The Metropolitan Police are re-examining the reported theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone as questions loom around the incident, according to reports. Formerly the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Mr McSweeney’s phone was apparently snatched from a cyclist in October last year. The police got in-touch with Mr McSweeney on Thursday, requesting a formal statement about the alleged crime, the Telegraph reports. Detectives are allegedly now examining CCTV footage from the Westminster street where the former chief of staff said his phone was snatched.
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However, the force fear much of the relevant footage will have already been deleted, as recordings are typically only stored for three months.It has also emerged that Sir Keir’s former advisor failed to respond to follow-up requests from officers asking whether he had been able to locate the missing device using its built-in tracker. Further eyebrows were raised over the incident when it was revealed that during his 999 call, Mr McSweeney gave officers the wrong location – stating he was on Belgrave Street in east London, rather than Belgrave Road in Westminster. He did not correct the handler when the wrong address was repeated back to him, it has been alleged. Downing Street have subsequently wiped the device remotely and disabled its tracking technology, so it is unable to locate. No10 has refused to say whether any attempt was made to find the phone before it was wiped. The phone has sparked much interest as it potentially held evidence of key messages between Mr McSweeney and the disgraced peer, Lord Peter Mandelson, who was sacked as UK ambassador to Washington in September last year over his links to paedophile financier, Jeffrey Epstein. Opposition politicians believe the messages could of revealed the true nature of the pair’s communications and whether Lord Mandelson influenced decision-making within the Labour government.LATEST DEVELOPMENTS It has emerged that the theft was never reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), despite official guidelines stating that serious data breaches must be referred to the watchdog within 72 hours.The Government’s own security framework requires departments to flag any serious loss of personal data, but the ICO has said it didn’t receive notification of the incident at any stage. Officials are also understood to have made no attempt to contact MI5 or GCHQ, despite the possibility that the phone contained information that could have been detrimental to UK security if it had fallen into the wrong hands. Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Alex Burghart said: “At every stage of the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, Keir Starmer and his Government have sought to dodge blame and conceal the facts.”Labour must come clean and tell us the full truth – and publish the remaining Mandelson files as soon as possible. The public deserve nothing less.”Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said “there are several parts of McSweeney’s story that aren’t adding up,” and has called on both Mr McSweeney and the Prime Minister to come clean over what happened.In October, ahead of the theft, Downing Street officials are understood to have held several meetings to discuss how they would respond if the Conservatives moved to force the release of WhatsApp messages and emails relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment – a process that MPs ultimately voted through earlier this year.This comes as Lord Mandelson has come under increasing pressure to hand over text messages from his personal mobile phone. The Cabinet Office is preparing to publish thousands of documents connected to the disgraced peer’s time in the Washington role, but officials have so far only had access to his work phone.Government sources confirmed Lord Mandelson and all individuals with relevant messages would be asked to hand over communications made on personal devices.They added the move was not connected to the theft of Morgan McSweeney’s personal device. Lord Mandelson has not responded to requests for comment, though it is understood his position is that he did not act criminally, was not motivated by financial gain, and answered questions about his relationship with Epstein accurately during vetting.
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