Police chief gets dragged into row

Sir Paul Stephenson was yesterday under growing pressure to explain his decision to hire Neil Wallis as an adviser, as it emerged the former News of the World executive’s PR firm broke the law.The Scotland Yard chief is facing “urgent questions” from Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson after paying Wallis £1,000 a day — a total of £24,000.The Standard has learned that Wallis’s company, Chamy Media, was struck off the companies register two months ago for failing to file any documents since it was set up in 2009.Police probing the phone-hacking scandal arrested Wallis, 60, on Thursday.Hours later, Sir Paul admitted he had employed the former News of the World deputy editor through Chamy Media as a personal media adviser.Met public affairs boss Dick Fedorcio appointed him.Downing Street sources said Cameron believes Sir Paul has “urgent questions to answer” and is angry the Met chief failed to inform him about Wallis’s employment when they met for crisis talks at No 10 earlier this week.“Why did it come to light only on the day of the arrest?” demanded one government official.In a letter to Lord Justice Leveson, the judge heading the public inquiry into phone-hacking, the mayor warned that “serious questions have been raised about the relations between the press and the police”.He had been “made aware” of the contract with Chamy, and asked Lord Justice Leveson to consider “whether there is any culture, in this country, of financial collusion between the press and police”.Meanwhile, it emerged that one current Scotland Yard press officer is a former News of the World journalist and a number of others are understood to have worked the occasional shift for the paper.Wallis, nicknamed the Wolfman in Fleet Street, registered Chamy Media in September 2009 and ran the business from his £850,000 house with his wife Gaye, 56, as co-director.One month after its incorporation, Chamy Media won a contract to supply personal communications advice to Sir Paul. The deal ended in September last year.However, Companies House struck off the firm in May “for failing to maintain its records, file accounts and reveal its directors and shareholders, which is in breach of the 2006 Companies Act”.Former mayor Ken Livingstone said Sir Paul was guilty of “an appalling lack of judgment. I find it breathtaking that the Met could employ someone who held such a senior position when the News of the World was allegedly involved in criminal activity.”Former Scotland Yard director of central intelligence, Peter Kirkham, said: “The Met should have undertaken a thorough vetting process when engaging with somebody of that background in such a sensitive area. We don’t yet know whether that happened.”Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, which will question Sir Paul next week, said the revelation about Wallis’s employment had stunned MPs.“There seem to have been a lot of connections between the Metropolitan Police and an organisation they were investigating.”Downing Street is reserving final judgment on whether Sir Paul might be suspended until after he provides explanations to the home affairs select committee, which has called him to answer questions urgently on Tuesday at noon, and also to Home Office officials who are compiling a report for Home Secretary Theresa May.