The Independent reports:
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 By Francis Elliott, Whitehall Editor
Published: 04 March 2007Detectives 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.
[My emphasis]
