Phone-hacking police round on News International

News International tried to "thwart" the original inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World, senior Met police officers have told MPs.

Ex-Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said there was "prevarication and what we now know to be lies".

Assistant Commissioner John Yates said the firm "appears to have failed to co-operate" during his review of the case.

Commons Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz said Mr Yates's evidence was "unconvincing".

Current Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, who was seen emerging from 10 Downing Street on Tuesday evening, said Mr Yates had his "full support and confidence".

A police investigation began in 2005 triggered by stories in the News of the World (NoW) about Prince William's health.

News International closed the paper last week amid continued outrage over reports of hacking including revelations that the mobile phones of murder victim Milly Dowler and relatives of dead soldiers had been accessed.

In his evidence to the committee, Mr Clarke said: "We pursued it as far as we could through the correspondence with the News of the World lawyers."

But he added: "This is a major global organisation with access to the best legal advice, in my view deliberately trying to thwart a police investigation."

In other developments:

Mr Clarke told MPs his remit during the initial investigation was strictly to look into who had been hacking into the phones of members of the royal household.

Only the "most important" victims of phone hacking had been told about it, he said.

He said he had to weigh up a breach of privacy investigation with counter-terrorism investigations, and an exhaustive analysis of the evidence at hand may or may not have made any difference at all.

"If at any time News International had offered some meaningful co-operation instead of prevarication and what we now know to be lies, we would not be here today," he said.

In 2007, a reporter and private investigator working for the paper were jailed for phone hacking.

It was reported that the pair were considered to have been acting alone and the investigation led by former Met Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman ended.

Mr Hayman told the committee: "At the time everything possible that they were able to do, given the resources and the parameters they set, was done and I stand by that...

"What we look like now, it's very lame. I think what's happened is I think we've had more time to do it, more revelations have come out, the News of the World have given us material that we didn't have at the time."

Mr Hayman later went on to become a columnist with News International title the Times but rejected suggestions he was in the newspaper group's "back pocket".

In 2009, Assistant Commissioner Yates oversaw a review of the investigation after allegations appeared in the Guardian that NoW reporters had paid private investigators to hack into thousands of phones, many owned by politicians and celebrities.

At the hearing, he admitted it was a "poor" decision not to reopen the inquiry and he regretted not doing enough to protect victims.

But he said: "It is a matter of great concern that, for whatever reason, the News of the World appears to have failed to co-operate in the way that we now know they should have with relevant police inquiries up until January this year.

"They have only recently supplied information and evidence that would have had a significant impact on the decisions that I took in 2009 had it been provided to us then."

He said he would not resign over criticisms of his actions, and told MPs he had not been under pressure from the NoW over issues in his private life.

Mr Yates also said he was 99% certain his own mobile was hacked between 2005 and 2006.

In a statement, the Met Commissioner said Mr Yates should be given "credit for his courage and humility in acknowledging that if he knew then what he knows now, he would have taken different decisions".

He added he hoped Mr Clarke's evidence "helps to inform the public debate and the reasons that the original inquiry operated as it did".

One of the members of the committee, Labour's David Winnick, said the hearing confirmed the initial police investigation into phone hacking was "totally inadequate".

Other MPs not on the committee but who listened to the evidence, were also critical of what they heard.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, who suspects his phone was hacked, said: "Nearly everything that we have heard in the last few weeks was in the papers that the police gathered in 2006 if they had chosen even to read it. All we learned today is, they didn't even bother to read most of it."

And former shadow home secretary David Davies said: "There was incompetence in the handling, there was complacency over the issue."

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Akers confirmed to the committee that the material gathered by police contains 3,870 first and second names. There are 5,000 landline phone numbers and 4,000 mobile phone numbers.

She said senior management at News International were now co-operating with her inquiry.

"I held a meeting at which for the first time two News International executives attended to debate our very different interpretations of the expression full co-operation and subsequent to that meeting I can say that relationships have been much better," she said.

The committee hearing opened with questions to former Met Police Commissioner Lord Ian Blair about claims police officers had been paid for information by the News of the World.

He said he strongly suspected corruption in the force, but knew of no payments made to police officers.

Lord Blair was also asked about the decision not to reopen the inquiry in 2009.

He said: "If material was available at the time that showed 'industrial level hacking' it would have been appropriate to have gone further.

"I didn't know and I wouldn't have expected it to have been known further up the organisation."