‘Missed’ witnesses cast doubt over thoroughness of MP investigation

THE thoroughness of the month-long Cabinet Office inquiry into Damian Green’s conduct was called into question yesterday after it emerged key witnesses had not been interviewed.

Sue Gray, the woman leading the inquiry, has not spoken to Neil Lewis, the former detective who examined a computer seized from Damian Green’s office who says the evidence he compiled left “no doubt whatsoever” that Mr Green had accessed pornography.

Friends of Mr Green conceded yesterday that Ms Gray, the director general of the propriety and ethics team at the Cabinet Office, would now have to speak to Mr Lewis if her inquiry was to stand up to scrutiny.

The Daily Telegraph has also learnt that Ms Gray has not made contact with Sir Paul Stephenson, who was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time the computer was seized in a raid on Mr Green’s Commons office in 2008.

Sir Paul has told friends he is “surprised” he has not so far been asked to provide a statement to Ms Gray or answer questions about the investigation.

There was speculation yesterday that Ms Gray was about to deliver her report on Mr Green’s conduct to Theresa May, who ordered the investigation, until Mr Lewis gave an interview to the BBC about what he claims to have found on the computer he examined.

He said that “the computer was in Mr Green’s office, on his desk, logged in, his account, his name.

“In between browsing pornography, he was sending emails from his account, his personal account, reading documents… it was ridiculous to suggest anybody else could have done it.”

Mr Green is furious at Mr Lewis’s decision to disclose confidential details of a nine-year-old police investigation, but friends of the First Secretary of State acknowledge that Ms Gray must now speak to the retired officer.

One said: “The public pressure for her to speak to Neil Lewis will be such that she will have to speak to him now.”

Another source said there was a risk that if Ms Gray’s report cleared Mr Green of wrongdoing it would be dismissed as a “whitewash” if she had not questioned Mr Lewis.

“She would be vulnerable if she doesn’t speak to Lewis,” added the source.

A friend of Sir Paul Stephenson said: “I would have thought Sue Gray would have contacted him by now.

“He is surprised she hasn’t, though he takes a very dim view of retired officers putting this stuff in the public domain.”