Plebgate: Met Commissioner faces fresh questions The letter to the Home Office's most senior policing official, Stephen Rimmer, admits that Sir Bernard attended meetings with five newspapers and the Press Association on March 25 and 26. He told journalists he was "concerned" that if they did not get to the bottom of happened it could "result in reputational damage for all concerned". Mr Mitchell stepped down last October after allegations appeared in the press that he had referred to police officers in Downing Street as ******* plebs and morons when they refused to open the main gates to allow him to cycle through. He later accepted swearing in frustration but vehemently denied using the term plebs. Operation Alice, which is being overseen by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), was established to trace the source of alleged leaks to the media after reports appeared in a number of papers. At the end of March - just days after Sir Bernard's meetings - it was reported that the officers had been exonerated by the investigation, before the file had even been handed to prosecutors. In the letter to Mr Rimmer the Commissioner wrote that he had not seen the police file, and it would not be common practice for him to do so. I can say categorically that I have not seen the file relating to Operation Alice. Therefore, I was not in a position to brief on the contents," he wrote, He admitted that he had been briefed on the broad progress of the investigation, adding: "I did say that I was concerned that if we did not conclusively prove what happened at the gate of Downing Street on 19 September this could result in reputational damage for all concerned. We could therefore be left in the position of having one person's word against another. Neither he nor the journalists made any notes of the non-reportable briefings, he said. The Crown Prosecution Service is still considering whether the officers involved will face charges.