Yes, I would agree with that but I think the point where the line is absolutely drawn, I see it as a positive obligation on the service to inform the media and without question includes background briefings to set the context. What the journalist chooses to write is absolutely their ...

My sense was it had moved on hugely during that time. We certainly -- and I think the -- much of the credit for that firstly goes to Lord Patten's report because it certainly gave us that permission and me the authority to drive the organisation in a certain direction. Also ...

Indeed, yes.

I would agree entirely with that. I think it's exactly the approach my sense is that my chief officer colleagues are keen to promulgate. It is a vital relationship but in a way my experience in Northern Ireland certainly was the most powerful stories were not what I was ...

Thank you. That's very helpful and I do think the draft guidelines, if one combines that with the work undertaken by Adrian Lee, a set of principles, I think that's the direction in which we should properly go.

It may well be that we are keen to make ...

Yes, I do. I think it is inevitable in the short term that it will become -- journalists may find it more difficult as we become perhaps too defensive as perhaps a slight overreaction to things -- events that have gone on recently, and I think we need to guard against that ...

Indeed.

Yes, I'd agree with that.

Yes, I'd agree with that, sir, and I think that is probably slightly tighter -- drawn more tightly than my memory -- albeit of course I signed this -- my memory of the reality of what went on. Of course we did have media officers based at a regional level, so it ...

My sense is that sort of perhaps is overprescriptive to the reality of what sometimes happens almost by definition when a front line officer was confronted by a journalist who had responded very quickly to the scene of an event, and I can certainly remember watching matters unfold in my ...

Yes. My sense was there was far greater interest in the positive side of policing from local media, and of course because of the level of -- number of publications in Northern Ireland, and the sheer enthusiasm to get something to fill the pages, there was in my judgment a very ...

No, it would certainly be the case that some indication of the nature of the individual arrested would be given if it was appropriate, but the general operating principle in what is accepted to be a difficult area was we wouldn't release that information. Indeed, even if one was ...

Yes, it was not rank specific, it was giving authority to the officers -- certainly at the front end, my experience was very much that front line officers explaining what they were doing was a very powerful way of reassuring the public about what was going on in their local communities ...

(Nods head)

No, not to my knowledge.

Yes it was very much about the telling the story of policing in Northern Ireland, where we'd got to. One of the things that struck me when I went to Northern Ireland was the general lack of interest in matters concerning the province from the national media despite the ...

That was in London, it was in response to a request by the local editor who was actually Southern Ireland based, Dublin based, if I would meet to explain what was going on in Northern Ireland, and I agreed to do when I was next in London, and it was ...

Yes, I do.

I think there's a huge difficulty in reading about what is on the record and what is off the record. I prefer the term "background briefings" to set context, as Chief Constable Trotter touched on earlier, and I was more than happy to go on the record -- to have ...

Although the principles, sir, I think are the same, which is one of engagement, one of being comfortable, having a conversation with people who are in the media world without feeling vulnerable to compromise, being very clear in your own mind what your purpose is. I think one has to ...

Yes, I did meet editors and I used to meet the embedded reporters who had a great understanding of Northern Ireland, indeed had -- many had written some of the most definitive books on the history of Northern Ireland, which of course were very important for me to understand, so it ...

Not specifically in relation to counter-terrorism during my time there. In 2002, most major media sources had embedded dedicated journalists or reporters in Northern Ireland. That changed -- and who had a great understanding of the history and actually knew the territory fairly well. That changed as the time went on ...

Yes. I think that was -- certainly that's what Lord Patten found. I had been in Northern Ireland for two years previously on Lord Stevens' inquiry into collusion and a specific murder and it was a very formal structure. Now, my -- in fairness, in a sense of balance, we had ...

That is correct, yes.

Indeed.

My sense, sir, is hopefully the evidence that you've heard from Andy Trotter this morning and others around and you will hear, I'm sure, tomorrow and the service sorting this problem out, I hope you will see some hard evidence that there is a plan to deal with ...

