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establishment after Britain’s top policeman quit over his ties to Rupert Murdoch’s empire.
Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson resigned on Sunday over the force’s hiring of a former executive at the News of the World, but delivered a parting shot at the premier’s own decision to employ an ex-editor of the tabloid as his media chief.
His shock announcement came just hours before police bailed Rebekah Brooks – who resigned on Friday as head of Murdoch’s British newspaper arm – after she was arrested on suspicion of phone-hacking and bribing police.
Cameron heard about Stephenson’s resignation while flying to South Africa where he began a trade visit.
The Conservative leader had already decided to cut short his visit to the continent from four days to two as the scandal swirled.
A Downing Street spokesman travelling with Cameron said it was right to continue the trip, saying: “A big part of (his job) is boosting the British economy and making trade links, and that’s the purpose of this trip.”
In Britain, Home Secretary Theresa May attempted to distance Cameron from the furore which has shut down the News of the World, thrown Murdoch’s global business into crisis and implicated British politicians and
the police.
“I think the Met is different from government. The Metropolitan Police are in charge, and responsible for, investigating alleged wrong doings at the News of the World,” May told the BBC.
“I think it is important to keep a line between the investigators and the investigated.”
May defended Cameron’s judgment in hiring Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who went on to become Downing Street media chief but resigned in January. Coulson was arrested over the scandal earlier this month.
“David Cameron himself has made the point that he gave Andy Coulson a second chance, that second chance did not work and Andy Coulson resigned again,” she said.
But in his resignation speech, Stephenson took a sideswipe at the hiring of Coulson and compared it unfavourably with Scotland Yard’s employment of Neil Wallis, Coulson’s former deputy at the paper.
Wallis was hired in 2009. Scotland Yard reopened the initially botched probe into hacking at the News of the World in January and the scandal exploded on July 4 with reports the paper hacked the voicemails of a murdered girl, Milly Dowler.
“Unlike Mr Coulson, Mr Wallis had not resigned from News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge, been in any way associated with the original phone hacking investigation,” he said.
He added that he “did not want to compromise the prime minister in any way by revealing or discussing a potential suspect who clearly had a close relationship with Mr Coulson.”
Stephenson was felled by reports Sunday which said the police chief accepted a five-week stay earlier this year at a luxury health spa where Wallis, who himself was arrested last week, was a PR consultant.
The police chief denied any wrong doing.
Cameron said Stephenson’s resignation was “a very sad occasion for him,” adding “I wish him well for the future.”
May was due to address parliament later yesterday over Scotland Yard’s employment of Wallis.
Separately the flame-haired Brooks, one of Murdoch’s closest lieutenants, was released on bail at around midnight on Sunday after 12 hours of questioning over the scandal.
Her spokesman David Wilson said she had been instructed to report back to a London police station in late October.
Wilson warned the arrest could affect her planned testimony before British lawmakers today over the spiralling scandal alongside Murdoch and his son James, the chairman of News International.
Murdoch’s US-based News Corp. is in crisis, having also had to abandon its bid for full control of pay-TV giant BSkyB and accept the resignations on Friday of Dow Jones chief Les Hinton, who had worked with him for 52 years.
Brooks (43) is the 10th person and most senior Murdoch aide to be arrested over the scandal so far. At a previous hearing in 2003 she admitted the paper had made payments to police. Shares in News Corp. plummeted 5.82 percent in Australian trade on Monday.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron begins a two-day trip to South Africa and Nigeria yesterday, leaving behind the national phone hacking scandal to promote British trade on the continent.
In his first visit to the region since taking office in May 2010, Cameron is leading a high-level business delegation to South Africa yesterday, where he will call for more trade within the continent to reduce its reliance on aid.
He admitted the issue of an African free trade area, negotiations on which were launched by 26 states last month, was not as headline-grabbing as aid concerts such as Live Aid, but argued it could be far more powerful.
“In the past, there were marches in the West to drop the debt. There were concerts to increase aid. And it was right that the world responded,” Cameron wrote in an article in South Africa’s Business Daily ahead of his arrival.
“But they have never once had a march or a concert to call for what will in the long term save far more lives and do far more good – an African free trade area.”
Cameron argued that a free trade area could increase gross domestic product across the continent by an estimated US$62 billion a year – US$20 million more than the world gives sub-Saharan Africa in aid.
African leaders agreed in South Africa last month to launch negotiations on creating a free trade zone that would include 26 countries with a combined economy estimated at US$875 billion (597 billion euros).
Cameron is accompanied on his trip by a delegation of 25 business leaders, from the chief executive of Barclays bank, Bob Diamond, to the director of communications and public policy of the English Premier
League, Bill Bush. However, commentators at home will likely question the timing of his trip, in the middle of a firestorm over phone hacking at the News of the World.
The scandal led to the arrest Sunday of Rebekah Brooks, a former editor of the tabloid, and the shock resignation of Paul Stephenson, Britain’s top policeman.
The Metropolitan Police chief quit over his reported links with Murdoch’s media empire.
Cameron described Stephenson’s departure as “a very sad occasion for him,” adding “I wish him well for the future.”
Brooks resigned as chief executive of Murdoch’s News International newspaper division on Friday, although she denies wrongdoing.
Cameron is friends with Brooks, and has also come under fire for his decision to employ her successor as editor, Andy Coulson, as his media chief until January.
Coulson was also arrested earlier this month over hacking
Meanwhile, Cameron and President Zuma also discussed the conflict in Libya, where South Africa has accused NATO of overstepping its UN mandate to impose a no-fly zone on the country.
Zuma again refused to back Britain’s call for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to step down, saying his future should be decided in talks among the warring parties.-AFP.
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