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Green sweeps for bugs after 'tampering'
Joe Murphy, Political Editor01.12.08
Damian Green today called in security experts after suspecting that his personal computer was tampered with by police.
In a dramatic move, the Conservative frontbencher asked for his car, two homes and offices in London and his Kent constituency to be swept for bugs.
A private security company which specialises in countering industrial espionage was being commissioned by the Conservative Party to conduct a full search for listening devices and computer tampering.
The Standard has learned that Mr Green became suspicious that devices could have been planted when he used the computer in his London home over the weekend.
He found it would not behave normally and when he tried to use a command to undo any changes made to the operating system, it returned an error message.
"Something was not right about the computer after the counter-terrorism detectives left," said a source.
"It was behaving as though something had been removed or implanted or that evidence of changes had been covered up.
"He realised that while the police were in his homes and his offices, there was plenty of time and opportunity for a device to be planted.
"The police also had possession of his car because they drove it to London from Kent." Mr Green was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office.
He was not charged, but held for nine hours while officers raided his homes and offices to search for evidence that he was in league with a Whitehall "leaker".
