Now second ex-cop says he knew about porn on Deputy PM’s office computer
A FORMER head of Scotland Yard yesterday revealed that he was told that pornography had been found on one of Damian Green’s parliamentary computers nine years ago – but insisted it was not a criminal matter.
Sir Paul Stephenson, who was Metropolitan Police Commissioner between 2009 and 2011, became the second senior officer to claim he had been briefed about the alleged discovery at the time.
Mr Green, 61, the First Secretary of State, who is effectively the Prime Minister’s deputy, is facing a Whitehall inquiry into claims that explicit material was found during a 2008 police investigation into leaks.
Last week, it emerged that Bob Quick, a former head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard, knew of the allegations, but he denied being the source of that story.
At that time, Mr Green said the story was ‘completely untrue’ and the allegations amounted to ‘false, disreputable political smears’. Yesterday Sir Paul said he had viewed the allega- tions as a ‘side issue’. He told the BBC: ‘I regret it’s in the public domain. There was no criminality involved, there were no victims, there was no vulnerability and it was not a matter of extraordinary public interest.’
The Cabinet Office inquiry began after Kate Maltby, 31, told The Times that Mr Green ‘fleetingly’ touched her knee during a meeting in a Waterloo pub in 2015, and a year later sent her a ‘suggestive’ text message.
Mr Green said any allegation that he made sexual advances to Miss Maltby was ‘untrue (and) deeply hurtful’.
Last night he said: ‘No allegations about the presence of improper material on my parliamentary computers have ever been put to me or to the parliamentary authorities by the police.’