Cameron dismisses links to crisis

BRITISH Prime Minister David Cameron was last night flying back to London to address the crisis over phone hacking and police links with the media, cutting short a two-day visit to Africa.

Cameron said he would use a statement to the House of Commons today to set out the terms of a inquiry into the issues raised by the phone-hacking scandal.

But he insisted that he would not allow the furore to distract his government from other priorities such the economy.

Speaking in Nigeria ahead of his return to Britain, Cameron insisted that he would ensure action was taken to get to the bottom of the affair.

“Parts of the media committed dreadful illegal acts, the police have serious questions to answer about potential corruption and about a failed investigation, politicians have been too close to media owners.” he said.

“These are big problems but we are a big country and we are going to sort them out. We are going to get to the bottom of them through a judicial inquiry and we are going to make sure that they can’t happen again.

“That’s the duty of the government I lead and that is the duty we are going to carry out. The British people want to know that.”

Cameron added: “The British people want an independent media acting within the law, they want an independent police force always free to pursue the evidence wherever it goes and politicians who are prepared to work together in the public good to get this problem sorted.”

He was challenged over evidence given by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson to a parliamentary committee that a senior official at 10 Downing Street advised him not to tell the PM about the appointment of ex-News of the World journalist Neil Wallis as a media adviser.

Cameron responded: “It wouldn’t be normal for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to share a whole range of operational detail about particular operations with the prime minister. I wouldn’t expect him to do that.

Cameron said that both Stephenson and assistant Met commissioner John Yates had made “honourable decisions” to resign over their links to Wallis — deputy at the Sunday tabloid when it was edited by former 10 Downing Street communications director Andy Coulson.

Meanwhile, the death of 47-year-old Sean Hoare, a former News of the World journalist and whistleblower on the phone-hacking scandal, was “not suspicious” and involved no third party, a postmortem showed.