Friends of embattled Cabinet minister Damian Green have accused former police officers of seeking to blacken his name, after it was alleged that thousands of pornographic images had been found on his work computer.
Retired Scotland Yard detective Neil Lewis told the BBC he was “shocked” at the volume of material found in a 2008 raid on Mr Green’s Westminster office and had “no doubt whatsoever” that it had been amassed by the Tory MP.
He stressed that none of the images were “extreme”, but said analysis of the computer suggested they had been viewed “extensively” over a three-month period, sometimes for hours at a time.
Mr Green, who is the subject of a Cabinet Office inquiry into alleged inappropriate behaviour towards a young female activist, has denied looking at or downloading porn on the work computer.
Damian Green leaves his house in Ashford, Kent (Gareth Fuller/PA)The First Secretary of State – effectively Theresa May’s deputy – declined to comment on Mr Lewis’s allegations.
Speaking to reporters at his Kent home, Mr Green said: “I’ve said I am not commenting any further while the investigation is going on.
“I have maintained all along and I still maintain – it is the truth – that I did not download or look at pornography on my computer, but obviously while the investigation is going on I can’t say any more.”
Friends of Mr Green said they were “gobsmacked” at the former detective putting his claims into the public arena and “outraged” by the BBC’s decision to broadcast them.
And the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said it was launching its own inquiry about how information gathered during an investigation was made public.
Mr Lewis told the BBC he was involved in analysing the then opposition immigration spokesman’s computer during a police investigation into Home Office leaks.
Although accepting that “you can’t put fingers on a keyboard”, he said a number of factors made him sure it was Mr Green himself who was accessing the “thumbnail” images.
“The computer was in Mr Green’s office, on his desk, logged in, his account, his name,” said Mr Lewis. “In between browsing pornography, he was sending emails from his account, his personal account, reading documents… it was ridiculous to suggest anybody else could have done it.”
The allegations echo claims made by former Met assistant commissioner Bob Quick, who Mr Green branded “tainted and untrustworthy” after he went public last month with his account of the material discovered in the raid.
A spokesman for the First Secretary of State said: “It would be inappropriate for Mr Green to comment on these allegations while the Cabinet Office investigation is ongoing; however, from the outset he has been very clear that he never watched or downloaded pornography on the computers seized from his office.
“He maintains his innocence of these charges and awaits the outcome of the investigation.”
Tory MP Andrew Mitchell said his friend was entitled to be taken at his word.
“I think the hounding of Mr Green over information which everyone is clear was entirely legal and which he has emphatically denied either downloading or viewing is completely wrong,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Mr Mitchell said it was “highly questionable” for a retired officer to use material in this way.
“Nine years later, after a pretty contentious raid of a senior politician’s office, entirely legal information is leaked to blacken the name of a serving Cabinet minister, and I think that is wrong,” he said.
In a statement Scotland Yard said that, as is routine for such cases, its Directorate of Professional Standards would be conducting an inquiry into how the information was made public.
Mr Lewis told the BBC it was unlikely anyone else in Mr Green’s office could have been responsible for the stash of porn.
“It was so extensive, whoever had done it would have to have pushed Mr Green to one side to say ‘Get out, I’m using your computer’,” he said.
And he rejected as “very bizarre” any suggestion the material might have been placed on the machine by a hacker, pointing out similar images were also found on Mr Green’s laptop.
Mr Lewis said he did not mention the pornography in his formal statement on his findings to his senior investigating officer, as it had “no bearing on the leak investigation”.
But he kept a notebook relating to the raid after leaving the Met.
When instructed to delete data copied from the computers, he did so but kept the copies themselves in the knowledge experts would be able to retrieve the information if required.
The Evening Standard reported that Brexit Secretary David Davis – who was Mr Green’s boss as shadow home secretary at the time of the raid – had threatened to quit if his colleague was forced out over material found by police.