Letters to the Editor | 2 September 2006

Nothing but the truth

From Peter Clarke

Sir: Rod Liddle suggests that the public are losing confidence in the police because Scotland Yard ‘has developed a tendency, as night follows day, to change its story repeatedly and shiftily’ (‘Passengers won’t mutiny on planes if they are made to feel safe’, 26 August).

Why should I bother to change my story when Rod Liddle has already spared me the trouble? I am the only police officer who has made any public statements about the evidence uncovered in the recent case. Just for the record, I have never said, as Mr Liddle suggests, that martyrdom videos were found in a wood, that bomb-making equipment had been found in suspects’ houses, or that which had been found consisted primarily of hydrogen peroxide.

The information I gave about the case on 21 August was entirely factual — although obviously not the full story. At this stage, for sound legal reasons, I cannot say more.