Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Scotland Yard's Spindoctor In Chief put on, ahem, gardening leave.

In addition to the Murdoch shenanigans, Fedorcio's Met Police Press Office has just been caught making highly misleading claims about the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham.

Phone-hacking enquiry: Dick Fedorcio put on leave

Metropolitan police's director of public affairs put on extended leave until police hacking enquiry is over

James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 August 2011 19.27 BST

Dick Fedorcio, the Met's director of public affairs and internal communication, has been put on extended leave pending the result of an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) into his conduct, it has emerged.

The IPCC said last month it would begin an inquiry into Fedorcio's dealings with Neil Wallis, a former News of the World assistant editor who was arrested in July as part of Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking.

That followed the revelation that Fedorcio had handed Wallis a two-day-a-month contract to assist the Met's press office in October 2009.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "To allow Mr Fedorcio to prepare for the IPCC investigation it has been agreed that he can work from home on a period of extended leave until the matter is resolved."

It is unclear why he has just been told to return home now rather than last month, when the IPCC inquiry was announced.

Wallis has been working in a PR capacity since leaving the paper in July 2009.

Fedorcio told the Home Affairs select committee that he would not have hired Wallis had he known he was to be arrested.

He also said he had not asked Wallis about phone-hacking at the paper before hiring him.

The close ties between News International, which owned the title until it was shut down in July, and the Met, have prompted concerns about the intimacy of the relationship between the two organisations.

Scotland Yard sources have said the hacking investigation is likely to run into next year.