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Latest News
MPS will not investigate MPs expenses leak
The MPS has released the following statement regarding complaints surrounding MP's expenses: Officers from the Met’s Economic and Specialist Crime Command met yesterday with senior CPS lawyers on the first panel to assess the allegations of misuse of parliamentary expenses. They discussed the range of complaints, established what the assessment process will be and the nature of information that would be considered by the panel. There will be further regular meetings of the panel to take these matters forward. At this time no decision has been made to start any investigation. On the connected matter of the alleged leak of information relating to members' allowances the MPS can today announce its decision not to investigate. We have considered a range of offences and although the leak of documents is not something that the MPS would condone, we have looked at the likelihood of a successful prosecution and whether a prosecution is appropriate given other potential sanctions that might be available, such as through employment related proceedings. Other considerations were the prospect of obtaining evidence and the best use of resources. The assessment was informed by a recent published decision from the Director of Public Prosecutions that was, in part, applicable to this case. From this the MPS believes the public interest defence would be likely to prove a significant hurdle, in particular the "high threshold" for criminal proceedings in misconduct in public office cases. Whilst the unauthorised disclosure of information would appear to breach public duty, the leaked documents do not relate to national security and much of the information was in the process of being prepared and suitably redacted for release under the Freedom of Information Act.
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