Guardian News and Media/London
The police chief in charge of the raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home has apologised to the singer after MPs said he showed a “gross lack of competence” for doing a controversial “sweetheart deal” with the BBC.
David Crompton, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, was roundly condemned by members of the House of Commons home affairs select committee on Tuesday after the BBC broadcast pictures of last month’s search from a helicopter above Richard’s £3.1mn Berkshire apartment.
Crompton told MPs he did a deal with the corporation after its reporter, Dan Johnson, received a tip-off.
Crompton said he feared if the force did not co-operate the BBC would run with the story and ruin his force’s investigation.
MPs expressed disbelief that Crompton, who criticised the BBC’s subsequent coverage as “intrusive”, had not done more to try to prevent it from running the story.
The committee chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, said: “We have been amazed at the sheer incompetence of the way this has been dealt with. “Criminals must be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of dealing with your officers who appear to give in at the first opportunity. You blame everybody else but as far as you are concerned you did everything right.”
Crompton said: “We had a job to do. I apologise to Sir Cliff if we were insensitive about the way we did that. We had an investigation, the problem for us was that investigation could never be done in a low profile way because it was fatally compromised from the outset.”
The singer’s apartment was searched by officers from South Yorkshire and Thames Valley police as part of an investigation into an alleged sexual assault on a boy at a religious event in 1985.
Richard, who was on holiday in Portugal at the time of the search, has firmly denied any wrongdoing.
BBC director general Tony Hall, who also gave evidence to MPs, defended the scale of the BBC’s coverage of the raid on August 14, including the use of a helicopter, after critics accused it of participating in a “witch-hunt” and behaving like the worst tabloid newspaper.
Hall said: “In a variety of different ways allegations of sexual abuse going back many, many years are sadly, regrettably a matter of public interest. What you saw from the air was a number of police cars and you saw the scale of the operation.”
Asked if he felt any sympathy for the singer because of the extent of the BBC’s coverage, Hall said: “Our job was to make sure what Sir Cliff had to say about the search and about his own innocence was properly reflected.”