It’s A Snitch Up: Metropolitan Police Pay Covert Human Intelligence Sources

GRASSES, snitches, squealers, police informants and narks are costing us with their blabbing - to the tune of a not very tuneful £2.2million a year. And that’s only in London. (Pic: Beau Bo D’Or)

This rather hefty figure comes courtesy of the Metropolitan Police, and refers to crime season 2006/07 when said amount was paid out in rewards for information about criminals operating in the capital and in other areas.

An additional £134,961 was also spent on “informant related expenditure” which includes accommodation, travel and the (large amounts of) food for police handlers. (Do police really need handlers? Actually, they really probably do, don’t they?)

Assistant Commissioner Steve House defends the figures and the fact that a breakdown of the expenditure had been kept secret.

Says he: “Most of our informants are doing this purely for money and they are involved in the criminal lifestyle and their lives are often at risk. The lack of transparency is to a certain extent deliberate. Informants, or as they are now called, Covert Human Intelligence Sources, are covert assets.

“It is not good sense to tell too much about any covert assets. We do not give too much detail…other than to say that Tony Blair was not necessarily spying for the Vatican.”
The last bit was made up, by the way.
I think…

Anorak

Posted: 6th, August 2007 | In: Money Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink