Cameron insists ex-Tory whip is owed apology by police

David Cameron’s comments came after the police watchdog accused a police force of failing to properly deal with three officers accused of lying about a meeting held with Mr Mitchell in the wake of the row last year.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) questioned the “honesty and integrity” of Insp Ken MacKaill, DS Stuart Hinton and Sgt Chris Jones and concluded the Police Federation representatives should have faced a misconduct panel.

As Mr Mitchell garnered cross-party support from fellow MPs, members of the policing community lashed out at the IPCC for acting “inappropriately”.

At Prime Minister’s questions, Mr Cameron said the conduct of the officers, who were representing the forces of West Mercia, Warwickshire and West Midlands, was “not acceptable”.

He said Mr Mitchell was “owed an apology, the conduct of these officers was not acceptable” and “these things should be properly investigated”. The Prime Minister backed the stance taken by Home Secretary Theresa May, who on Tuesday said it was “quite wrong” not to take disciplinary proceedings against the officers.

Mr Cameron said: “I agree 100 per cent with what the Home Secretary said yesterday.”

He went on: “What’s being discussed here is the fact that... the former chief whip had a meeting with Police Federation officers in his committee where he gave a full account of what had happened, they left that meeting and claimed he had given them no account at all. Fortunately, this meeting was recorded, so he has been able to prove that what he said was true and what the police officers said was untrue.”