A 9-YEAR FEUD AND A PLOT TO OUST TORY MINISTER
Bombshell claims about the volume of pornography allegedly found on Damian Green’s office computer are the culmination of a nine-year feud between Theresa may’s senior Cabinet ally and former police chief bob Quick.
Neil lewis’s astonishing assertions on bbC Radio 4 yesterday that ‘thousands’ of legal X-rated images were discovered in a police raid in 2008 piled pressure on the First secretary of state.
The timing of the claims made by the retired metropolitan Police detective and IT expert, who admits speaking to his old boss mr Quick before going public, could not have been worse for mrs may’s most trusted colleague.
What is certain is that mr Quick, once britain’s top counter-terrorism officer and who was tipped to become head of scotland Yard, has never forgiven those he believes sabotaged his high-flying career following his investigation into mr Green nearly a decade ago.
his simmering fury over the circumstances in which he left the police has seen him dubbed ‘bitter bob’ by a number of former colleagues.
It was in march 2008 that mr Quick – the respected chief constable of surrey Police, one of the country’s best performing forces – was promoted to head the counter-terrorism and security department at scotland Yard, where he had started his career 30 years earlier.
but within months, he was facing calls to quit over the hugely contentious decision to arrest then shadow immigration minister, mr Green, over a series of leaks from labour home secretary Jacqui smith’s private office.
over the previous two years a young civil servant, Christopher Galley, who was working in miss smith’s private office, had passed on at least 31 separate documents, some restricted, which exposed government failures on crime and immigration. An enraged Cabinet office called in scotland Yard and mr Quick, an assistant commissioner, headed the secret operation.
DeTeCTIves arrested Galley and searched his home. mr Green was arrested at his home on November 27, 2008, for ‘aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in public office’ by Galley. his Commons office was raided and computers seized for examination.
The arrest of mr Green and the raid prompted a political storm over whether the police had overstepped their powers. The Tory mP’s lawyers argued that the material seized in the search, including that discovered on his computers, was covered by parliamentary privilege.
mr Green was held for nine hours while his Commons office, two homes and constituency office, were searched and computers removed. The Tories were livid, accusing mr Quick of ‘stalinesque’ behaviour when he approved the arrest of mr Green.
In the weeks following the arrest it emerged that mr Quick’s wife Judith was running a car hire firm from their home and details of their address were published on a website.
The mail on sunday story carried the implication that mr Quick, as head of counter-terrorism, was being reckless with his own security.
he hit back, saying: ‘The Tory machinery and their press friends are mobilised against this investigation in a wholly corrupt way, and I feel very disappointed in the country I am living in.
‘It is a very spiteful act, possibly to intimidate me away from investigating mr Green.’
he later retracted his remarks and made an unreserved apology after the Tory leader, David Cameron, demanded he withdraw the ‘completely baseless’ allegations.
The Tories accepted the apology. but the dispute was far from over and mr Quick, who was badly damaged by the Green affair, would later complain that the investigation cost him his career.
he quit in April 2009 after being photographed arriving at Downing street with documents detailing a counterterror operation clearly visible. he later claimed he might have survived had it not been for the Green controversy.
‘I accepted I wasn’t popular in those quarters,’ he told the bbC. ‘I’d read in newspapers various unattributed comments “We’re going to get Quick”. I guess I wasn’t surprised by that.’
A few days after he resigned, mr Green was cleared of any wrongdoing over the leaks.
mr Quick licked his wounds and would later become chief executive of a global risk and security consultancy, which employs a number of former senior scotland Yard officers.
he returned to the public spotlight in march 2012 when he gave evidence to the leveson Inquiry into press standards. he alleged that journalists close to the Tory Party had tried to skew his investigation into mr Green.
The now notorious porn allegations against mr Green were contained in a ‘confidential draft witness statement’ he made to the public inquiry.
last month, at the height of the sex harassment scandal in Westminster, the sunday Times reported that ‘extreme pornography’ had been found on one of mr Green’s office computers back in 2008.
mr Green denied the claim and accused mr Quick of a ‘disreputable political smear’. The former police chief denied being the source of the sunday Times story but he did supply a statement to the bbC to confirm the discovery, insisting he bore ‘no malice’.
MR Quick has since however given evidence to a Cabinet office inquiry investigating a separate accusation of sexual harassment against mr Green made by journalist Kate maltby.
A week after the porn controversy broke, Paul stephenson, who was met Commissioner between 2009 and 2011, became the second senior officer to confirm he had been briefed about the alleged discovery on mr Green’s computer in 2008.
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.’
by last weekend it was being suggested that mr Quick had consulted lawyers over the possibility of suing mr Green, who described the ex-police chief as ‘tainted’ and ‘untrustworthy’.
mr Quick, it was claimed, wants an apology and a retraction for the attack on his reputation.
Nearly nine years after he was forced out of his job, could ‘bitter bob’ have the last laugh over his one-time nemesis mr Green?