I helped Met chiefs apply for the job, says ex-now executive

Descent into squalor: Litter and clothing lie scattered around a bed that has been dumped in the room FORMER News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis advised Britain’s most senior police officers on how to get the top job at Scotland Yard, it was claimed yesterday.

The former tabloid editor, who worked at the newspaper between 2003 and 2009, said he helped two Metropolitan Police commissioners when they were applying for the job as far back as 1998.

Mr Wallis, who was arrested last year on suspicion of phone hacking, boasted he was ‘well connected’ within Scotland Yard, the Leveson Inquiry heard.

He claimed he guided Lord Stevens on the application and interview process and aided Sir Paul Stephenson when both were in the running to head up the country’s biggest force.

In his witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry, he said he met then deputy Met commissioner Lord Stevens in 1998 and became aware of his intention to apply.

Mr Wallis said: ‘My input in this process was that he would be well advised to emphasise that he was a “copper’s copper” or “thief taker” – in other words he was a man of action, rather than rhetoric.’

He also offered his ‘opinions’ on the post to Sir Paul and said their relationship ‘followed the same blueprint’ when he became commissioner in 2009. In his statement he added: ‘The basis of my contact

‘Informal PR advice’

with him would be again by way of the provision of informal PR advice, unpaid and often solicited by him.’

Mr Wallis claimed he provided PR advice for years. He was offered a formal contract as a PR consultant on a £24,000 deal from October 2009 to September 2010, but this backfired when he was subsequently arrested in July last year.

Three senior figures at Scotland Yard have since resigned over their links to Mr Wallis. Sir Paul and Met Assistant Commissioner John Yates stood down last July, and communications chief Dick Fedorcio quit last week as he faced misconduct proceedings over the contract.

Mr Wallis denied ‘grooming’ top officers for stories, but added that his involvement was not ‘entirely altruistic’, because they could help with the newspaper’s campaigns.

Former Met Commissioner Lord Blair was furious when his predecessor Lord Stevens agreed to write a column for the News of the World called ‘The Chief’. In his statement Mr Wallis said the column, which he ghost-wrote, infuriated Lord Blair when he took over as commissioner in 2005. Mr Wallis told the inquiry: ‘It came up in conversations, [Blair] said, “How can you call him the chief, when he is not the chief any more, I am”, which I thought was very funny.’