Phone Hacking: 35-Year-Old Man Arrested By olice

A 35-year-old man has been arrested by officers from Operation Weeting investigating phone hacking at the News of the World, Scotland Yard says.









A total of 16 people have now been arrested as part of the investigation into phone hacking.

The BBC understand he is Raoul Simons, who was appointed deputy football editor of the Times in 2009.

He is being questioned by police in north London on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages.

Meanwhile, Guardian reporter Amelia Hill has been questioned over alleged police leaks, the newspaper said.

Ms Hill is believed to have been questioned under caution but not arrested in relation to the arrest of a Met Police detective constable last month who worked in the Operation Weeting team.

Scotland Yard says the "investigation continues" and they are not giving a "running commentary" on events.

Mr Simons moved to the Times from the London Evening Standard. News International, which publishes the Times, would not comment on whether he remained its deputy football editor.

A total of 16 people have now been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking - 15 of whom are still under investigation - since Operation Weeting was launched in January.

Scotland Yard's fresh investigation was set up to examine the illegal interception of voicemails.

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and ex-Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson are among those who have already been arrested as part of the inquiry.

The scandal has led Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and Assistant Commissioner John Yates to resign, and the News of the World to close down after 168 years.

Cameron 'Will Allow TV Cameras Inside Courts'

The Prime Minister is expected to announce that television cameras will be allowed to film some elements of court proceedings, according to Sky sources.











At present cameras are banned from courts, apart from the Supreme Court.

The breakthrough comes after the Head of Sky News, who has spearheaded a campaign to televise court cases, wrote an open letter to the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke urging him to take action.

John Ryley told him the public would have better understood controversial sentences passed on those involved in recent rioting and looting if judges' remarks had been televised.

Broadcasters have been pressing for some years for cameras to be allowed into courts, but at present cameras - including video cameras - are banned from courts in England and Wales by section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925.

The one exception is the Supreme Court where, for the past two years, cameras have been allowed to film proceedings.

Sky's home affairs correspondent Mark White said the changes, set to be announced by Mr Cameron on Tuesday, were a "significant development".

He said that the move would probably see broadcasters allowed to air the sentencing remarks of judges rather than entire trials.

Mr Ryley's proposal, put together with senior management at the BBC and ITN, was for limited coverage of court proceedings, which would not show vulnerable witnesses.

He said: "Sky News welcomes the decision and looks forward to working with the judiciary to bring about more transparency in our justice system."

Legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg said he was surprised that the Government was moving to change the guidelines so soon after the renewed pressure.

"You will see someone convicted, you will see someone being sentenced, but the witnesses who might otherwise be discouraged from giving evidence won't be shown under what we understand the Government's plan to be," he said.

He said the law will have to be changed in Parliament - meaning it might be up to a year before the first television pictures are aired from criminal courts.

I find it quite difficult to think of any arguments against doing it.
John Whittingdale MP

Conservative MP John Whittingdale, the chair of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, told Sky News the changes were "long overdue".

He said he would be "surprised" if any MPs or peers objected to the proposal.

"I find it quite difficult to think of any arguments against doing it.

"It seems to me fairly evident we want to encourage people to... respect the law more, this has to be the right thing to do."

However, not everyone is in favour of the changes.

Baroness Helena Kennedy, speaking earlier on Sky News, warned that such a move "undermines justice" - and that the only cases that would be given real coverage would be "salacious" ones.

In January 2010, Mr Ryley announced a campaign to get TV cameras into other courts, which he said would include legal challenges to the current ban on cameras in court.

David Cameron's Fury Over Bullingdon Club Riot Jibe

David Cameron was left fuming yesterday after his rowdy student days were likened to last month’s riots.













The PM, who was in Oxford University’s infamous Bullingdon Club, was asked if there were similarities between being a member of “a youthful gang that engages in violent behaviour” and the rampaging mobs who brought anarchy to our streets.

He snapped “we all do stupid things when we are young” – despite previously slamming the rioters as proof Britain had a “sick society”.

BBC Radio 4’s Today programme presenter Evan Davis, who also hosts TV’s Dragon Den, persisted asking: “Did you witness stuff as a member of that club... people throwing things through windows, smashing up restaurants?”

Mr Cameron replied: “No I didn’t and, as I say, we all do stupid things. But what we saw during the riots was very well organised in many cases looting and stealing and thieving.”

Last night Labour demanded the PM clear up an account of his uni days in which rampaging Bullingdon Club members are said to have smashed a restaurant window in 1987.

John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, said: “David Cameron has questions to answer after his claim that he did not witness people throwing things through windows or smashing up restaurants during his days as a Bullingdon Club member.













“This is very different to what other people remember.

“If we are to get more responsibility throughout our society following the riots then the Prime Minister should set an example.”

The PM yesterday hit back with his own attack on the BBC’s reporting of the riots. He said: “When you listen to the BBC there’s a sort of danger of trying to put these things into a great mush and make that as an excuse for not acting.”

And sources close to No 10 have let it be known the Prime Minister’s team were furious with the programme over the line of questioning.

A source said: “Cameron’s team thought Evan Davis had totally overstepped the mark. Cameron was very angry, there’s no doubt about that. He hates it when his background and questions about his class are brought up.”

A Downing Street source insisted no official complaint had been made to the BBC following the programme.

