When he appeared before an angry home affairs select committee last week, John Yates admitted that his decision not to reopen the phone-hacking investigation two years ago had been, in his own words, a poor one.
Two days earlier the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner had been a little more forthright, confiding in a Sunday newspaper that the choice had been "pretty crap".
That repeated underestimation of the severity of the News of the World saga has not only embarrassed the Met and cost the commissioner his job, it has proved to be the miscalculation that undid another of the Met's most respected officers.
Until the phone-hacking scandal erupted, Yates's three decades at Scotland Yard had been comparatively free of blemish.
Born in Liverpool in 1959 and educated at Marlborough and King's College London, Yates joined the Met in 1981 and spent time in uniform before rising through the hierarchy.
He was a popular figure among rank-and-file officers as well as being close to Sir Paul Stephenson, and was regarded as a safe pair of hands for his management of a string of high-profile cases.
In 2002 he took charge of the case of the former royal butler Paul Burrell, who was accused of the theft of Princess Diana's possessions. The trial eventually collapsed following an intervention by the Queen.
He travelled to Brazil to meet the parents of Jean Charles de Menezes, the electrician shot dead by police in July 2005 at Stockwell underground station after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.
As head of the special inquiry squad, nicknamed the "celebrity squad", Yates handled a series of sensitive cases, notably the conviction for perjury of the novelist and former Conservative party chairman Lord Archer, the investigation of the television presenter John Leslie over claims of rape and the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? fraud case.
In 2006 he was appointed assistant commissioner, then took over from Bob Quick as head of counter-terrorism in 2009 following an embarrassing security breach.
But it was the tortuous and futile investigation into the Labour "cash-for-honours" allegations that thrust him most prominently into the limelight.
The 16-month inquiry ended in July 2007 with no charges brought.
Senior Labour figures said Yates and his officers – who carried out a dawn swoop on the Downing Street aide Ruth Turner and arrested Tony Blair's friend and envoy Lord Levy – had been heavy-handed. Yates insisted he had simply been following the evidence and also noted that his officers had at times received "less than full co-operation" from those allegedly involved.
Those remarks were echoed last week when Yates appeared before the select committee to explain why he had chosen not to reopen the News of the World phone-hacking investigation in 2009 after the Guardian claimed hundreds of voice messages had been hacked.
"It is a matter of great concern that, for whatever reason, the News of the World appears to have failed to co-operate in the way that we now know they should have with the relevant police inquiries up until January of this year," he said.
"They have only recently supplied information and evidence that would clearly have had a significant impact on the decisions that I took in 2009 had it been provided to us."
Had he been in possession of such evidence two years ago, said Yates, "I would have made different decisions."
His testimony did not impress the committee. During the hearing MPs passed notes to the chair containing one-word descriptions of Yates's evidence.
Some wrote "evasive" but when Yates finished, the committee's chair, Keith Vaz, said he and his colleagues had found his evidence "unconvincing".
Even so, Yates continued to struggle against what was fast becoming inevitable.
Asked by Vaz if he had considered his position, Yates told him: "If you are suggesting that I should resign for what the News of the World has done, I think that is probably unfair."
Pressed again on whether he thought he would keep his job, Yates insisted it was "not a resignation matter".
But the fatal blow to Yates of the Yard's career was dealt on Sunday when Sir Paul Stephenson resigned, leaving his friend and subordinate – the Met's public face of the phone-hacking inquiry – with no choice.
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