28 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Political blogger Paul Staines, better known as Guido Fawkes, was today summoned to the Leveson Inquiry to explain how he gained access to Alastair Campbell’s witness statement three days before Campbell was due to appear in the Inquiry witness box.
Staines posted a draft of the former Number 10 communications director’s written evidence on his website yesterday, claiming he obtained it legally. The document was still available on the site today. [Update: the statement was removed at 9:30pm tonight.]
Staines is due to appear at the Inquiry on Thursday afternoon.
Lord Justice Leveson warned this morning that anyone leaking or publishing future witness statements could face high court action under a breach of section 19 of the Inquiries Act, which restricts the publication or disclosure of any testimony prior to it being made orally, outside the confidentiality circle of Leveson, his assessors, the Inquiry team and core participants.
Leveson added that he did not want to give Staines “the oxygen of additional publicity”, and so withdrew his plan of posting Campbell’s statement on the Inquiry website today, deciding to delay publication until Wednesday — the originally intended time. Associated Newspapers’ counsel, Jonathan Caplan QC, argued in favour of delaying publication, saying that relevant parties should be given time to make submissions on the Campbell evidence before it is made public. Robert Jay QC, counsel to the Inquiry, said that the version on Staines’ website was “quite an early draft.”
As with last week’s evidence, today also saw further exposure of the worst excesses of the tabloid press. Chris Jefferies, the former teacher wrongly arrested on suspicion of murdering his tenant Joanna Yeates last year, described how the media “shamefully vilified” him with coverage that was “intended to appeal in every possible way to people’s voyeuristic instincts”.
He and Jay ran through a series of headlines, largely from the Sun and the Mirror. One read “Murder police quiz nutty professor”, another “Was killer waiting in Jo’s flat?” A slew of articles labelled him a “creepy oddball”, “lewd”, a “peeping Tom” who had an obsession with death and was associated with a convicted paedophile. “The press were trying to have it every possible way,” he said.
While in custody, Jefferies was unaware of the coverage. He said lawyers and friends advised him against reading it or to go out and visit friends for fear of being “besieged” by the press. ” I felt like some recusant priest at time of reformation,” he said, “going from safe house to safe house.”
The stories were untrue, and Jefferies successfully sued eight papers in total for libel earlier this year, with the Sun being fined £18,000 and the Daily Mirror £50,000 respectively for contempt of court.
Jefferies said he would “never be able to recover” from the events of the past twelve months, and that “there will always be people…who retain the impression that I’m some sort of very weird character who is best avoided.”
Broadcaster Anne Diamond and singer Charlotte Church also gave evidence. Diamond claimed she had been targeted by Rupert Murdoch after telling him his newspapers “seem intent on ruining people’s lives.” She described a phone call she received from a News of the World reporter after a visit to a Harley Street clinic. “He said, ‘we know you’re pregnant, confirm or deny’,” Diamond said. Out of fear of miscarrying, Diamond denied she was pregnant, but said the paper called her a “liar” when her pregnancy was eventually revealed. She added that a Sun reporter posed as a doctor in the hospital where she gave birth.
She described the death of her son from cot death when he was four months old, and how, within an hour, a scrum of photographers were outside her home. Diamond added that she and her husband had “begged” Fleet Street editors to stay away from the funeral, but the couple were long-lensed by a photographer there. A photo of them carrying their son’s coffin then on the front pages of the Sun. Diamond revealed that the paper had told her and her husband they had the photo and would print it with or without the couple’s permission; claiming their image would be tarnished if they refused to co-operate with the tabloid’s cot death campaign.
When asked by the Inquiry counsel why she credited the paper with raising funds for a cot death campaign in an article earlier this year, Diamond said: “the Sun was a very large circulation tabloid paper, and we were able to use it as a force for good.”
She also upheld regulation of broadcasting as proof that solid, investigative journalism can thrive. “I wish we could achieve same in the press,” she said.
Church, meanwhile, recalled having to “suffer the indignity” photographers trying to take photos up her skirt and down her top; she described a News of the World story reporting her father’s affair as “horrific”; revealed that the paper printed details of where she lived despite having previously published a threat of plots to kidnap her.
The Sun revealed she was pregnant before her family knew, Church told the Inquiry. She said she suspected a voicemail from her doctor had been hacked by the paper. “Only my doctor and partner knew,” she said.
