OPERATION ELEVDEN COLLAPSES - IS THIS THE ULTIMATE FAILURE OF LEVESON?
This is quite complex if you've not being following the fallout from the Leveson Commission. Aside from the recommendation for a new regulator with a Royal Charter status (and the vague threat of statutory regulation if this failed), which has essentially failed (IPSO doesn't really match up), Leveson was also tasked with investigating the relationships between press and politicians, plus press and police (and public bodies more widely).
In an explosive statement made to the Leveson inquiry in the middle of the police investigation, Sue Akers, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, gave details of the operation, claiming her officers had uncovered a “network of corrupted officials” and a “culture of illegal payments”Operation Elevden was the (Met) Police response to this, a £20m investigation with 20 journalists charged. The press was quite uniformly condemnatory of this, likening it to McCarthyism and seeing it at least partially as organisations (the Met and CPS, Crown Prosecution Service) whose reputations were damaged by Leveson, playing politics with criminal prosecutions.
Elevden now lies in tatters after a none too impressed senior judge threw out most of the cases, forcing the CPS to withdraw several prosecutions.
KEY POINT: GOVERNMENT HAVE PLENTY OF STATUTORY POWERS OVER PRESS!!!
