20:04
Tieng Anh Vui
The speed of the police inquiry into the Downing Street row between officers and then Tory cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell has been criticised by a former director of public prosecutions.
Mr Mitchell quit as chief whip last September amid claims he had called the officers "plebs" - something he denied.
Writing in The Times, Lord Macdonald QC said it was "outrageous" the so-called Plebgate probe was taking so long.
The Metropolitan Police said it was a "complicated inquiry".
Mr Mitchell apologised for having not treated officers with respect after he was told not to take his bike through the main Downing Street entrance on 19 September last year.
He has admitted swearing at them but has always disputed newspaper claims he described officers as "plebs".
CCTV footage casting doubt on the original police accounts of the row emerged in December and the Met reopened its investigation into what happened.
Since then eight people have been arrested under Operation Alice, including five police officers.
Mr Mitchell, meanwhile, has asked the Independent Police Complaints Commission to look into claims that the Met leaked details of its own report to the press and said he would sue the Sun newspaper, which first ran the story.
'Plain foolish'
In The Times, Lord Macdonald - the director of public prosecutions between 2003 and 2008 and now a Lib Dem peer - said "the police have now spent 12 months investigating an incident that lasted 45 seconds".
He said that "an expeditious and through investigation should have been perfectly possible".
"It seems quite outrageous that in the face of the simplicity of the allegations, and this significant commitment of public resources, the investigation rambles on, with no end in sight", he said.
"As the public remains locked in blissful ignorance of the truth, the suspicion must grow that the police find themselves blinded like rabbits in the face of an approaching storm."
Lord Macdonald added that if it turns out the use of the word "pleb" was made up, a "missile" was "heading straight for the heart" of the Met.
He also said the Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe had been "plain foolish" to say he believed his officers were telling the truth, whilst simultaneously announcing an investigation into what had happened.
In a statement, the Met Police said Operation Alice was "examining very serious allegations, that go to the heart of the public's trust in the police service".
It said it was "conducting a thorough investigation that aims to establish the truth of what has taken place and find the best possible evidence".
It added that since its initial file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service in March 2013, "three separate pieces of information have been given to us".
"The investigation is being conducted with oversight from the IPCC. This complicated inquiry will go where the evidence takes us, and will take as long as is necessary."
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