Email led to BBC legal gag in cash for honours probe
Document at centre of injunction led to change of police tactics, as detectives prepare to send their final files to the CPS
Sunday, 4 March 2007
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Detectives in charge of the cash-for-honours investigation gagged the BBC because it was about to reveal details of a significant email, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.
The existence of the email is thought to explain why police switched their attention from the alleged sale of honours to claims that there had been a subsequent cover-up.
Senior BBC sources last night indicated that it would not be seeking to overturn an injunction imposed on Friday night after an application by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who said releasing details of the communication, believed to be known by the BBC political editor Nick Robinson, would harm the inquiry.
The injunction suggests the police are about to send their final files - together with a recommendation about whether to prosecute - to the Crown Prosecution Service.
This newspaper has been told that Tony Blair expects the year-long investigation to come to an end this week. A long-awaited independent report on party funding, delayed until the conclusion of the police probe, is pencilled in for next week.
Detectives are thought to have uncovered the email last year. It was one of the "major developments" alluded to by John Yates, the police chief in charge of the investigation, in a letter to MPs on 16 November.
Since that letter, the Prime Minister's chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, has been arrested and questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Ruth Turner, No 10's director of government relations, has also been arrested. Ms Turner has been questioned on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, not, as in Lord Levy's case, of conspiracy to do so.
Mr Blair has been interviewed twice by police, both times as a witness, not a suspect. He has not been arrested or interviewed under caution.
Angus MacNeil, the Scottish National Party MP whose complaint triggered the investigation, said: "The gravity of this investigation is clear for all to see. Labour is facing an unprecedented political crisis. It would appear the police may have significant information that they don't want to be made public at this stage."
The cash-for-honours inquiry was sparked after The Independent on Sunday revealed that Tony Blair had nominated party donors for peerages in October 2005.
It subsequently emerged that four had also secretly lent the party millions of pounds before the last election. The Conservative Party also admitted it had accepted substantial confidential loans.
A police investigation was instigated in March last year by complaints to the Metropolitan Police by MPs that honours appeared to have been offered in return for financial support to the major parties.
