BORIS JOHNSON helped push through the resignation of Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson over the phone-hacking scandal and is now gunning for Assistant Commissioner John Yates.
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Stephenson handed in his cards last night in the wake of news that the Met had employed former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallace as a PR man.
“I was very angry that I hadn’t been told about the financial relationship between the Met and Neil Wallis,” said Johnson.
“I was very hacked off.”
London’s Mayor said the the decision to jump was ultimately Stephenson’s, but there seems little doubt Johnson gave him a hefty shove along the way.
“We looked at all the options and where the thing was going,” Johnson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.
“His view was that it was not going away. He wanted to give someone else a fresh chance. He didn’t want that kind of extra thing distracting him, especially in the run up to the Olympics.
“It was pretty obvious that there was a problem. It was the right call.”
But getting rid of one top copper doesn’t appear to be enough for Johnson, who has now set his sights on Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the man in charge of previous stalled investigations into phone hacking.
“Questions regarding other staff will be discussed,” said the Mayor.
“John Yates has done a very good, but clearly the Metropolitan Police Authority will be looking at his relationship with Neil Wallis.”
In the letter of resignation, Stephenson made a barbed comparison between his own links to Wallis and those between Prime Minister David Cameron and former NotW editor Andy Coulson.
Johnson revealed that he wasn’t too keen on Coulson’s role at the heart of government either.
“I’m not here to defend every government appointment,” he said.
“I am a hackee. I have strong feelings about it. Let justice be done.”
