UK police allege Tory MP 'groomed' Whitehall mole

by Dave Keating | December 1, 2008 at 04:41 am

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More information has emerged about the Tory politician in the UK who was arrested last week by anti-terrorism police and charged with leaking sensitive information. It is being alleged that the politician groomed a 26-year-old civil servant in Whitehall to pass on top-secret information to him.

Gordon Brown has insisted that he and his government had no prior knowledge of the arrest.

The allegation has outraged senior Conservatives who have accused detectives of mounting a politically-inspired witch-hunt based on “flimsy and trivial” grounds.

Scotland Yard’s most senior officers are meeting this morning and are under intense pressure to drop the investigation and apologise over their conduct.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, said that the Conservatives should complain to police watchdogs if they had concerns over the arrest of Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister. He defended the refusal of the Home Secretary to intervene in the case and said: “We have an independent police service. What’s important is that politicians don’t interfere with a police investigation.”

“If there are complaints to be made they should be made to the entirely independent police complaints authority.”

The junior Home Office official at the centre of the inquiry - who was arrested in November – has been named as Chris Galley. He is a Conservative supporter who previously stood to become a Tory councillor.

Mr Galley has been formally accused of leaking four documents to Mr Green. However, Home Office officials suspect that up to 20 documents may have been improperly released.