Ashford MP Damian Green says the possibility that he could be prosecuted over leaks from the Home Office hang over him like a cloud for months.

The shadow immigration minister has described how the saga of his arrest and the months of uncertainty before learning that he would face no charges took a personal toll as he tried to continue with his frontline job as shadow immigration minister and as a constituency MP.

But he said he did not plan to take any action against the Metropolitan Police over his arrest and said he intended to draw a line on what had happened and focus instead on the political ramifications.

Talking about the long wait to learn of his fate, he said: "It hangs over you like a cloud all the time. I’ve been determined to carry on with my job as Ashford MP and shadow immigration minister and by and large have succeeded in doing so. One of the things that has helped me enormously in what has been a trying time has been the widespread support from all over Ashford, from people of all political persuasions who find the idea of an opposition politician being arrested as something very un-British and something they do not want to see happen."

He added: "Politics is often a fairly rough business but I have been absolutely convinced from the moment this started that I’d done nothing wrong. That gave me the strength to go through it."

Asked if he planned to make any formal complaint over the way he was arrested and the raid on his home in Charing and London and his parliamentary office at Westminster, he said: "I think the arguments are now the political arguments about how the Government is run and I want to concentrate on that. The big question is how we can change the culture of government. We have a government that is prepared to bully, cover up and react in an extreme way when cover-ups are exposed and we have to change that."

He rubbished a fresh claim by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith that the probe had been prompted because of concerns the leaks were compromising national security. "The Director of Public Prosecutions said there were no such implications and it is absurd for Jacqui Smith to maintain that there were."

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Meanwhile,there could be further embarrassment for the Government over the affair. Scotland Yard is expected to release a report detailing how the investigation was regarded as heavcy-handed. The report has been kept under wraps while the investigation was going on. Mr Green says he wants the report, which scrutinised the decision to use 15 police officers to arrest the MP and search his homes and Westminster office, to be made public.

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In a statement issued on Thursday, the Crown Prosecution Service said it was not pursuing any charges.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, decided there should be no charges brought against Mr Green or Christopher Galley, following a Metropolitan Police Service investigation.

In a statement, Mr Green's lawyer, Michael Caplan, said: "Mr Green has always emphatically denied these allegations. The police need now to learn the lessons from their operations. There was no necessity to arrest Mr Green. He should have been asked to attend the police station voluntarily."

Gordon Williams, constituency agent for the Ashford MP, said: "I have spoken to Damian briefly and he is naturally delighted and obviously greatly relieved.

"It means he can now carry on doing his job and speaking out in an unfettered way on matters he has always said were in the public interest."

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