Not all the leaks were me, says Home Office worker

The junior government official at the centre of an inquiry into Home Office leaks has claimed that not all |the documents which emerged came from him.

Chris Galley, who was arrested in November for passing information |to the Conservative frontbench MP, Damian Green, insisted that he only handed over four documents during his time in Whitehall. However, Sir David Normington, the Home Office’s chief civil servant, has claimed that about 20 documents were leaked, which suggests that more of his staff could be responsible for disclosing sensitive information.

“I have been accused of leaking 20 documents in total and I only leaked four,” Mr Galley said yesterday. “The police pressured me on numerous occasions to reveal more leaks than I did. I categorically stated that I only leaked four documents.”

Neither Mr Galley nor Mr Green, the shadow Immigration minister and MP for Ashford in Kent, will face charges after it was decided that the leaked papers had not compromised national security. Mr Galley said that when he was arrested, detectives told him he faced life in jail over the incident. He also criticised sources within the Home Office for branding him a “laughing stock”.

“They can describe it as despicable and disloyal, but I actually think the leaks were in the public interest and the public actually need to know how the Home Office was behaving at that time,” he said.

Mr Galley started work at the Home Office in 2006 and said he began to leak material after discovering goings on within the department that he “did not like”. He said he was not offered any incentives from the Tories for handing over material. He expects to be sacked from his job next week.