1 EYE CATCH-UP: The trial of Citizen Murrer 1 Index 2 Deep Throat it isn’t: Why Thames Valley police rifled through packets of Cup-a- Soup at the Milton Keynes Citizen. 3 The Plod thickens: The local newspaper hack, her contact, the police and the silly buggers 4 The loan arrangers: How Johnston Press put a price on press freedom and that of its harassed reporter 5 He shoots, he scores: The own goals notched up by Inspector Knacker, gifted with two flat-feet 6 What a tangled Webb: How a former attorney-general and ex-director of public prosecutions were dragged into the affair 7 Murrer Christmas, Sally! The case – a cause célèbre for press freedom – is thrown out by Judge Southwell 2 EYE CATCH-UP: The trial of Citizen Murrer THAMES VALLEY POLICE 24 hours. By the end she was suitably bewildered and terrified, and ready for the interrogation. Contact sport Detectives didn’t ask her about HEN people think of investigative state secrets: they wanted to know Wreporters meeting secret contacts, they how she had found out about Izale recall the Washington car park where Deep McLeod; who had reminded her Throat dished the dirt on Watergate, not the about her old piece on Doug Belcher; Jury’s Inn, Milton Keynes. and they also asked whether she Nevertheless, it was in this unglamorous three- could confirm that she had talked star hotel that a part comic, but mainly sinister battle about a potential suicide bomber with over the future of free reporting in Britain began in a police officer but printed nothing. December 2006 Murrer was released but when she Izale McLeod, then the star striker for the Milton returned for her next interview the Keynes Dons, was enjoying an engagement party in officers had a treat for her. “The first the Infusion Restaurant. By all accounts, it got out of thing they did was strip search me. They took me hand. Sally Murrer of the Milton Keynes Citizen into a side room and put the rubber gloves on. I contacted a source in the Thames Valley police, who started shaking. My brain went to cotton wool.” said that McLeod had been arrested after an They charged her with “aiding wilful misconduct in allegation of GBH. Murrer ran the story and later a public place” and warned her that she could go to reported that the charges had been dropped. prison for years. There’s a committal hearing at Murrer is a straight journalist from the old Kingston-on-Thames magistrates court in February school; the mother of two young girls and the carer 2008, and a full trial is expected in the autumn. of a 20-year old autistic son. She can cope with her A police officer who is due to retire was arrested children and a job on the Citizen because she has along with her. His colleagues also arrested his son, contacts who have fed her with stories like the who has fought for his country in Afghanistan and is McLeod case for 33 years. due to go back for a second tour. Proud of her work though she is, she would never Allegedly he had some ecstasy tablets and had claim to have broken earth-shattering exclusives. In also tried to win the favour a pretty young reporter April, for instance, she checked with a police source on the Citizen’s rival, The Milton Keynes News, by after a local man Doug Belcher was killed – telling her about how a clueless copper had lost a apparently while fighting burglars who were stealing complete set of keys for Milton Keynes central nick his van. “Didn’t he serve a prison sentence in France – including the keys for the custody cells. She ran in the 90s?” she asked. the story, which was all over town in any event, and “Yes, for supplying cannabis,” replied her source. was duly interrogated by Thames Valley and “And it ought to ring a bell because you wrote about Hertfordshire officers. it.” They have now spent hundreds of thousands of “Silly me,” she thought, and dug out her old pounds on the Murrer inquiry. Originally it was a cutting. police corruption investigation: officers selling About the time of Belcher’s murder, a police stories for money. But Sally Murrer isn’t a high- contact also chatted to her about an Islamist fanatic rolling scoop-hound from the News of the World; who had been released early from prison even she’s a local reporter who has never paid for a story though he boasted about becoming a suicide bomber. in her life. It was background. Nothing could be written because Thames Valley clearly want to get the arrested a D Notice was slapped on the story. officer. But what was personal has become political. Murrer’s life seemed routine until she was If the police lose, they will have wasted hundreds of