UK's top policeman secretly taped phone calls

LONDON, Mar 13 (Reuters) Britain's top policeman, already under pressure over the mistaken shooting of a suspected suicide bomber, faced calls to quit today for secretly recording a phone call with the country's senior legal adviser.

Sir Ian Blair, London's police chief, also recorded calls with members of a commission investigating the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, his office said.

The revelations, the latest in a series of gaffes, have prompted calls from some quarters for Blair, who only took charge of London's 30,000-strong force last February, to quit.

A police spokesman said that last September Blair had secretly taped a call from Attorney General Peter Goldsmith which media reports said had centred on the admissibility of telephone wire tap evidence in British courts.

Goldsmith said he had spoken to the police commissioner on Monday and had received an explanation and apology.

''As far as the Attorney is concerned, the matter is closed,'' a spokeswoman for Goldsmith said.

A statement released by the police chief's office said: ''He (Blair) thought that they would be discussing a complex issue and, as he was without a note-taker, it would be helpful to have a record of the conversation.'' The police also said Blair had taped three calls with members of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), a government-funded watchdog investigating Blair's conduct after the shooting of de Menezes last July.

BLAIR ''SHOULD CONSIDER POSITION'' Blair's fate rests with the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) which oversees the London police force and can take disciplinary action against him.

Its chairman Len Duvall said he would be discussing the issue with Blair and other senior officers today.

''Clearly there are questions that need to be answered,'' he said in a statement.

Richard Barnes, one of the MPA's members, said Blair should ''be considering his position'' and Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said the revelations ''beggared belief''.

''His behaviour appears to be unconstitutional, unethical quite possibly unlawful,'' she told BBC radio.

However, Blair was given the full backing of his unrelated namesake, Prime Minister Tony Blair, who discussed de Menezes's shooting with Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his visit to London last week.

''What's important is we recognise controversy is not new to the position of being Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, because it is a difficult role,'' Tony Blair's spokesman said.

The police chief has been under growing pressure since de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, was shot dead on a London underground train last July 22 by officers who mistook him for a suspected suicide bomber.

The Brazilian's family has called for Blair's resignation, accusing him of lying and misleading the public.

In January, Blair was further criticised after he labelled the British media ''institutionally racist'' and said ''almost nobody'' understood why the murders of two schoolgirls in 2002 received such widespread media attention.

The public outcry forced him into issuing an apology to the parents of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, whose killings received blanket coverage for months.

Days later, Scotland Yard issued a statement denying newspaper reports that Blair faced a revolt from 140 leading officers who thought he should quit.

REUTERS SB PM1934