Steve Whittamore
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Operation Motorman was a 2003 investigation by the
Information Commissioner's Office The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. It is the independent regu ...
into allegations of offences under the Data Protection Act by the British press. The ICO first became aware of the scale of the problem in November 2002, when an ICO investigator attended a search under warrant of John Boyall, a private investigator in Surrey. Documents found on the premises revealed the misuse of data from the
Police National Computer The Police National Computer (PNC) is a database used by law enforcement organisations across the United Kingdom and other non-law enforcement agencies. Originally developed in the early 1970s, PNC1 went 'live' in 1974, providing UK police for ...
. This discovery led to two investigations: Operation Motorman, conducted by the ICO and led by ICO Senior Investigator Alec Owens, who prior to joining the ICO had been a
Merseyside Police Merseyside Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Merseyside in North West England. The service area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million. As of September 2017 the service has 3,484 police o ...
Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia The rank of Inspector is present in all Australian police forces excep ...
; and Operation Glade, conducted by the Metropolitan Police. The ICO later obtained search warrants for the Hampshire office of a private detective Steve Whittamore. A huge cache of documents revealed, in precise detail, a network of police and public employees illegally selling personal information obtained from government computer systems. The personal information that Whittamore obtained from his network was passed on to journalists working for various newspapers, including the ''
News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national "Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top" Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling ...
'', the ''
Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'', the ''
Observer An observer is one who engages in observation or in watching an experiment. Observer may also refer to: Fiction * ''Observer'' (novel), a 2023 science fiction novel by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress * ''Observer'' (video game), a cyberpunk horr ...
'', the ''
Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...
'' and the ''
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the tit ...
''. At least 305 different reporters have been identified as customers of the network. In February 2004, four suspects pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit misconduct in public office: Whittamore and Boyall, retired police officer Alan King, and Paul Marshall, a police communications officer. The four were given
conditional discharge A discharge is a type of sentence imposed by a court whereby no punishment is imposed. An absolute discharge is an unconditional discharge whereby the court finds that a crime has technically been committed but that any punishment of the defend ...
s. Other members of Whittamore's network were due to stand trial but the case collapsed. In September 2011, former policeman Alec Owens, the original lead investigator of Operation Motorman, criticised the senior management of the ICO for the way in which the investigation was handled. He stated that investigators were prohibited from interviewing journalists and alleged that this was because the management "were frightened". He said that had the team been allowed to question journalists the use of phone hacking might have been uncovered earlier. In November 2011, just a few days before Owens was due to give evidence to the
Leveson Inquiry The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A serie ...
, his home was raided under warrant by
Cheshire Police Cheshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Cheshire in North West England, comprising the unitary authorities of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Borough of Halton and Borough ...
. Before leaving under police caution for an interview at
Wilmslow Wilmslow ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the borough of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It is south of Manchester. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census the parish had a population of 26,213 and the built up area had a p ...
police station, Owens informed Lord Leveson by phone of the raid. On 9 April 2012, right-wing political blogger Paul Staines published information on over 1,000
News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a List of newspapers in the United Kingdom, British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media Conglomerate (c ...
requests to Whittamore from the Operation Motorman files. The day before the files were released ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
s "Media Monkey" column had reported rumours that Staines was going to release the files, and was preparing to fly to Ireland to escape the jurisdiction of the
English courts The Courts of England and Wales, supported administratively by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, are the Civil law (common law), civil and Criminal law, criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales ...
.


See also

*
Leveson Inquiry The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A serie ...
* Metropolitan police role in phone hacking scandal#Operation Glade (2003) * News International phone hacking scandal#Information Commissioner's report * News media phone hacking scandal#Early investigations (1990s–2005) *
Operation Elveden Operation Elveden was a British police investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments to police officers and other public officials. It was opened as a result of documents provided by News International to the Operation Weeting investiga ...
* Operation Glade * Operation Rubicon *
Operation Tuleta Operation Tuleta is a British police investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service into allegations of computer hacking, related to the News International phone hacking scandal. As of June 2011, it was reported to have six officers working for ...
*
Operation Weeting Operation Weeting was a British police investigation that commenced on 26 January 2011, under the Specialist Crime Directorate of the Metropolitan Police Service into allegations of phone hacking in the ''News of the World'' phone hacking affai ...
*
Phone hacking scandal reference lists The news media phone hacking scandal is a controversy over illegal acquisition of confidential information by news media organizations that reportedly occurred in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia between 1995 and 2011. This arti ...


References

{{reflist, 30em 2003 in the United Kingdom News International phone hacking scandal