Met chief ‘misled Parliament over phone-hacking scandal’

Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Yates has been accused of misleading Parliament over the News of the World hacking scandal.

The allegation, which Mr Yates strongly denies, was made in papers filed at the High Court claiming that the Met failed to properly investigate the phone hacking claims.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, former Met deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick and freelance journalist Brendan Montague are seeking a judicial review to force the police to release more details of the investigation. Mr Bryant claims that journalists hacking into his voicemail messages may have his father's new telephone number, a former partner's address and information on his brother's school.

The Met has admitted that the MP's name and telephone number appeared in material it had gathered as part of its investigation.

But Mr Bryant was not warned by the Met that his phone may have been hacked.

The papers applying for a judicial review state: "In evidence to the Commons Select Committee on 7 September 2010 John Yates insisted that all reasonable steps were taken to warn people when there was the minutest possibility' that they might have been hacked. That statement is not true".

Mr Yates wrote to the Guardian last week to say that he "strongly objects" to accusations that the account he gave was misleading and that his evidence to the Commons Select Committee yesterday "was a fib".

Mr Yates claims there was evidence of only a small amount of hacking.

The News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, and private investigator Glen Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 after accessing the voicemails of public figures.

The furore is an embarrassment to the new Government as David Cameron's communications chief, Andy Coulson, was the paper's editor at the time. Mr Coulson resigned over the scandal but has repeatedly denied that he knew about any hacking.

The Metropolitan Police has insisted it carried out a thorough probe.