Ex-SAS officer is expenses whistleblower'Leaks have exposed Parliament’s rotten core,’ says middle-man
By Nigel Morris, Deputy political editor
Saturday, 23 May 2009
A former SAS officer who passed secret details of MPs’ expenses claims to The Daily Telegraph broke cover last night to insist he had “no regrets” about the leak that has rocked Westminster.
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John Wick said the release of the information over the last fortnight had exposed the parliamentary expenses system to “its rotten core”.
Mr Wick, the head of a corporate intelligence company specialising in the release of hostages in war zones, was named as an intermediary between an anonymous parliamentary source and the Telegraph. He claimed that the details had not been stolen, and was withering about the “lax” security procedures in the Commons for handling the claims. Mr Wick contacted several newspapers and eventually passed over more than one million pages of unedited receipts to the Telegraph. The paper is rumoured to have paid between £60,000 and £70,000 for the details, but has consistently refused to disclose whether any money changed hands.
Mr Wick was unrepentant last night over his part in getting the uncensored claims – rather than the censored version being prepared by the Commons – into the public domain.
He said: “Parliament will be a better place, society will be a better place.
Sometimes a marker has to be put down. The public has put a marker down. It’s good.”
Continued.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 89832.htmlThank god for the SAS . Maybe we should send them in more often ?