Yates of the Yard quits Met over phone-hacking scandal

Which pension?

Having quit the Met, he should now be on for a cushty role with BTP, allowing him to earn himself another pension.

Not enough

Presumably this is a simple case of deflection. By resigning, these guys are hoping that the prevailing opinion will be "well, they weren't proved to have done anything wrong and by resigning they have effectively punished themselves. So there's no reason to take this any further. Eh? What? Old bean? yes I'd love another G and T - what-ho!"

However, that ain't so. An innocent person would not fall on their sword. Two in as many days isn't "doing the honorable thing". It's a calculated attempt to minimise the damage - hoping that if they lay low, things will just blow over. Especially if the police can manage to drag their investigation out for 2 or more years. After all, you can't prosecute people while there's still an investigation going on - as the vested, establishment, interested keep telling us.

Maybe what we need is to put the investigation on hold. Prosecute some seriously deserving individuals, then restart the investigation to mop up the ones who were missed.

The tricky bit will be obtaining evidence. We found out from the De Menezes investigation that the police will all tell the same story (as they are allowed to confer before giving a statement - unlike ordinary people) and that they are willing to lie through their teeth to appear blameless in that story. We also discovered from the same investigation that it's highly unlikely that anything bad will happen to those involved. If killing an innocent person in cold blood doesn't give rise to jail time, what chance has a little police corruption got to punish the actual wrongdoers?

So, we have (so far) some high ranking officers leaving the force. We can't have any confidence in the police's ability or willingness to prosecute their own and we have an investigation that will nicely block any further legal action until at least 2013. On top of that, I suspect we have a cabal of politicians from all parties who have nothing to gain from turning over these particular stones, as whatever crawls out is as likely to bite them as anybody else. I would also expect that a lot of journalists and editors are also more than happy to drop this story as they, too, have nothing to gain and potentially a lot to lose from keeping it in the public consciousness.

Police corruption

For quite some time now the police have seen themselves as exempt from the rules that apply to the rest of us. Whether it comes to accepting gifts whilst in office, powering through red lights and "accidentally" killing an innocent member of the public, hassling photographers, abusing anti-terrorism powers, or misidentifying and blowing the brains out of an electrician on the tube. Nobody is ever guilty of anything. That in itself is simply bullshit.

If the Government ever want anyone to ever have any respect for the police ever again then law-breaking and corruption need to be smashed within the forces. Kind of like a "bringing the game into disrepute" charge in sport. You cannot enforce the law whilst acting like you are above it. It does not work. A bit like the concept of investigating yourself for corruption. Whilst they're at it they can get some oversight of their own shenanigans.

One question

If the US deiced to extradite a NoTW staff would the UK block it ? Cause US prosecutors would have no interest in shielding the MET. They would want to know every thing and what ever comes out comes out .

If they did hack into 9/11 victims phones I suggest they talk to Garry.

@Sam

And yet they are saying his death is not suspicious. All I can think of is one of three things. The MET thinks people really are that stupid, they are use to just giving the public BS, or they think soothing is going to happen to them.

oops

I meant the met thinks nothing will happen .

Ps why do cats love to jump on keyboards when you are typing.