Dick 'put down marker over hacking'

A senior Scotland Yard officer had to bat down Boris Johnson's deputy when he kept questioning the resources devoted to the force's new phone hacking investigation, the Leveson Inquiry has heard.

Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick said she reminded Kit Malthouse that it was for her to make the decision, not him, because British police are operationally independent.

Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson told the inquiry last week that the deputy London Mayor complained about the level of resources allocated to the investigation because of a "political and media-driven 'level of hysteria'".

Ms Dick said Mr Malthouse, then-chairman of Scotland Yard's former governing body the Metropolitan Police Authority, voiced his concerns to her after Scotland Yard launched a new phone-hacking probe in January 2011.

She told the inquiry: "On a couple of occasions Mr Malthouse, I thought jokingly, said to me, 'I hope you're not putting too much resources into this, Cressida'.

"On the third occasion when he said it again, I said, 'well, that's my decision and not yours, and that's why I'm operationally independent'.

"We then went on to have a perfectly reasonable sort of conversation about where the public interest lay."

Ms Dick said she wanted to "put down a marker" for Mr Malthouse so that he and the police investigation were not compromised if it was ever suggested that officers had bowed to political pressure.