Tessa Jowell: I did offer to help hacking probe

Tessa Jowell today rejected allegations that she failed to assist Scotland Yard during its original phone-hacking investigation.

The former Labour Culture Secretary said she was “deeply shocked” at the suggestion she refused to help police prosecute the News of the World in 2006.

In testimony to the Leveson Inquiry, the 64-year-old said evidence submitted by one Metropolitan police officer was simply “untrue”.

Ms Jowell was one of the few high-profile people the Met informed as a victim of phone-hacking by the News of the World during its much-maligned original investigation in 2006.

Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Surtees had earlier told the Leveson Inquiry that once she was informed, Ms Jowell had “declined to assist us with prosecution”.

However, the former Cabinet Minister hit back today in her testimony at the Royal Courts of Justice. She said: “I remember very clearly the conversation which took place (with police) on holiday by the swimming pool with very close friends.

“I am absolutely clear that...I expressed my willingness to help in any way I could but was assured there was nothing I needed to do.”

Later, she added: “I was a Secretary of Sate and a privy counsellor, it would have been absolutely incumbent upon me to help in a prosecution...I offered assistance and was told very clearly that I would not be needed. That was the end of it.

“I was deeply shocked when I read Keith Surtees evidence because it is untrue.”

Scotland Yard has been criticised for failing to pursue the News of the World in 2006 when its officers seized evidence that suggested thousands of victims had been hacked by the defunct Sunday tabloid.

Instead, the police accepted News International’s “rogue reporter” defence and only prosecuted former royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Muclaire for hacking the voicemails of royal aides.