THE theft of Morgan McSweeney’s government phone is shocking – but sadly not surprising.
The PM’s then chief-of-staff was walking along a street at night firing off WhatsApp messages and emails when a yob on a bike snatched his mobile and sped off into the distance.
Morgan gave chase and rang the cops — but they bungled the investigation.
Officers recorded the wrong address for the robbery and didn’t seem bothered when told it was an official government phone that had been nicked.
Then they closed the case after just two failed attempts to speak to Mr McSweeney about the mugging.
They had ticked their boxes, handed out their crime reference number and were only too happy to declare the case utterly unsolvable.
But their investigation was more Chief Wiggum than Hercule Poirot.
A transcript of the call — released by the Met Police yesterday in a highly unusual move — will quite rightly make us all despair.
What hope have the rest of us got of having crimes against us properly investigated if this is the response of His Majesty’s finest police force to the PM’s chief of staff?
Morgan was the second most powerful man in the country when this robbery took place, in October last year.
His phone would have been packed full of the numbers of every top politician and government official in the country, starting with the Prime Minister himself.
No doubt it contained confidential messages to Sir Keir Starmer which would have given a tantalising insight into the PM’s plans for the country.
And, as I revealed when I exclusively broke the story of the stolen phone in The Sun on Sunday last weekend, it contained exchanges with the former US ambassador Peter Mandelson. Many of these messages are now believed to be lost forever.
This means Parliament’s investigation into Lord Mandelson’s appointment may never uncover the full truth of what No10 knew of his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
And just imagine what Russia or China would have done if they had stumbled upon the phone and the treasure trove of government secrets it contained.
It would be a cornucopia of material beyond their wildest dreams.
This whole sorry saga does raise important questions for the Government.
Should ministers and aides be using WhatsApp to talk through government business?
Should they be told to take the ‘disappearing messages’ function off so all messages are kept?
And why weren’t all the messages on Morgan’s phone saved and backed up on the cloud so they could be accessed even if the handset was nicked?
But there are also far-reaching questions for the police. Their transcript of the police call with Morgan is, frankly, jaw-dropping.
The call handler doesn’t seem to be bothered when told it is a government phone.
They rush through questions — bungling the address in the process.
Reading through it, you are left with the feeling they are more concerned with form filling and handing out a reference number than in actually investigating the crime.
It is an experience many of us who have been victims of crime will be all too familiar with.
It reminds me of when I was burgled a couple of years ago.
The thief came in the night and stole my cash, passport and jewellery. I could live with the financial cost of the break-in — which wasn’t huge.
But every ring and necklace they stole was a memory manhandled and tarnished.
I rang the cops, who dutifully came round and told me the burglar would never be caught and I was better off looking around local pawn shops if I wanted to track down my belongings.
I never really expected my stuff to be found. I know that professional burglars wearing balaclavas and gloves are rarely caught.
But I still boiled with rage inside at the cops’ advice.
It felt like they were going through the motions, shrugging their shoulders and filling in their forms.
This fatalism and inertia chips away at public trust in the institutions that are there to govern and protect us.
Meanwhile cocky criminals go on thieving. We see it every day in the supermarkets pillaged by brazen shoplifters, the bicycles and cars nicked and never found, and the many stolen phones that end up in China.
There are still many questions for Morgan McSweeney to answer about his mobile phone.
Many will say he should have been more forceful in spelling out to the cops exactly how important this mobile phone was, and how dangerous it could be to Britain’s national interest if it fell into the wrong hands.
It is not often that someone should use the words: “Do you know who I am?”
But this is one case when they probably should have done.
This single phone theft highlights a far broader problem.
Theft too often goes unchallenged and unpunished. This must stop. We depend on the police to maintain law and order. It’s time for the cops to step up.