My sense frankly, sir, is that -- not just me, the service has been surprised by some of the quite close relationships between individual chiefs and certain media outlets. I think that's without question. You've heard a number of officers express that surprise. I'm no different to those ...

Indeed so, yes.

No, this is my own experience. I'm happy to comment in broad terms. Obviously you would not expect me to repeat libels and malicious comments in public again, which is the issue that I was forced to resort to the legal route. But more recently a specific case came ...

Nothing that springs to mind, sir, no.

Yes, although it is different. In London, whilst the Mayor is obviously in overall command, the Mayor has a huge range of responsibilities to deliver and has a Deputy Mayor to deliver -- or day to day, for example, on policing force, that individual is not directly elected in the same ...

I think that's -- that is entirely foreseeable, sir. Of course we don't know quite how it's going to work. I think the first indication will be when the campaigns, for want of a better description, get under way before November as individuals declare and are elected by ...

I think we're looking at a fundamental change in police governance and the introduction of a removal of a structure whereby 17, or in Northern Ireland 19, people held the chief to account, drawn from a sort of wider base, to one person who will, inevitably in the majority ...

That's exactly what I'm saying. I think, in fairness to front line officers, who have a huge amount to do and we do ask an awful lot of them, to make very difficult decisions with very limited information on occasions, they need a basic operating principle against which ...

It does. Under section 3 it cross-references to an obligation on all officers to comply with the S9 Media Code, so there is an connection but it's wider that than that and, frankly, if you complied with the code of ethics, you would, by definition, be complying pretty much ...

The original code was 2002/2003. The board had employed its own human rights advisers in the form of Keir Starmer, who is now a DPP, and Jane Gordon and they did a human rights audit of the whole Police Service and made additional recommendations including to revisit it to ...

Yes, that is correct. There is a statement of common purpose and values which covers the country, and again that is a matter that currently has just been reviewed and will be slightly modified, led by Adrian Lee, the Chief Constable of Northamptonshire, who I think may be giving evidence ...

My sense is I've had the reports work quite well together, there's a lot of commonality between what Elizabeth Filkin said specifically in relation to the Met that is transferable to the national policy from which you've heard from Andrew Trotter.

In terms of HMI's recommendations ...

To be perfectly honest I haven't given it a huge amount of thought. My sense is certainly, if I draw from my previous operational experience, it was an issue, it was not an issue that I ever saw as a key strategic threat to my organisation but it was ...

Well, most media crime falls into specific criminal categories and is captured in the generality of crime statistics. My sense would be, to try to distil it out, that there is no criminal offence of media crime, as you fully understand, it's a matter of crimes against specific statutes ...

It's very important that I'm very keen that the president of ACPO, whoever holds this position, doesn't speak on all policing matters, we simply don't have the capacity to have a detailed knowledge. But what we do have for example are 14 business areas, for example ...

It flexes a bit because of for example things like maternity leave, but overall about six officers. You'll be hearing from my head of media straight after me, I think.

I worked in the Metropolitan Police service for 26 years of my total career, sir, and I think it's a very different relationship because the sheer intensity and pressure and interest in what's going on in London is fundamentally different even to the Police Service in Norther Ireland ...

Indeed, sir, and of course I have to advise government, I sit on many -- the Home Office committee, for example, the police reform programme, and we are a statutory consultee, so government would consult us on all these programmes. It's a full-time job in that sense, absolutely.

Mm-hm.

My only technical operational responsibility, for example, if the fuel strike comes off, I will be responsible for making sure government is fully informed through Cobra and the Cabinet Office briefing room and my office will be responsible for co-ordinating any necessary movements of police officers around the country, as ...

Indeed I have no operational responsibility or indeed authority at all. My job is to really bring together and through negotiation, as Andy described, get consistent national policies through what we call the Chief Constables' Council, which meets four times a year. So the policies you've heard about today ...

Indeed, sir, yes.

It's for four years, sir, and you can't be reelected.

It's very much providing a facility that enables the national media to go one point of -- to a single point of contact on matters that are of national interest, so in that sense we try and support the local forces where necessary. ACPO itself I describe very much as ...