Police were “too busy” to investigate the theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone, despite the potential sensitivity of his messages and contacts, according to reports.
Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff told the Metropolitan police that his phone had been stolen in central London when he was returning home from a restaurant on 20 October last year, the Times reported.
The WhatsApp messages of aides and ministers are set to be published in the next tranche of the Peter Mandelson files, with the prime minister said to be braced for potential further resignations over their contents. McSweeney resigned in February over his role in Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US.
All senior ministers, civil servants and special advisers have been asked to have their phone messages examined, including those no longer in government such as McSweeney and the former communications director Matthew Doyle, as well as the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner. But the theft of McSweeney’s work phone means his WhatsApp messages and texts to Mandelson cannot be examined.
Thousands of documents in the second tranche of the Mandelson files – expected to include informal communications alongside formal messages like those in the first batch – are expected to be released after Easter.
The releases were forced by a parliamentary motion passed by the Conservatives after Mandelson was sacked in September, just nine months into his role as US ambassador, after new details emerged about his ties to Epstein.
The former Labour peer was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office after emails from the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files appeared to show he forwarded confidential information to Epstein while he was business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government. Mandelson has since been released from bail conditions while he remains under investigation, and denies any wrongdoing. His lawyers have said he does not intend to make any further statement at this time.
The State of It, the Times’ political podcast, reported that McSweeney told police the phone was taken by a man wearing a balaclava on an electric bike. During the theft, first reported by The Sun on Sunday, the man is said to have grabbed it out of McSweeney’s hand as he was responding to text messages before cycling away. McSweeney gave chase but was unable to keep up.
It is understood that Scotland Yard has a record of the incident but did not carry out any formal investigation, with officers said to be “too busy” to speak to McSweeney directly. He was given a crime reference number and the case was closed.
McSweeney reported the theft of his phone to No 10 and the device was shut off remotely, with him being given a new one with the same number the next day.
Source:
www.theguardian.com
