Damian Green’s political career is in jeopardy after a retired detective claimed ‘thousands’ of pornographic images were found on his computer
The Tories were at war with Scotland Yard last night after former officers tried to oust Theresa May’s deputy.
Damian Green’s political career is in jeopardy after a retired detective claimed ‘thousands’ of pornographic images were found on his computer.
The Prime Minister’s problems worsened when Brexit Secretary David Davis threatened to quit if she fired Mr Green.
The ex-detective, Neil Lewis, said he was acting to support former police chief Bob Quick, who was heavily criticised over a 2008 raid on Mr Green’s Commons office and who first aired claims about pornography last month.
Mrs May, who has lost two Cabinet ministers in recent weeks, was last night weighing up whether she could afford to lose another ally – or possibly two.
A friend of Mr Davis said he had ‘put his cloak around’ Mr Green, who served as his deputy when the Tories were in opposition.
The Brexit Secretary is said to regard the police claims as ‘bogus’ and has told Mrs May ‘in words of one syllable’ not to sack Mr Green.
A source close to Mr Davis said he was ‘very angry’ about the treatment of the First Secretary of State, but played down reports he was ready to quit.
He added: ‘Because of the events that took place nine years ago, when Damian worked in David’s team, David has an interest in what is going on and is clear that he will not allow one of his men to be mistreated over what happened then.’
The Prime Minister’s problems worsened when Brexit Secretary David Davis threatened to quit if she fired Mr Green
The ex-detective, Neil Lewis, said he was acting to support former police chief Bob Quick(pictured)
Mr Green, 61, has been under investigation for a month over disputed claims that he made unwanted advances on Conservative activist Kate Maltby who is 30 years his junior.
Sue Gray, director of ethics and propriety at the Cabinet Office, has also quizzed him over the allegations about pornography, which he denies. She has separately interviewed Mr Quick and Met Police chief Cressida Dick over the claims.
It is understood she is aware of the evidence reported by Mr Lewis but has not spoken to him. Her report has now been delayed until next week at the earliest.
Mr Green yesterday said his accusers were lying, telling reporters: ‘I have maintained all along and I still maintain – it is the truth – that I did not download or look at pornography on my computer, but obviously while the investigation is going on I can’t say any more.’
Mrs May, who has lost two Cabinet ministers in recent weeks, is weighing up whether she could afford to lose another ally – or possibly two
Friends of Mr Green accused the police of launching a vendetta against him as payback for the botched raid – part of an investigation led by Mr Quick into Home Office leaks.
An external police review of the investigation later ruled it was disproportionate – while the leaks were embarrassing to the then Labour government, they were not a threat to national security.
Former Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell, who resigned as chief whip over the ‘Plebgate’ row after he swore at officers in Downing Street, accused the police of misusing information to blacken the name of a Cabinet minister.
Ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘This is all payback by embittered former police officers.
‘They overstepped the mark in 2008 under pressure from the Blair government. The police have got serious questions to answer. This is all political – it’s about getting even with us and getting even with him.’
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the raid on Mr Green’s office was a ‘scandal’.
A friend of Mr Davis said he had ‘put his cloak around’ Mr Green, who served as his deputy when the Tories were in opposition
Sue Gray, director of ethics and propriety at the Cabinet Office, has also quizzed him over the allegations about pornography, which he denies
They were legal, but Green’s computer had hundreds of porn images, ex-cop tells BBC
Neil Lewis discussed the contents of Mr Green’s computer with the BBC’s Danny Shaw
Neil Lewis: The shocking thing as I was viewing I noticed a lot of pornography thumbnails which indicated web browsing… I was surprised to see that on a parliamentary computer…
BBC’s Danny Shaw: How many images did you see on that?
NL: There were thousands
BBC: Thousands of pornographic images?
NL: Thumbnail images
BBC: How can you be sure that it was Damian Green who was accessing that pornography?
NL: I’ve been in situations where a barrister has said to me in court: ‘So you’re telling me my client has done this?’ And I have to say: ‘Well, no because I wasn’t there.’ But the computer was in Mr Green’s office on his desk, logged in to his account, his name. In between browsing pornography he was sending emails from his account his personal account, reading documents, writing documents and it was just impossible. It was sort of exclusive and extensive. It’s ridiculous to suggest that anybody else could have done it.
BBC: Is it possible that someone could have hijacked the computer or hijacked the account in some way to access pornography in his name on his account?
NL: I can’t imagine it. It would be a very bizarre situation for somebody to hack a parliamentary computer to place pornography. There was also pornography found, internet history found, on a separate machine – a laptop – of a similar nature.