shopping on 8 May and a colleague called to warn thousands on a fatuous and oppressive prosecution her: “The police are here. They’re seizing your when the money might have been better spent on, computer.” Detectives from the Thames Valley and say, monitoring ex-prisoners who threaten to blow Hertfordshire forces didn’t stop there. They spent up the transport system. three hours searching everything, right down to the If the police win, it will become a crime for packets of Cup-a-Soup by the office kettle. journalists to report what a police officer or any Eight officers then went through her home and other public official tells them without authorisation removed bugs they had been using to tape her – as will just talking to them and not even publishing conversations with sources. They took her to what they say. Banbury police station and left her in a cold cell for ‘Ratbiter’ Private Eye 1200 21 December 2007 3 EYE CATCH-UP: The trial of Citizen Murrer THE HACK, HER CONTACT, THE POLICE AND THE SILLY BUGGERS Eye told you so HE full ramifications of the Murrer’s and Kearney’s bank accounts, service (CPS) has accused Kearney of TEye story broken by they accepted that no money had leaking details of the bugging. “Ratbiter” in December (issue changed hands. All they now allege is (Kearney himself denies it – not least 1200) about Thames Valley police’s that, like journalists and their contacts do because the disclosure has made him a bizarrely aggressive treatment of the Milton every day, Kearney told her stories about target for Islamists.) But his statement Keynes Citizen’s crime correspondent are only a local footballer and drug dealer that did the rounds in Milton Keynes. now becoming clear. didn’t come within a thousand miles of Lawyers and uniformed officers read As Eye readers will recall, anti-corruption breaking the official secrets act. it, and wives and partners of the officers bugged the phone of respected reporter Ordinarily, this nasty tale of oppressive suspects, furious that their homes had been Sally Murrer and recorded hours of her policing wouldn’t have wider consequences. But ransacked, stormed to their MPs and councillors conversations with local police officer Det Sgt with a gratifying poetic justice rarely encountered and told them everything they knew. No one will Mark Kearney (pictured) – subsequently revealed outside Hollywood movies, Thames Valley police say how he found out, but within weeks of as the officer at the heart of the Sadiq Khan must now answer for inadvertently letting loose Kearney writing his statement, David Davis, bugging inquiry (see article below). havoc in Whitehall, infuriating MI5 and forcing a shadow home secretary, privately asked Gordon They raided Murrer’s home and the Citizen’s shaken justice secretary Jack Straw to the Brown about the bugging of MPs and lawyers. offices. Twice they interrogated her – once after despatch box. Brown didn’t reply; and a few weeks later, the leaving her for 30 hours in a police cell; the Mark Kearney had a nervous breakdown after story was all over the papers. second time after softening her up with a strip his arrest. His mental state wasn’t helped by the If Sara Thornton, chief constable of Thames search. Now Murrer and Kearney (who were once police upping the pressure on him by also Valley, thinks she is going to have a hard time lovers), along with Kearney’s son Harry and arresting his son. In a statement to the police explaining to ministers how an hysterically Derek Webb, a private detective, face the obscure professional standards department, he explained disproportionate operation against a local common law charge of “aiding and abetting gross why he couldn’t go to Milton Keynes station, journalist triggered a national scandal, she should misconduct in a public office”. saying he wasn’t only worried about going to look at the press bench at Murrer’s pre-trial So what’s going on? The police seemed to think prison with his son but feared he may have broken hearings and realise that her life is only going to Murrer was a cheque-book journalist who bribed the law when he succumbed to pressure from the get worse. Normally hacks don’t bother to cover officers to sell her stories. But the Milton Keynes Met police to bug a meeting in Woodhill Prison arcane legal discussions about procedure, but the Citizen doesn’t do cheque-book journalism: it can between Labour MP Sadiq Khan and prisoner court was packed for Murrer’s five-minute barely afford to pay parish correspondents 12p a Babar Ahmad, who is fighting extradition to the hearing on 11 February.