Top cyber crime cop lied under oath, says judge

'They have won and I have lost'

Williams' career has not apparently suffered either. Last year he became the first Met officer seconded to GCHQ's new Cyber Security Operations Centre.

He was also recently appointed as staff officer to Assistant Commissioner Janet Williams, who oversees the PCeU and is one of the most powerful figures in the Met, despite his apparent dishonesty. The Met has applied its weakest sanction - "words of advice" - against him over the affair.

"Make no mistake," Shaw told the tribunal. "They have won and I have lost."

"I have had to spend thousands of pounds to try to clear my name and regain my status. Their careers will progress, mine is finished."

In response to questions about whether any action will be taken against McMurdie over false statements to the tribunal, a spokesman for the Met said "the officers are not under investigation".

"However, as with any tribunal, the Met will carefully review the findings to see if there is any wider learning for the future."

He added that it should not be assumed from that statement that no action will be taken against officers after the tribunal delivers its written remedies judgment.

A third senior officer, Detective Chief Superintendent Nigel Mawer, who was involved in setting up the PCeU, was also criticised in the judgment. He admitted adding a crucial undated note to the file on Shaw's business interests after the investigation had started, and that it could amount to "tampering with evidence".

Mawer, who retired last week and recently headed the investigation into allegations of spot-fixing against the Pakistani cricket team, was "surprisingly and exceptionally careless", the tribunal found. It stopped short of finding any intentional wrongdoing on his part.

Shaw's case also raises concerns about security standards at the PCeU, which handles material classified up to Top Secret. Mawer said it is "not an uncommon" practice for officers to take sensitive work home with them.

Concerns over separate failures by McMurdie to follow security procedures led a member of the Security Service to follow her home, the tribunal heard.

Shaw also told the tribunal he and another officer had complained to McMurdie over her appointment of a part-time volunteer outside the normal security vetting process. It later emerged that the volunteer had failed vetting for both the Met and Surrey Police, he said, because she lived with a former police constable who had been charged with importing Class A drugs.

Shaw had sought £2m in exceptional damages for his treatment at the hands of Mawer, McMurdie and Williams to "force the police to take disciplinary action against the wrong-doers". He planned to donate all the money to charity after paying his lawyer.

"I believe that a punitive award of less than £50,000 will not deter the Met in future from destroying the next whistleblower for whom justice, honesty, integrity and conscience still mean something," he told the tribunal.

The award of £38,000 does not cover his legal bill. ®