Former police officers cleared in British phone hacking case

Four ex-Metropolitan Police officers--including former commissioner Paul Stephenson--were cleared in the ongoing British phone hacking investigation, an independent police commission leading the inquiry announced on Wednesday.

Stephenson, former assistant commissioners John Yates and Andy Hayman and ex-deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke will not face further investigation, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said.

Stephenson resigned in July after the revelation that he had hired Neil Wallis, a former top News of the World journalist arrested by the Metropolitan Police in connection with the phone hacking case, as a consultant.

"In relation to their alleged respective roles in the 'phone hacking' investigation, the conduct of none of these officers amounts to recordable conduct," the IPCC said in a statement.

However, the commission said it would open a separate inquiry into allegations that John Yates secured a job at Scotland Yard for Wallis' daughter.

"I strongly deny any wrongdoing and I am completely confident that I will be exonerated," Yates said in a statement. "I have been entirely open about this matter and I will cooperate fully with the investigation which I hope will be conducted swiftly."

Stephenson, who had maintained his innocence even in resignation, said he expected to be cleared. "I regret resources have had to be expended on this matter," he said in a separate statement.

"There can be no doubt about the damaging effect of the perceived inadequate response--in particular, the failure to notify its many apparent victims -- on public confidence," IPCC Deputy Chair Deborah Glass said. "Sir Paul Stephenson and John Yates both acknowledged this in their decisions to resign."

But, she added, a "clear line must be drawn between what is a recordable conduct matter--in effect, conduct that is either criminal or for which an officer should be disciplined--and public concerns that will be addressed and scrutinized by Lord Justice Leveson's public inquiry."

Leveson, who was appointed by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to lead a seperate independent investigation, warned last month that the official inquiry into the phone hacking allegations could take a year or more.

Meanwhile, Cameron, who hired former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications adviser, acknowledged that the hiring was a bad decision. "Clearly if I had known then all the things I know now," Cameron said in his own statement Wednesday, "then obviously I would have taken different decisions."

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