The Metropolitan police has apologised to the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for accidentally revealing he was the source of a tipoff that Peter Mandelson supposedly planned to flee the UK, prompting officers to arrest the former ambassador.
Senior Scotland Yard officers met Hoyle in person on Wednesday afternoon to explain their error, which is regarded internally as a serious breach of protocol. Hoyle told MPs earlier that he passed the information to police in good faith after receiving it from an individual in a position of authority in the British Virgin Islands.
Mandelson, who is being investigated for alleged misconduct in public office, was arrested and questioned on Monday. He denies any wrongdoing and was furious at the move, saying detectives had agreed to interview him under caution next month but that someone had falsely said he was preparing to flee to the British Virgin Islands.
An official custody document shared with Mandelson’s lawyers is understood to have referred to the Lords speaker as the source – a mistaken reference to Hoyle. After the Lords speaker, Michael Forsyth, denied tipping off police, Hoyle went public with the fact it was him.
Mandelson’s lawyers have written to the Met asking upon what evidence they based the arrest. Mandelson was released on bail in the early hours of Tuesday and is understood to have surrendered his passport. He told friends the claims he was preparing to flee were “complete fiction”.
