DAILY MAIL COMMENT: How can exposing the truth be a crime?

Richard Rhodes was claiming travel expenses of up to £385 for a night out

The arrest of three civilian police workers for revealing that their elected commissioner was lavishing taxpayers' money on unwarranted trips in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes is a truly chilling story of how freedom of expression is being suppressed in this country.

When they found their boss - Cumbria's police and crime commissioner Richard Rhodes - was claiming travel expenses of up to £385 for a night out, these employees acted with commendable probity.

They felt an overriding civic duty to disclose what they saw as blatant extravagance and believed the public had a right to know how its money was being spent.

Reporting it through internal channels would have achieved nothing except a blight on their careers, so they took the time-honoured route of informing the local newspaper.

When the Carlisle News and Star – which has served its community for more than a century – put the allegations to Cumbria police, the force initially tried to justify the expense, risibly saying the commissioner needed his chauffeur-driven limousine for 'personal safety'.

But they quickly caved in. Mr Rhodes has agreed to pay back £700, promised to use more 'cost-effective' transport, and to publish full expense claims from now on – as he ought to have done all along.

That should have been an end to the matter, with both newspaper and whistleblowers being congratulated on bringing much-needed transparency to local democracy.

Instead, with Orwellian heavy-handedness, the police embarked on a mission of revenge.



The whistleblowers were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office and investigators crashed into the News and Star offices demanding documentation and access to emails.

The paper's editor courageously told them to get lost, but that has placed him under threat of prosecution.

Could there be a more grotesque abuse of power than menacing and arresting people for exposing the truth about the dubious activities of those in authority?

It's the kind of behaviour we normally associate with tyrants, but since the Leveson inquiry effectively criminalised unauthorised contacts between journalists and public officials, the police seem to think that such harassment is acceptable.

The implications for democracy, our open society and the public's right to know could not be more grave.

March of GM lobby

Major supermarkets lift their ban on meat and dairy products from animals and poultry raised on genetically-modified feed... the Government agrees to promote the benefits of biotech in schools... now the new Chief Scientific Adviser says there is 'a strong case' for growing GM crops in England.

These are unmistakeable signs of a concerted push by producers and retailers to force GM food on to the plate of the British consumer – without the inconvenience of having to label it.

But have the risks been properly evaluated and explained? US farmers growing GM cereals struggle to control superweeds and superpests and there is evidence that a GM diet over many years may lead to organ damage.

to harm bees, butterflies and other insects vital to the food chain and in Europe there are fears that it will harm the countryside.