are slightly different than for public servants. I think there is a difference there. I feel more confident on the grounds of public servants than politicians.

I think it was, rather, wasn't it. I think that was definitely a googly hand.

Mr Jay, I think I'd hesitate to comment on the relationships --

Well, I do, and I do think it's very unwise to develop social relationships between people who have a professional relationship. Of course friendships develop and you can't -- one wouldn't want to restrict that, but being very clear about the boundaries. As I said earlier, I don ...

Yes.

Obviously they tackle slightly different things. I have to say I think it's rather surprising that some of the recommendations are necessary in the HMIC report, because I think some of the things that Sir Denis has said ought to have been fairly obvious, actually, about relationships and the ...

Oh, not at all. I think absolutely the opposite. And I think we're helped by -- we're certainly helped by the code and our set of values, which mean that staff don't want to do those sorts of things, but we're helped by our systems. We do ...

I think there probably have been -- there has been at least one other example since I submitted this where it appears that information held by us and by other bodies, police force, have found their way into the media and there's been a question about who is the source ...

Yes, I don't think there's anything to add particularly.

Yes.

The press naturally want to get the scoop, they want to ask the questions and to get answers quickly and they want to do it before their rivals. That's all part of their business. So they will continually ask questions, and on that particular evening an on-duty press officer ...

There is, sir. I think you have put it very well. Forgive me, because I'm probably going to be criticised for criticising the press, but they want --

Yes, I do. And I think this is good example of the press wanting information at a point when there isn't -- there aren't hard facts.

In the hours after -- literally it was the hours after Mr Duggan died, the report was that a man had died, there had ...

Yes.

I wouldn't have the detail of that, no. I would have to -- if you need me to, I could check.

I don't believe it was the police version. I think it was the version as a result of the first post-mortem, so it was the pathologist who indicated that Mr Tomlinson's death was as a result of natural causes. Subsequent post-mortems questioned that. I think there were two ...

It is.

It is.

Yes, indeed. As I understand it, again this is based on what I was told some two years later, probably, 18 months or two years later, a member of staff working as a part of the investigation team in the IPCC decided to share information I think with the family ...

This is a leak by the IPCC?

Yes.

I don't think the IP -- from what I know, the IPCC wouldn't have been in a position to do so, because it wouldn't have known any better than anyone else what the facts were. As I say, I don't know at what point it became evident ...

It would be fair to say, Mr Jay, that I wasn't working for the IPCC in 2005, so my knowledge of that particular case and the detail at that time is limited to what I learnt subsequently. But as I understand it -- and we have published a report about ...

Yes.

Yes, of course.

Pretty well. I mean, I think again our view would be -- my view would be and our organisational view would be that we shouldn't be in receipt of gifts or hospitality. People don't ask us to go out for drinks or give us gifts because they like us ...

No, not at all. I think it's fair to say that as an organisation we're rather puritanical about this. We don't buy alcohol. I don't think the public purse should fund alcohol. I don't think alcohol and work mix, generally, and certainly not when you ...

You're asking at the moment about our provision of it rather than receipt of it?

Yes.

That's correct.

That may be right. As I say, we didn't ask them that question in the research. We didn't ask them whether they would prefer to be able to ring individual members of staff, because frankly I wasn't terribly interested in the answer because I wasn't going ...

I think that's probably right, yes.

Yes. We did a piece of research, small piece of research, asking about 20 or so journalists from both national newspapers and local, and I think there were a couple of broadcast journalists as well, asking them what they thought, in order to improve the service we provide, and it ...

Yes. I have to say it generally works. We've not found that to be abused by journalists. And because I think they trust us that we will tell them as much as we can when we can, I think they do actually trust us to do that, they respect ...

That's correct.

I think the press office call it "guidance".

Yes. I think there's been a -- I recognise in reading the transcripts of earlier evidence that there's been a debate about what the definition of "off the record" means. What we meant, what the Commission meant when it came to the decision that it wouldn't do it ...

We are. We have been doing for probably about 12 months or more, yes.

Yes.

I'm not sure, I think Solcara is the company that makes it and Spotlight is its trade name. I don't know.

We do.

That's correct. Very, very few of the matters that we're dealing with won't appear ultimately in some kind of public hearing, an inquest, criminal proceedings, misconduct proceedings. And if they don't appear in any of those, they certainly appear in the newspaper. So it's very ...