The Fettesgate Affair
01 September 1992
The affair started on 19 July when intruders broke into the headquarters of the Lothian and Borders police force in Scotland and stole equipment and documents from the regional Scottish Crime Squad office (including the Drugs Intelligence Unit). It led to the arrest and detention of two journalists and revelations about unaccountable telephone monitoring.
The intruders are said to have spent three hours in the offices, sprayed an Animal Liberation Front slogan on one wall, taken dozens of files on drugs cases, surveillance videos and used a photocopier to copy other files. The raid was first claimed and then disowned by the Animal Liberation Front.
Ron McKay, a reporter with the quality paper Scotland on Sunday, wrote a story on 26 July based an account from someone claiming to have taken part in the raid and on several of the files. Two days later Andrew Jaspan, editor of Scotland on Sunday, agreed to be interviewed by police at his home at 9am - he was woken up by them at 7.15am. The next day Ron McKay, on holiday in Kent with his partner and baby son, was woken by Scottish detectives at 7am. The house was searched, his car broken into and searched, so too was a basement flat he owned in Maida Vale, London. He was handcuffed and flown back to Scotland where he spent a night in police cells, and then charged with "reset" - an offence in Scottish law similar to handling stolen goods.
Another journalist, Alan Muir, who had written about the break- in for the Sun newspaper was arrested at his home in Ayr at 7 am the next day. During questioning he was shown a list of telephone calls made to and from the Sun's Glasgow offices and a transcript of a conversation Muir had with a contact. These early morning raids on journalists brought protests from other Scottish newspaper editors and the National Union of Journalists. On 2 August Scotland on Sunday followed up with a front-page story based on information from the stolen files giving details of Lothian police monitoring telephone calls.
The story detailed a full record of the telephone monitoring operation of more than 150 calls made from an Edinburgh phone in a two-week period in January 1990. It gives the names, addresses and telephone numbers of 78 people and organisations with the date, time and duration of the calls. This method of surveillance known as "metering", which has been available since the mid-1970s, does not come under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 and therefore does not require a warrant signed by the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Home Secretary. The value of "metering" for police surveillance is that it can give a detailed picture of a person's work, political activity and personal life. It can, for example, show them who a lawyer or journalist has spoken to.
New Statesman & Society 7.8.92; Police Review 7.8.92.