Met Chief Back In The Dock Over Wallis Links

Sky News has learned of further links between the Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and former News Of The World executive Neil Wallis.

Earlier this week it emerged Mr Wallis, who was quizzed by police investigating phone hacking allegations and later released on bail, had worked for the Met as a media consultant.

Sky News has now learnt Sir Paul spent time at a health farm where Mr Wallis was working as a PR consultant.

Sir Paul had an operation on his leg before Christmas to remove a pre-cancerous tumour.

He needed a second procedure just after Christmas to repair a fracture to a bone in that leg.

He then spent some time recuperating at a Champneys health resort.

The operation was funded by the Met's healthcare scheme but the accommodation was free as it was paid for by a friend of Sir Paul's, who was the managing director at the farm, Sky sources say.

And it is understood that Mr Wallis was working as a consultant for the resort.

Sky's Tom Parmenter said: "There is no suggestion at this stage that there is any overt wrongdoing between Sir Paul Stephenson staying at this health farm and their PR person being Neil Wallis.

"But nevertheless, it is about public perception and the questions that will inevitably follow."

A Met Police spokesman told Sky News that Sir Paul only learned of the connection between Mr Wallis and Champneys on Saturday.

A Met statement said: "Following his operations, the commissioner stayed with his wife, at Champneys Medical from Monday to Friday over a period of five weeks earlier this year where he underwent an extensive programme of hydro and physiotherapy.

"This enabled him to return to work six weeks earlier than anticipated. As with many officers, the Met paid the intensive physiotherapy costs.

"The accommodation and meals were arranged and provided by Stephen Purdew, MD of Champneys, a personal family friend who has no connection with or links to his professional life."

A spokesman said: "Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson is not considering his position. He declared it in gifts and hospitality for the sake of full transparency."

Phil Smith, Neil Wallis' solicitor, told Sky News: "There is no connection whatsoever between any stay that 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."

Meanwhile, police have told two senior Mail On Sunday journalists their phones may have been hacked by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Their names have been found in notebooks belonging to Mulcaire, who was hired by the News Of The World (NOTW) and jailed in 2007 for phone hacking.

One of the journalists is former news editor Sebastian Hamilton while the other is ex-investigations editor Dennis Rice, the Mail On Sunday confirmed.

Four years ago, Mulcaire was sentenced to six months in prison for plotting to hack into the telephone messages of Royal aides.

Police have said around 4,000 people could have had their phones targeted as officers continue their investigation, named Operation Weeting, into the phone-hacking scandal.

Sky's Jeff Randall said he had spoken to Sebastian Hamilton, who is currently editor of the Mail On Sunday in Ireland.

"He told me that Scotland Yard assumes Mulcaire was going into his phone to see if he could pinch any stories," said Randall.

"There may also have been a commercial aim. He may have been trying to obtain any information about the purchase of serialisation rights, that sort of thing.

"In effect, what the News Of The World was up to was nothing sort of industrial espionage."

A spokesman for the Mail On Sunday said: "I can confirm that two senior journalists have been contacted by Operation Weeting officers and told that their phones may have been hacked by Glenn Mulcaire."

It has previously been reported Mr Rice was launching legal action against the NOTW over the alleged hacking.