Richard Littlejohn calls for swift action on whether to charge journalists

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/31/richard-littlejohn-journalists-charge-leveson

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Richard Littlejohn, the Daily Mail columnist, has called for swift decisions on whether to or not to charge dozens of journalists including 22 current and former reporters and news executives on the Sun, some of whom have been on bail for a year.

Littlejohn said those who have committed crimes must face up to the consequences, but added that it was unfair that so many journalists' lives were put on hold.

"The number of journalists already arrested in Britain is frightening, more than 60 and counting," he added, speaking in London on Thursday night at a Spectator debate entitled "Leveson is a fundamental threat to the free press".

"Now of course no-one is condoning criminality and those who have broken the law must face the consequences, but what we are seeing is … a series of fishing expeditions by police who have mounted dawn raids on journalists' homes, turned over their children's bedrooms and confiscated everything from laptop computers to intimate love letters between husbands and wives, dozens are still out on bail, their lives on hold without any prospect of charges being brought, anytime soon."

Evan Harris, associate director of Hacked Off, which is campaigning for stricter press regulation, said the "outrage from Richard Littlejohn that 66 journalists were arrested" showed that the "police were in a no win situation" – criticised for sitting on the phone-hacking evidence for years and then again for arresting journalists following the re-opening of the investigation.

Littlejohn said: "My concern is that if the police have evidence against these people, they should put up or shut up."

He branded the Leveson inquiry an inquisition and said "at times it resembled a cross between a Soviet-era show trial and an episode of The Graham Norton show" with "a procession of self-serving, self-pitying celebrities" to share their grievances about the popular press.

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan police arrested Sun reporter Anthony France, the 22nd journalist from the News International tabloid to be questioned and bailed as part of Scotland Yard's Operation Elveden investigation into alleged inappropriate payments to public officials between 2004 and 2011.

Journalists from other newspaper publishers have also been arrested as part of Elveden in the past year including a reporter on the Sunday Mirror and the deputy news editor of the Daily Star Sunday.

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