The PCA told him in March last year that it was recommending action against him. Jack Straw, Home Secretary, said he would consider recommendations by the Lawrence inquiry, due to issue its report next week.The Yard spokesman said police had never ruled out disciplinary proceedings, despite Det Insp Bullock’s impending retirement “The charges against Mr Bullock have not been dropped. All the other senior officers have retired and are thus, according to the law as it stands, immune from disciplinary action.The PCA called last week for the law to be changed. It is understood his pension rights, thought to be worth pounds 25,000 a year, would not be affected.Last week, Stephen’s parents, Neville and Doreen Lawrence, were said to be devastated at the prospect of every officer in the investigation escaping punishment.

If found guilty, he could be suspended or dismissed before then. The Metropolitan Police is thought to have accelerated the process to satisfy demands for some kind of public retribution over the Lawrence case.Det Insp Bullock, 49, is to retire on 2 May, after 30 years’ service. The announcement was seen as a response to the outcry to news last week that Det Insp Bullock had submitted his retirement papers. He was the only serving officer that the Police Complaints Authority recommended for disciplinary action.
It is unprecedented for a tribunal date to be set so soon after a PCA recommendation. THE POLICE officer who was second-in-command of the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation will face a disciplinary tribunal despite announcing his retirement, Scotland Yard said last night. A spokesman said Detective Inspector Ben Bullock will go before a tribunal on 22 March, six weeks before his retirement date He will be charged with seven counts of neglect of duty.

Many Republicans did not believe the State of Union address should even proceed while Mr Clinton was on trial, and some said that they would not turn up – a snub that the White House brushed off.Earlier, Charles Ruff, the White House counsel, began the President’s defence in the Senate impeachment trial, rebutting the case for the prosecution put by Republican trial managers last week.It now appears almost certain that witnesses will be called, perhaps including Mr Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern whose affair with the President began the saga that has paralysed government for months.Clinton paves way forGore, page 12. He was also expected to propose $112bn (pounds 70bn) extra in defence spending, including a new missile defence modelled on former president Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” system.But what is the reality of his situation? Impeachment, or the end of office in 2000 and a Congress controlled by the Republicans, has not deterred the White House from putting forward sweeping policy proposals. Bill Clinton gave his State of the Union speech to Congress, the landmark event of the political year, just hours after the White House had begun the case against impeachment in the Senate trial.
In an attempt to rise above the political fray, President Clinton was expected to avoid any mention of impeachment, trying to give the impression of normality in Washington.For the first time, the President was to lay out plans to rescue the pension system, threatened with bankruptcy by the country’s ageing population, by injecting cash from the booming US budget surplus. He was given conditional bail.Aitken also faces civil litigation as result of his failed libel action which has left him with pounds 2m in legal debts to The Guardian and Granada TV..

THE PRESIDENT of the United States yesterday delivered the annual report on the presidency in the same building as lawyers were desperately fighting to prevent his removal from office. I am ready for the fight.”The libel action collapsed and Aitken was charged with the serious criminal offences which led to yesterday’s case.Aitken, a former chief secretary to the Treasury, and minister for defence procurement, also pleaded not guilty yesterday to two further charges of perverting the course of justice and conspiring with his ex-wife, Lolicia, and another person to pervert the course of justice. The maximum sentence for perverting the course of justice is life imprisonment and for perjury seven years.The charges relate to the defamation action Aitken brought against The Guardian and Granada TV’s World in Action programme over claims that a pounds 1,000 hotel bill for his stay at the Paris Ritz in September l993 was paid by a wealthy Saudi contact.At the time, he vowed: “If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it. He also admitted that he drew up a false statement for his daughter, Victoria, to sign to support his lies.
He will be sentenced in June. Aitken, once tipped as a future Conservative leader and prime minister, became the first former cabinet minister this century to be convicted of serious crimes after admitting he lied under oath. One Serb policeman was killed and two were wounded in separate clashes with the Kosovo Liberation Army.Villagers cower, page 13. THE FORMER cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken could face a jail term after pleading guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday to perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice.