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“The Met commissioner and the Wolfman of Fleet Street” headlines The Daily Telegraph, which reveals that Britain’s most senior policeman is facing calls to resign over the scandal surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s paper The News of the World. The British daily says that Paul Stephenson, the head of London’s police force, retained a former News of the World deputy editor as a consultant at a cost of more than £1,000 (€1,140) a day.
Neil Wallis, nicknamed ‘the Wolfman’ for his abrasive temperament, worked at the tabloid when it was first investigated for phone hacking in 2006, and was employed by the police in 2009-10 to advise on public relations. He was arrested and questioned this week as part of the new investigation. The revelation of Wallis’s employment, says the Telegraph, has led to further accusations of an improper relationship between the police and Murdoch’s paper. And the commissioner’s critics are not satisfied by his statement that he “does not believe” he acted inappropriately. “This smacks of collusion,” said Chris Bryant, an opposition MP who claims to have had his phone hacked by the News of the World.
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