Police rebuked for 'inept' raid on singer's home

Cliff Richard.

Police behind a raid on the luxury home of Sir Cliff Richard was utterly inept in tipping off the BBC about the operation which resulted in irreparable damage to the singer's reputation, British MPs say.

In a highly critical report by the Home Affairs Select Committee, South Yorkshire Police are rebuked for telling the reporter about the timing of the raid, which allowed the BBC to send up a helicopter to film officers going into the singer's 3.1 million ($6.3 million) penthouse. The MPs said Richard was owed an apology.

A BBC reporter was told when officers were going to search his home and was sent an aerial photograph of the flat on a private estate in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to make sure they got the right place.

The 74-year-old singer has not been arrested but was interviewed over an alleged sex crime against a boy at a Billy Graham evangelical event at a Sheffield football stadium in 1985. Richard is reportedly planning to sell the flat after the publicity over the raid while he was in Portugal.

The reporter received the information after approaching the force a month earlier with a vague inquiry about the singer, according to BBC officials. The force had claimed it had no choice but to deal with the reporter as they said he had detailed information about the case.

Dozens of emails, texts and phone calls were exchanged over the following month in the run-up to the raid in August. Reporter Dan Johnson sent one message that said: "Give me a shout before they take anything out so we can get the chopper in place for a shot."

The BBC is not criticised for covering the raid but said the force should have contacted BBC managers if they wanted to get the message across that coverage of the raid would hamper their investigation. During hearings before the Home Affairs Select Committee, the Director-General, Lord Hall, said they would not have run the story if the chief constable had asked them not to.

The chief constable of South Yorkshire, David Crompton, has previously apologised to Richard if the force was insensitive about the search. The report's findings are a further blow to the force which was condemned for its failure to investigate child sex abuse in Rotherham.

"South Yorkshire's handling of this situation was utterly inept," said Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee. "The force allowed itself to hand over sensitive information to a journalist and granted him privileged access to the execution of a search warrant.

- Independent