Blog: Sorry is no longer good enough in Plebgate affair

Neither Sgt Jones nor Det Sgt Stuart Hinton from Warwickshire Police would apologise for their actions in the wake of the Plebgate affair, although MPs are clearly gunning for them.

Labour MP Keith Vaz, peering over his spectacles from the chairman's seat, needed just a blackboard and some chalk and he would have looked like a headmaster, admonishing a school boy.

• West Midlands Police officer referred to watchdog over Plebgate row
• Plebgate row hugely damaging for image of West Midlands Police, admits chief
• Watch the meeting on the Parliament Live website here

"We believe that you misled this committee," he told Det Sgt Hinton. "It is your opportunity to put this right."

What started as a few bad tempered words between a government minister and a Downing Street copper has turned into a row that some would say threatens the integrity of the entire police.

It has cost the best part of a quarter of a million pounds to investigate whether or not the former chief whip Andrew Mitchell called a police officer a 'pleb'.

Now it's set to be investigated all over again after the Independent Police Complaints Commission has decided to review the evidence itself rather than just 'supervising' the police's own investigations.

Sgt Hinton and Det Sgt Jones were called back before the committee yesterday to correct the record. Mr Hinton had said he believed there was a mistake in a transcript of the meeting where he referred to the Home Secretary Theresa May as 'this woman in the Conservative party'.

He now accepts he did say it after listening to the recording again. Mr Vaz revealed that the Warwickshire Police chief constable viewed 'this woman' as a disrespectful term. "He will be taking this up with you," Mr Vaz said.

"I'm sure he will do," replied Mr Hinton. When Chris Jones sat in the chair he said he believed he had answered the questions put to him correctly.

But there was still no apology to Andrew Mitchell and his own force has now referred him to the police watchdog.

As the Walsall MP David Winnick put it, the matter is hardly the Watergate affair, 'nevertheless, justice needs to be done'. So much time and public money has now been spent that the matter cannot simply be left as the police and the MP agreeing to disagree.

Sorry is no longer good enough, regardless of who was at fault.