BBC: Is it possible that someone else in the office or who had access to the office had used his machine?
NL: Whoever had done it would have had to push Mr Green to one side to say: ‘Get out I’m using your computer’
BBC: Is it possible that you’ve made a mistake? That perhaps you’ve muddled up two computers? That there’s been a problem with the exhibits… and this is actually a computer that belongs to someone else or has got mixed up in a technical way?
NL: Absolutely no way. I was the one who seized it… I was the one who examined it, photographed it. I deal with computer forensics… I produce digital evidence.
BBC: He’s now in effect deputy prime minister and the idea that he’s accessing pornography on this scale just strikes some people as impossible or absurd. There must be some explanation – someone else has hijacked his account or there’s an error at Scotland Yard or possibly someone’s tried to plant it?
NL: I wish there was. It was shocking at the time when he was shadow immigration minister. I never imagined I’d be sitting here down the line discussing it.
BBC: There was no doubt in your mind that it was Damian Green who had accessed pornography on that computer?
NL: Absolutely no doubt whatsoever.
BBC: You make a statement on what you’ve found to your senior investigating officer?
NL: That’s correct
BBC: Did you mention pornography?
NL: No. No I didn’t. Because it had no bearing on the leak investigation. If there was browsing in relation to leaked documents that would have been relevant.
BBC: So why now in 2017 why are you now coming forward doing an interview?
NL: There was an article in the Sunday Times in relation to Damian Green having pornography on his computer. His outright denial of that was quite amazing followed by his criticism of Bob Quick, my senior officer. So I contacted Bob Quick to offer my support. When I left the place I kept one notebook [on this case].
BBC: Why did you keep that notebook?
NL: Because that was the case that I was uncomfortable with.
He added: ‘The police behaved disgracefully as a political arm of the then government: they raided an opposition minister’s offices; they raided the House of Commons; this was a real scandal.
‘And now the police, or ex-police, are using information obtained improperly to damage a politician. What we should be asking about is the politicisation of the police force under the last Labour government, not about Damian Green.’
Mr Lewis told the BBC he was involved in analysing the then opposition immigration spokesman’s computer during an investigation into Home Office leaks. He claimed to have been shocked by the pornographic material found on the computer, which he said ran to thousands of images.
He acknowledged the material was legal but claimed it had been accessed for several hours a day on occasions.
Allies of Mr Green last night criticised the BBC for failing to press Mr Lewis over his claims.
One said: ‘I am disgusted with the fact the BBC have taken this guy’s highly dubious claims and run them as fact, accompanied by a very soft interview.’
Police colleagues rallied round Mr Lewis, who served on several high-profile terrorist inquiries. But his actions threatened to renew hostilities between rank-and-file officers and the Conservatives. One police leader said he feared another ugly Plebgate-style feud as politicians and officers accuse each other of lying.
Others said revealing private and irrelevant information uncovered during a criminal inquiry could cause long-term damage to the credibility of the police.
‘The danger is that at least 30 people worked on that inquiry,’ one officer said. ‘What happens if they all start coming forward now with tidbits of what went on?’
Scotland Yard said anti-corruption officers were looking at how the information became public, but insisted this fell short of a full investigation. The force is co-operating with the Cabinet Office inquiry but is desperate not to be dragged into a political row. Met Commissioner Cressida Dick is understood to be extremely concerned at the public airing of private police information.
But Ken Marsh, who leads the Metropolitan Police Federation, said he has no problem with Mr Lewis speaking out in public.
‘I am frustrated that the word of police officers is constantly being questioned when in the rankings of who people trust you will find MPs far lower down.’
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘Confidential information gathered during a police inquiry should not be made public. The appropriate course of action is to co-operate privately with the Cabinet Office inquiry as the Met has done.’
A 9-year feud and a plot to oust Tory minister
By Stephen Wright, Associate News Editor for the Daily Mail
Bombshell claims about the volume of pornography allegedly found on Damian Green’s office computer are the culmination of a nine-year feud between Theresa May’s senior Cabinet ally and former police chief Bob Quick.
Neil Lewis’s astonishing assertions on BBC Radio 4 yesterday that ‘thousands’ of legal X-rated images were discovered in a police raid in 2008 piled pressure on the First Secretary of State.
Bombshell claims about the volume of pornography allegedly found on Damian Green’s office computer are the culmination of a nine-year feud between Theresa May’s senior Cabinet ally and former police chief Bob Quick.
The timing of the claims made by the retired Metropolitan Police detective and IT expert, who admits speaking to his old boss Mr Quick before going public, could not have been worse for Mrs May’s most trusted colleague.
