Sir Paul Stephenson faces questions of health spa stay
Sir Paul, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, stayed at Champneys in Tring in Hertfordshire while recovering from a broken leg in January this year. The fracture to his thigh was sustained following surgery to remove a pre cancerous tumour from his leg.
Canada Goose sale Champneys was being promoted by Outside Organisation, a public relations firm whose managing director was Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor canada goose outlet authentic of the News of the World who was arrested last week in connection with the phone hacking scandal. Outside had picked up the contract to manage Champneys in November last year, two canada goose outlet mississauga months before Sir Paul stay. Canada Goose sale
Sir Paul was already under intense pressure over the canada goose outlet new york decision to hire Mr Wallis as a media consultant to the Met police for 12 months until he quit in September 2010 amid further revelations of phone hacking. The appointment of Mr Wallis was only declared last week and following his arrest, prompting serious questions over Sir Paul judgment.
The stay will have saved him thousands of pounds.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal today how Sir Paul was offered hospitality by News International on 15 occasions between April 2007 and March 2010 accepting 14 of the invitations.
A Met spokesman confirmed last night that the Commissioner had stayed for free at Champneys while recovering from the fracture. The medical treatment he received there was paid for by Scotland Yard. But the spokesman denied any suggestion of impropriety.
buy canada goose jacket cheap He said it was pure coincidence that Mr Wallis company represented Champneys. buy canada goose jacket cheap
The spokesman said: Paul was invited for intensive physiotherapy and the Met paid for the medical part and Champneys hosted him. As a result he got back to work six weeks earlier. He stayed there from Monday to Friday for about five weeks. Mr Wallis had absolutely nothing to do with it although we now discover he is a PR adviser. The Wallis link is a total red herring.
uk canada goose “The Commissioner only learnt who the PR consultant for Champneys was following a media enquiry today uk canada goose
Canada Goose Online “As with many officers, the Met paid the intensive physiotherapy costs. Canada Goose Online
“The accommodation and meals were arranged and provided by Stephen Purdew, canada goose outlet las vegas MD of Champneys, who is a personal family friend who has no connection with, or links to, his professional life. ”
The gift is not declared in Scotland Yard publicly published register of hospitality which covers the period until March this year to senior officers although the spokesman insisted it had been registered.
canada goose The canada goose outlet Met spokesman explained: “Although the provision of accommodation was as a result of a family friendship, unconnected with his professional role, in the interests of transparency it was nonetheless recorded in the Commissioner’s Gifts and Hospitality Register on his return to work in April. This register is published quarterly on the MPS website and the entry for the quarter April to June is due to be published shortly.” canada goose
Mr Purdew tonight said he was “outraged” by suggestions the stay was arranged by Mr Wallis.
canada goose clearance sale He said: “He came here to recover from cancer and a broken leg, to say it was a gift or a jolly is outrageous. It is a bloody disgrace. canada goose clearance sale
“He was here for about a month. He was seriously ill so he stayed with me and this has backfired terribly.”
He said the fact Mr Wallis was working as a consultant for Champneys at the same time was coincidental.
canada goose store “Neil canada goose outlet niagara falls Wallis, canada goose outlet online uk by coincidence, did some work for us. I have known canada goose outlet online store review Sir Paul Stephenson for twenty odd years and this is totally unrelated. canada goose store
canada goose black friday sale “Neil Wallis does not work for us any more. It was a company he was working for, Outside Organisation, that did and this is a diversion. I didn’t even know Neil Wallis had done any work for us. canada goose black friday sale
“I don’t need my name tarnished in this way, this is wrong.”
Mr Wallis’s solicitor Phil Smith, of Tuckers Solicitors, said: “There is no connection whatsoever between any canada goose outlet store uk stay Sir Paul Stephenson may have had at Champneys and Neil Wallis.
“Neither Neil Wallis nor anyone connected to him had any involvement whatsoever in any visit or stay by Sir Paul Stephenson at Champneys.”
A spokesperson for Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, said: “The Metropolitan Police have made assurances that accommodation provided for the Commissioner canada goose outlet mall at Champneys was recorded in the latest update of his Gifts and Hospitality Register, which is due to elcortezlv.com be published shortly.
canada goose uk black friday “The Mayor has already written to Lord Justice Leveson to request he consider the contract between Chamy Media and the Metropolitan Police as part of his inquiry. canada goose uk black friday
“He expects that the Judge will look to consider this arrangement as well.”
Scotland Yard disclosed on Thursday Mr Wallis’s PR firm, Chamy Media, was employed in 2009 and last year to “provide strategic communication advice and support”.
It emerged that Mr Wallis had been paid 24,000 by the Met to work as a two day a month PR and that his contract was cancelled less than six months before the launch of the Operation Weeting investigation into phone hacking.
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