Mosley Hires Lord Stevens To Find Source

Scandal-hit Max Mosley is believed to have hired private investigations company Quest – headed by Lord Stevens – to track down the source of what the FIA president believes was a media sting regarding his alleged participation in a ‘Nazi-style sex orgy’.

While Mosley has apologised for the embarrassment caused by the newspaper expose he has continually denied that the scenes had any Nazi connotations and has refused to stand down as FIA president despite mounting pressure.

Stevens, a former head commissioner at Scotland Yard, and his company Quest headed up the recent Premier League probe into corruption in top-flight transfers.

Shortly after the first revelations in the News of the World were published at the end of March, Mosley went on record as saying that a ‘specialist group’ had been employed to trap him by ‘clients’ whose identity had yet to be revealed – in other words, people who were separate to the newspaper. He claimed that this had been conveyed to him by ‘an impeccable high-level source close to the UK police and security services’.

It is understood that investigators employed by Quest visited the News of the World’s offices in London on Sunday.

Radovan Novak, the general secretary of the Czech Automobile Association and a long-time friend and supporter of the disgraced FIA president, was quoted in a Prague radio interview as apparently speculating that McLaren Mercedes could have been behind the expose although the meaning of Novak’s words was not abundantly clear.

Ron Dennis, the team principal of McLaren Mercedes, has issued his most trenchant denial yet that he, his company or any outside agency working for them had a hand in the media reports by writing to Novak requesting clarification of his remarks.

Said Dennis: ‘We are writing to Mr Novak and are currently considering the appropriate route via which the remarks that have been attributed to him may be withdrawn or corrected.

‘As I have consistently said whenever I have been asked about this, I categorically deny that I have anything to do with the News of the World’s investigation into Mr Mosley, neither does anyone connected with the McLaren Group or the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team. Neither does any agent or any other party acting on behalf of myself or anyone connected with the McLaren Group or the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team.’

Mosley faces a vote of confidence from the FIA Council in early June over his continued role as president. His term of office does not expire until 2009 under his current contract.