Smith under pressure as Green is cleared
PRESSURE was mounting on Home Secretary Jacqui Smith last night after Tory frontbencher Damian Green was told he would not be prosecuted for receiving leaked documents.
The Crown Prosecution Service ruled that Mr Green’s arrest and the £5million police investigation had been utterly unjustified.
Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said leaked details about Labour’s shambolic handling of the immigration system posed no threat to national security and were matters of legitimate public interest.
The findings pile more pressure on Ms Smith, whose reputation recently took a pounding following revelations that her husband had charged adult films to her parliamentary expenses.
The arrest of Shadow immigration spokesman Mr Green caused a major political row but the Home Secretary defended the police investigation.
Yesterday Mr Green, who was held in a police cell for nine hours, blamed Ms Smith for his ordeal. Mr Green’s wife and his 15year old daughter were upset when police searched their home, even reading love letters.
Mr Green, his voice shaking at times, said: “I believe in the Italian proverb that fish rots from the head. The only thing I am guilty of is exposing the Government’s failed immigration policy.
“I cannot think of a better symbol of an outoftouch, authoritarian, failing government that has been in power for too long.
“You can assume that the atmosphere inside the Home Office and the Cabinet Office was one of frustration that their fail ings in immigration policy were being exposed and they were embarrassed about that. They make serious mistakes on immigration policy and, rather than correcting those mistakes, they try to cover them up and when
the coverup is exposed they lash out and, in this case...they massively exaggerated the security implications.”
He said Ms Smith was a poor Home Secretary, who had shown poor judgement. The leaks included a memo
showing Ms Smith was warned that thousands of illegal immigrants had been given sensitive jobs in Whitehall security.
Another revealed that ministers were warned an illegal immigrant had been caught working in Parliament with a fake ID. Civil servant Christopher Galley, who leaked the information to Mr Green, was also told yesterday that he would not face charges.
Mr Green said police were still holding his personal property, including bank statements.
And he demanded that his DNA sample, taken when he was arrested last November, should be destroyed. Mr Green said that he was disturbed to find out he had been bugged by police officers before even being read his rights which, he said, was a breach of the law.
The affair reached the very top of Parliament when it was revealed that Speaker Michael Martin had allowed antiterrorist police to raid Mr Green’s Commons office and examine private correspondence with constituents, upsetting many MPs.
The raid was launched after the Cabinet Office called in Scotland Yard claiming there had been considerable damage to national security.
But a separate report by the Commons home affairs committee also found there had been no such risk. It accused senior civil servants of using “hyperbolic” language to drag in the police.
Ms Smith claimed she had a “responsibility” to keep information safe. She added: “I think it is right that we take our responsibilities to protect that information seriously and that is what we have done throughout this process.
“I think senior civil servants and myself have a responsibility to keep information safe.
“My job is to protect the British people. It is also to protect the sensitive information about how we protect them as well and that is what we have done.”