One of the Metropolitan Police officers who lost their job after the force's Plebgate investigation had "no idea" she had played a part in leaking, according to her whistleblowing colleague.
The revelation comes after a High Court judge last week ruled that former chief whip Andrew Mitchell probably did say the word “pleb” in a rant at Pc Toby Rowland outside the gates of Downing Street on 19 September 2012.
Whistleblower PC Jim Glanville, who was also sacked, has criticised the Met Police “hierarchy”, saying that the “public deserved to know how someone that senior in Government behaved”.
Despite losing his job, amounting £13,000 debts and seeing his marriage break down since the Plebgate scandal, Glanville told The Sun he would blow the whistle again in the same circumstances.
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Glanville told the paper he does not have any sympathy for Pc Keith Wallis, who was jailed for pretending to have witnessed the Plebgate incident. He said this gave Mitchell a way to argue there was a police conspiracy against him in court.
But Glanville said Pc Gill Weatherley did not deserve lose her job because she had “no idea” she had been a part of the leak.
Glanville told The Sun that after hearing of the incident he asked Weatherley to forward him Pc Rowland’s email outlining what Mitchell had said to him. He then used this to leak details to the newspaper.
He said: “Gill had no idea what I was doing, I didn’t tell her why I wanted to see Toby’s email.
“What happened to her wasn’t fair. I should not have put a colleague in jeopardy like that.”
Explaining why he chose to leak the story, Glanville, said: “I was incensed by what Andrew Mitchell had said and I knew it would get covered up.
“Nobody was going to do anything about it. The Met’s hierarchy are always more afraid of upsetting politicians than looking after their own.
“I knew what I was doing. It was my decision and I didn’t involve anyone else. I went to a quiet place and picked up the phone.”
Glanville was suspended from the Met and arrested in January 2013. He was left on police bail for 11 months when the Crown Prosecution Service judged that it was not in the public interest to charge him. He was sacked from the Met in February this year.
He is now a car salesman and told The Sun he would not take his job at the Met back “after the way they treated me”.
The Sun’s editorial today called for Glanville, along with Weatherley and Pc Susie Johnson – who was found to be behind another Plebgate press tip-off – to be offered their jobs back.
It also criticised the Met for using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to grab the phone records of its journalists and find sources.
“They didn’t seek the truth.,” The Sun said. “They only wanted to find and punish those who leaked it. So desperate were they that they abused anti-terror laws to sneakily uncover the source behind our backs because they knew we’d never reveal it.
“So officers who had never asked for or been given payment for their version of events were arrested, suspended and fired. Even their old-age pensions were wrecked.
“It cost PC Jim Glanville — a highly-trained firearms cop with a bravery commendation — his career, his finances and his marriage.
“The CPS never charged him. They knew he acted in the public interest.”
On Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the editorial said: “If the commissioner had any sense of fair play he would now offer to reinstate or compensate all three.
“Then establish an independent whistleblowing procedure at the Met to ensure inconvenient scandals cannot be swept under the carpet…
“Or blow up in the faces of cops who believe Britain should know about them.”
TIMELINE
21 September 2012: Sun front page claims chief whip Andrew Mitchell called police officers on the gates of Downing Street "fucking plebs"
25 September 2012: Daily Telegraph publishes leaked police log detailing alleged Plebgate incident
15 December 2012: Pc Keith Wallis arrested
19 December 2012: Member of public arrested
31 January 2013: Pc Jim Glanville arrested
1 February 2013: PC Gillian Weatherley arrested
15 June 2013: DPG officer and wife arrested
3 July 2013: Pc Susie Johnson arrested along with another member of the public
27 November 2013: CPS says not in public interest to prosecute Plebgate whistleblowers
6 February 2014: Pc Wallis imprisoned for falsely claiming to witness Plebgate incident
26 February 2014: Pc Wallis and Pc Glanville dismissed from Met Police
28 April 2014: Pc Weatherley dismissed
21 May 2014: Pc Johnson dismissed
1 September 2014: Met Police publishes Operation Alice closing report, including admission over Sun's phone records
27 November 2014: High Court judge rules Andrew Mitchell probably did say "pleb" in the confrontation more than two years before
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