Lord Justice Leveson has requested a full breakdown of the security vetting status of recent top Downing Street media advisers to find out if revelations that Andy Coulson received only mid-level security checks before starting work in government represented "a smoking gun".
The judge asked Lord O'Donnell, the former head of the civil service, to provide the information after he was cross-examined over Downing Street's decision not to subject the former News of the World editor to rigorous "developed vetting" (DV) checks when he became David Cameron's director of communications in May 2010.
