Consider this a 'pebble in the pond' thread. I have no idea where it may lead but I want to tell a story from a week ago, when I watched the greater part of Theresa May's Commons statement, and subsequent debate, on the Mark Ellison review of the police investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence at a bus stop in Eltham, south east London, in April 1993. It's only on the iPlayer till 5:30pm this afternoon, which is why I put this up now.

Ex-Home Secretary Jack Straw's contribution was particularly powerful (that clip will last forever relative to the iPlayer), as was the question from Clive Efford, the Labour MP for Eltham. But otherwise the Commons chamber was very empty. And then I spotted my old school friend and New Labour greenster, Barry Gardiner, MP from Brent North, sitting just by Straw. Brent is miles away from Eltham. And my heart was deeply touched at that moment. That's mainly what this thread is about. With respect to Barry Gardiner.

But it may also be of interest to note, in view of strange goings on during the climate debate, the story of police corruption in my own neck of the woods, since I moved back to south east London to live with my Dad down the road from Eltham in 2004 and then in 2006 to SE23, down the road from East Dulwich, where the most dire corruption seems to have taken place, possibly leading to the still-unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, found with axe in his head in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham in 1987.

The Golden Lion is walking distance from my home right now, the closest of all. 1987 was when I moved from south London to Islington and Camden in the north. I met Doreen Lawrence around 1997, four years after the murder of her son, through some Labour friends in the Kentish Town/Hampstead area. All only glancing connections but enough to make me want to tune in last week.

One thing I'd not realised before now is that John Yates was one of the most senior Met officers who'd gone on record, internally, to finger East Dulwich corruption:

* John Yates, the former Met Assistant Commissioner who led the investigation into Davidson and his colleagues, can be revealed to have prepared testimony for police corruption proceedings last year, unrelated to Davidson, confirming that "there was a huge appetite to prosecute John Davidson, who we considered then and still do now to have been a major corrupt player of that era".
...
Yates wrote to his superiors in blunt terms in October that year about the evidence he had found against Davidson: "It is now apparent that during his time at East Dulwich Davidson developed a corrupt informant/handler relationship. Their main commodity was Class A drugs, predominantly cocaine, however, Davidson and his informant would deal in all aspects of criminality when the opportunities presented themselves."

This eye-wateringly direct assessment was written at one of the most politically perilous moments in the history of the Met. The Macpherson inquiry was about to finish hearing evidence and begin writing its report.

Yates, the future head of Britain's counter-terrorism policing, seems to have been aware of the wider significance of the evidence he held on Davidson. In a note to senior officers, also written in October 1998, he set out a list of "Difficulties/threats" posed by his investigation into police corruption. One of the "threats" bullet points read: "Lawrence Enquiry [sic] – exposure of ex DS Davidson as a corrupt officer."

The Met did tell the Macpherson inquiry in September 1998 about Operation Russia's interest in Davidson, but said the corruption allegations it was investigating had no connection to the Lawrence murder. The Inquiry asked to be kept fully informed about developments. The Met this week declined to say whether it had shared Yates's October 1998 reports with Sir William Macpherson.

There was one officer however itching to tell Sir William about Davidson – but the Macpherson inquiry would never hear from him.

And thus there's the amazing story of self-confessed bent copper and born-again Christian Neil Putnam:

Police intelligence files show that John Yates told his superiors categorically in 1998: "Putnam's value as a witness to the Crown cannot be over-estimated. In spite of his criminality he will present as a credible witness thoroughly contrite about what he has done and the shame that this will bring upon him, his family and the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service]. This has been a consistent thread throughout his debrief."

Putnam is the supergrass referred to here. David Norris has now been convicted of the murder of Stephen Lawrence:

* Davidson is alleged to have admitted that officers had a corrupt relationship with Clifford Norris, the gangster father of murderer David Norris. A police supergrass recently gave evidence under oath at the Old Bailey that Davidson had told him bent cops "looked after old man Norris".

It was Neil Putnam's testimony that was not disclosed to the Macpherson inquiry into the flawed Lawrence murder investigation in 1998. Was John Yates, as his words above might just suggest, complicit in that fateful decision, in effect covering up the corruption in East Dulwich and causing Jack Straw to suggest last week that there may well have been 'institutional corruption' at the highest levels of the Met in his time as Home Secretary?

Interesting to the climate scene because of the links with Neil Wallis, once of Outside Organisation, as revealed bu 'Chu' on Climate Audit on 14th July 2011, leading to the main threads “Covert” Operations by East Anglia’s CRU, East Anglia’s Toxic Reputation Manager and Andy Hayman. The second in particular has some details of the involvement of John Yates. I'm not trying to draw all the connections here, not least because I don't know them. I don't fancy an axe through the head outside my local either, come to that. I just wanted to note one more detail I've found that others may not be aware of.