The cost of the police investigation into the plebgate row rose more than £10,000 in just over a month and now stands at nearly a quarter of a million pounds.
The Metropolitan Police has so far spent £248,000.45 trying to establish what happened when Tory former chief whip Andrew Mitchell was accused of a foul-mouthed rant at officers outside Downing Street.
At the end of September the cost to the Met stood at £237,000 and the latest figure, provided by the Home Office in response to a parliamentary question from Labour's Lord Hoyle, covers the cost as at November 7, 2013 .
Mr Mitchell resigned as chief whip amid the furore surrounding the original incident in September 2012, but it later transpired that police officers may have deliberately given false information to discredit the Sutton Coldfield MP.
The rise in cost came when three Police Federation representatives accused of giving false accounts of a meeting with Mr Mitchell were hauled before the home affairs select committee.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article