What is certain is that Mr Quick, once Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer and who was tipped to become head of Scotland Yard, has never forgiven those he believes sabotaged his high-flying career following his investigation into Mr Green nearly a decade ago.
His simmering fury over the circumstances in which he left the police has seen him dubbed ‘Bitter Bob’ by a number of former colleagues.
It was in March 2008 that Mr Quick – the respected chief constable of Surrey Police, one of the country’s best performing forces – was promoted to head the counter-terrorism and security department at Scotland Yard, where he had started his career 30 years earlier.
But within months, he was facing calls to quit over the hugely contentious decision to arrest then shadow immigration minister, Mr Green, over a series of leaks from Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s private office.
Over the previous two years a young civil servant, Christopher Galley, who was working in Miss Smith’s private office, had passed on at least 31 separate documents, some restricted, which exposed government failures on crime and immigration. An enraged Cabinet Office called in Scotland Yard and Mr Quick, an assistant commissioner, headed the secret operation.
Detectives arrested Galley and searched his home. Mr Green was arrested at his home on November 27, 2008, for ‘aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in public office’ by Galley. His Commons office was raided and computers seized for examination.
The arrest of Mr Green and the raid prompted a political storm over whether the police had overstepped their powers. The Tory MP’s lawyers argued that the material seized in the search, including that discovered on his computers, was covered by parliamentary privilege.
Mr Green was held for nine hours while his Commons office, two homes and constituency office, were searched and computers removed. The Tories were livid, accusing Mr Quick of ‘Stalinesque’ behaviour when he approved the arrest of Mr Green.
In the weeks following the arrest it emerged that Mr Quick’s wife Judith was running a car hire firm from their home and details of their address were published on a website.
The Mail on Sunday story carried the implication that Mr Quick, as head of counter-terrorism, was being reckless with his own security.
He hit back, saying: ‘The Tory machinery and their press friends are mobilised against this investigation in a wholly corrupt way, and I feel very disappointed in the country I am living in.
‘It is a very spiteful act, possibly to intimidate me away from investigating Mr Green.’
He later retracted his remarks and made an unreserved apology after the Tory leader, David Cameron, demanded he withdraw the ‘completely baseless’ allegations.
The Tories accepted the apology. But the dispute was far from over and Mr Quick, who was badly damaged by the Green affair, would later complain that the investigation cost him his career.
He quit in April 2009 after being photographed arriving at Downing Street with documents detailing a counter-terror operation clearly visible. He later claimed he might have survived had it not been for the Green controversy.
‘I accepted I wasn’t popular in those quarters,’ he told the BBC. ‘I’d read in newspapers various unattributed comments “We’re going to get Quick”. I guess I wasn’t surprised by that.’
A few days after he resigned, Mr Green was cleared of any wrongdoing over the leaks.
Mr Quick licked his wounds and would later become chief executive of a global risk and security consultancy, which employs a number of former senior Scotland Yard officers.
He returned to the public spotlight in March 2012 when he gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards. He alleged that journalists close to the Tory Party had tried to skew his investigation into Mr Green.
The now notorious porn allegations against Mr Green were contained in a ‘confidential draft witness statement’ he made to the public inquiry.
Last month, at the height of the sex harassment scandal in Westminster, the Sunday Times reported that ‘extreme pornography’ had been found on one of Mr Green’s office computers back in 2008.
Mr Green denied the claim and accused Mr Quick of a ‘disreputable political smear’. The former police chief denied being the source of the Sunday Times story but he did supply a statement to the BBC to confirm the discovery, insisting he bore ‘no malice’.
Mr Quick has since however given evidence to a Cabinet Office inquiry investigating a separate accusation of sexual harassment against Mr Green made by journalist Kate Maltby.
A week after the porn controversy broke, Paul Stephenson, who was Met Commissioner between 2009 and 2011, became the second senior officer to confirm he had been briefed about the alleged discovery on Mr Green’s computer in 2008.
He told the BBC: ‘I regret it’s in the public domain. There was no criminality involved, there were no victims, there was no vulnerability and it was not a matter of extraordinary public interest.’
By last weekend it was being suggested that Mr Quick had consulted lawyers over the possibility of suing Mr Green, who described the ex-police chief as ‘tainted’ and ‘untrustworthy’.
Mr Quick, it was claimed, wants an apology and a retraction for the attack on his reputation.
Nearly nine years after he was forced out of his job, could ‘Bitter Bob’ have the last laugh over his one-time nemesis Mr Green?