Sir Paul Stephenson's resignation as Metropolitan Police Commissioner ultimately became inevitable. Nevertheless, it is a calamitous event for both the Met's internal morale and public confidence.
Sir Paul, an honourable man, was seen as a 'safe pair of hands' and something of a 'copper's copper' in contrast to Ian Blair's 'on message' era. Now Sir Paul has gone, seemingly because his antenna was not sufficiently politically attuned.
Sir Paul's position rapidly became untenable once it became public knowledge that Neil Wallis had been employed as his personal public relations adviser. Sir Paul has said he was not involved in Wallis's appointment, and there is no reason to doubt that statement. However, the question has to be asked that once the hacking scandal gathered momentum why he did not make an early statement revealing the relationship? It might not have solved the problem but it would have been better than the story creeping out as it did.
Then there was the issue of the stay at the health resort. Could that be justified, and especially could it be justified in the context of his force's continued investigation of the phone hacking and the alleged relationship with News International? Inevitably his judgement has been called into question.
Sir Paul's statement concerning his knowledge of the phone hacking investigation must also be taken at face value, but this raises the question of the lines of communication within the Metropolitan Police. If he did not know, why did not someone tell him? The Police Service has spent much time and effort in recent years training officers to recognise 'critical incidents', which ensure that the necessary command and control measures are put in place to handle the operational, media and political consequences in circumstances such as these. Was the phone hacking investigation ever labelled a 'critical incident'? If not, why not?
These or similar questions will presumably be asked by the 'judge-led' public inquiry. They may also be asked by the internal Metropolitan Police Authority inquiry, rumoured as about to be instigated by Mayor Johnson. But can we wait that long?
Rightly or wrongly, public confidence in the Metropolitan Police, and by extension the Police Service as a whole, has been damaged. There may have been sound operational reasons for limiting the original phone hacking investigation, but there are many questions which need answering before the urgent process of restoring public confidence can begin. Is it time now for the Met to initiate its own internal inquiry into its decision-making processes and publish the findings?
It would at least be a start in the process of restoring public confidence.