The corporation yesterday defended its reporting of the riots after Mr Cameron’s attack. A spokesman said: “The BBC’s coverage and analysis of the recent riots endeavoured to explore all aspects, as our audiences would expect. We also sought to reflect a range of views as to the reasons behind the riots. We are confident we did this in an impartial and balanced manner.”

Davis defended his questioning on Twitter, saying it “was about whether there is a general decline and whether we can forgive youngsters caught up in stupid things”.

It has been claimed Mr Cameron retired early to bed before the raucous evening in which Bullingdon members ran from the police through the streets of Oxford after smashing up a restaurant. According to a club source, Mr Cameron was definitely at the party but, unlike most of his friends, managed to escape alongside Boris Johnson and another student called Sebastian Grigg.

Some members of the club ended up spending a night in the cells at Cowley police station.

Despite Mr Cameron’s denial yesterday, he has previously said that “there was a time at university when lots of people drank too much and fell over, and I plead guilty”.

Yesterday, Mr Cameron also revisited his famous “hug a hoodie” policy by saying the rioters needed “tough love” after enduring a hard upbringing.

He claimed many of the thugs had not been given enough love in their childhood and promised to turn around 120,000 problem families by 2015.

John McAleese

John McAleese, who died on August 26 aged 61, led the SAS team that ended the Iranian embassy siege in central London in 1980, an event watched live on television by millions of spellbound viewers.












The SAS storming the Iranian embassy on May 5 1980.













John McAleese

The embassy, at 16 Princes Gate, Knightsbridge, had been taken over on April 30 1980 by six separatists from the oil-rich region in west Iran known as Arabistan. For six days, armed with machine guns, pistols and grenades, they held 26 people hostage as they demanded international recognition for their demands for independence.

Margaret Thatcher’s government was adamant that it would not make deals with terrorists, and as tense negotiations with the separatists continued, police surrounded the 56-room, five-storey building.

At the same time, an SAS team was assembled to launch a possible assault on the embassy under the code name Operation Nimrod.

Some 60 troops of 22 Special Air Service Regiment 56, among them then Lance-Corporal John McAleese, drove from their base in Herefordshire. They were equipped with ladders, climbing ropes and battering rams, as well as with machine guns, grenades and gas-canister launchers.

A few doors along from the embassy, the Royal School of Needlework was meticulously examined by one of the SAS soldiers, Stuart MacVicar (known as “Squash Ball” for his compact physique), because its layout was identical to that of the embassy.

Microphones were drilled into the embassy walls; commercial aircraft flying overhead were ordered to travel at lower altitudes, to drown out any suspicious noises caused by the preparations for an assault.

Meanwhile, the soldiers studied long-lens photographs, taken through the embassy windows, of the hostages in the hope that they would be able to distinguish them from their captors.

Then, on the evening of May 5, a team led by McAleese stormed the building. The assault had been ordered by the Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, after the terrorists killed a hostage and threw his body outside the building.

For the first time, an SAS operation was shown live on television as both ITV and the BBC (which interrupted its coverage of the final of the world snooker championships) broadcast footage of black-clad troops in balaclavas — among them McAleese — abseiling down ropes on to the balconies on the first floor of the embassy, where it was thought that most of the hostages were being held.

In order to disorientate the terrorists, the SAS first exploded a so-called “distraction” charge, which they had lowered through a skylight.

The front window of the room were blown out by McAleese and CS gas canisters fired in through the gap. The soldiers then stormed in amid a hail of gunfire.

The raid lasted 17 minutes. All but one of the hostages were rescued. Five of the terrorists were killed; the only one to survive, Fowzi Nejad, was sent to prison — he was released in 2008.

Returning after the assault to their temporary London quarters at Regent’s Park Barracks, the SAS team was visited by the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who told them: “Makes us proud to be British.” McAleese later said: “We knew what our mission was — it was to release the hostages. My only job at this point is to get on to the balcony, place the charge, get back, blow it, turn around and go back in through the window.”

John McAleese was a Scot, originally from Laurieston, in Stirlingshire, and served in the Army for 23 years, including 17 in the SAS. He was awarded a Military Medal in 1988 for his service in Northern Ireland. After leaving, he worked as a security consultant in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had a brief media career as a host of the 2003 BBC series SAS: Are You Tough Enough?, a documentary in which members of the public experienced the proverbially gruelling SAS selection process.

He also acted as an instructor in Airsoft, the outdoor game which offers people a taste of what it is like to experience battle conditions. Participants dressed in combat gear and carrying real weapons (loaded with plastic BB pellets) mimic close-quarter modern infantry fighting.

McAleese said: “You might as well make it realistic. People read books about this SAS stuff and now they can do something similar.”

The last two years of McAleese’s life were marked by the death of his son, 29-year-old Sergeant Paul McAleese, who was serving in the 2nd Battalion the Rifles and hoped to join the special forces like his father before him. Paul was killed by an explosion in Afghanistan on August 20 2009 while attempting to rescue a wounded comrade.

After his son’s death, John McAleese appealed to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown for better resources for the troops serving in Helmand province. He said that his son had complained that there were not enough troops in Afghanistan to monitor areas for explosive devices.

John McAleese, who died in Thessaloniki, Greece, is thought to have suffered a heart attack.

As well as his son Paul, he had a daughter with his first wife. He also had a daughter and a son by his second marriage.