METROPOLITAN POLICE commissioner Paul Stephenson became the biggest casualty yet of the crisis caused by phone-hacking at the News of the Worldlast night with his decision to quit in the face of allegations about his links to one of the newspaper's journalists arrested in connection with the scandal.
Today, the home secretary, Theresa May, is to appear before MPs in the House of Commons to express concerns about the commissioner's decision to hire former News of the Worldjournalist Neil Wallis as a public relations consultant for nearly 12 months.
Explaining his decision to quit, Mr Stephenson said the Metropolitan Police could not afford to have speculation “about the security of the position of the commissioner” while an inquiry was held over the next year, given it faces “the enormous challenge” of policing the Olympics next year.
“Even a small chance that there could be a change of leadership must be avoided,” he said.
The commissioner’s position had come under question after it was revealed the Metropolitan Police had hired Mr Wallis as a PR consultant during 2009 and 2010, following the arrest in recent days of Mr Wallis by Operation Weeting detectives leading the investigation into phone-hacking.
His position was further weakened after it emerged Mr Wallis had carried out PR work for a luxury health-spa where Mr Stephenson had stayed free-of-charge for five weeks in January and February while recovering from a leg fracture suffered during surgery to remove a non-malignant tumour in his leg.
Defending his integrity last night, Mr Stephenson defended his decision not to tell prime minister David Cameron or other senior figures that Mr Wallis had been a PR consultant for the Metropolitan Police until after he had been arrested because it would have compromised the investigation to have done so beforehand.
Mr Stephenson said he had met Mr Wallis in 2006 and in the years afterwards because he had had no reason to believe the original investigation into phone-hacking by the News of the World, which led to the jailing of journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, had been "anything other than a successful investigation".
“I was unaware that there were any other documents in our possession of the nature that have now emerged.
“I have acknowledged the statement by John Yates that if he had known then what he knows now he would have made different decisions,” said Mr Stephenson, who announced his resignation at a hurriedly called press conference at Scotland Yard.
“I have heard suggestions that we must have suspected the alleged involvement of Mr Wallis in phone-hacking. Let me say unequivocally that I did not and had no reason to have done so,” he said, adding: “I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice and the repugnant nature of the selection neither of victims that is now emerging, nor of its apparent reach into senior levels.”
Mr Stephenson’s future in the UK’s top policing post was increasingly under threat after it was learned that home secretary Theresa May intended to make a public statement about the force’s decision to hire Mr Wallis – which Mr Stephenson insisted last night he was involved in – to the House of Commons today.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrats deputy prime minister Nick Clegg heightened the pressure further when he said Mr Stephenson faced “serious questions”, adding: “When the public starts losing faith in the police, it’s altogether much more serious . . . The commissioner should answer the questions that are being put to him by the home secretary.”
Former chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde, is on the list of candidates who could replace Mr Stephenson, but his chances of winning the top job are handicapped by past difficulties with the Home Office, who are likely to oppose his elevation now.