Political row as terror-file officer quits

Published on Thursday 9 April 2009 21:34

BOB Quick, the UK's former top anti-terrorism officer, was plunged into the middle of a row between Labour and the Tories yesterday.

He quit as assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police after he was photographed in Downing Street carrying a memo marked "secret" which gave details of a planned operation on terror suspects. As the photograph was circulated around the world, police brought forward by a day a raid on addresses in the north-west of England.

Mr Quick decided overnight that his position was untenable and was about to release his official statement when Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, took to the radio airwaves to break the news.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who has responsibility for counter-terrorism policy, had agreed with Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, that Mr Quick should go. She was finalising her own statement when Mr Johnson was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Home Office sources said she was "mildly irritated and bemused" the announcement had come from Mr Johnson rather than the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Johnson's office said he was within his rights as chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority to make the announcement, but Ms Smith's office said that it should have been made by the police. Ken Livingstone, the former Labour mayor, claimed Mr Quick had been "forced out" by the Tories.

Mr Quick has been replaced by John Yates, who led the "cash for honours" inquiry.