Church also claimed that, aged 13, she was offered either “good press” or £100,000 to sing at Rupert Murdoch’s wedding to Wendi Deng. While Church and her mother were keen on the payment, the singer’s management advised she waive the fee. Church was told Murdoch was “a very, very powerful man and [I] could certainly do with a favour of this magnitude.”
News Corporation, meanwhile, has denied the allegations and said that Church’s performance was a surprise to Murdoch.
The finger was also pointed at the police today, with former army intelligence officer Ian Hurst accusing the Metropolitan police of “corruption” and had covered up journalistic misdeeds.
Hurst was informed by BBC’s Panorama programme this year that his computer had been hacked by the News of the World, and was shown transcripts of his own emails that were sent to the Dublin office of paper in July 2006. Hurst was told that the paper hired a private detective who employed a “specialist hacker”, known as Mr X, to access his computer. Hurst revealed that, through sending a bogus email in 2006, Mr X had infected the Hurst family’s computer with a Trojan programme that could allow him to access Hurst’s messages and other documents.
Mr Hurst added that documents seized in 2007 by the police showed the security on his computer had been compromised and information had been obtained. However, he added, the authorities chose not to act. Hurst was only told by the Metropolitan police about the hacking this year. The Metropolitan police, he said, had “let society down”.
Jane Winter, director of human rights organisation British Irish Rights Watch, also told the Inquiry today that Hurst had told her earlier this year that “confidential” and sensitive” emails between them had been accessed illegally.
The hearing continues tomorrow, with evidence from Guardian journalist Nick Davies, former News of the World reporter Paul McMullen, and ex-tabloid reporter Richard Peppiatt.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
24 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A litany of complaints and revelations at the Leveson Inquiry today concentrated on the contentious issue of the level of privacy those in the public eye can reasonably maintain.
It was a marathon session, and in a sobering testimony that took up much of the afternoon, Harry Potter author JK Rowling said she felt “under siege” by the press, listing a slew of incidents in which she and her family had been covertly photographed and followed by reporters.
She accused the press of putting her family under surveillance for their “amusement”, noting how photographers had camped outside her home. After a photo had been published of her house number and street name, Rowling was forced to move, saying it was “untenable” to stay at that address.
Rowling said protecting her children’s privacy was crucial. “A child, no matter who their parents are, deserves privacy”, she said, adding that she and her husband had gone to great lengths to prevent their children from being photographed or targeted.
She spoke of feeling “invaded” having found a note in her daughter’s schoolbag addressed to her from a journalist. On another occasion, a reporter had contacted her daughter’s school, telling the headmaster the girl had upset other pupils by telling them Harry Potter dies in the final book. Rowling said her daughter had not done so, and was made out to be a “bully”. Photographs of her daughter, then aged eight, in a swimming costume also appeared in OK! magazine.
Rowling passionately defended the occasions when she had spoken openly about her personal life. “Our cultural life would be greatly diminished if creative people not allowed to say where they received inspiration,” she said, noting that she had openly discussed having suffered from depression, and had received letters of support in return.
Ex-Formula 1 boss Max Mosley, who sued the News of the World in 2009 for breach of privacy, also gave evidence today, reiterating his staunch campaign for reform in celebrity privacy laws.
Mosley was at the centre of a 2008 News of the World splash which falsely reported him taking part in a “sick Nazi orgy” with five prostitutes.
He said that when he challenged the story, “the entire resources of News International were deployed to destroy me.” He described that, when he took the paper to court, their response to send a film of him taking part in an alleged sado-masochistic orgy to the governing body of world motorsport, the FIA. He then launched legal action against the tabloid, receiving £60,000 in damages for breach of privacy.
During his lengthy account, he dismissed the Sun headline ‘The Day Freedom Got Spanked’ in response to his case as “typical of gutter press.” Responding to Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre’s accusation of Mosley being “guilty of unimaginable depravity,” the ex-motorsport boss said “it reflects badly on his [Dacre’s] imagination.”
Mosley reaffirmed his case for newspapers adopting a prior-notification policy to warn people before publishing stories exposing their private lives. “Once information is made public, it can never be made private again,” he said. “The only effective remedy is to stop it becoming public.” In May 2011, Mosley lost his bid impose a legal duty of prior notification, with the European Court of Human Rights ruling that such a system would have a “chilling effect” on the press.
Mosley also veered into the contentious territory of policing content online, noting that search engines such as Google “could stop a story appearing, but don’t or won’t as a matter of principle.”
“The really dangerous thing is the search engines,” he said, to which Leveson responded: “That’s part of the problem.”
Mosley is currently taking litigation action in 22 countries and suing Google in France and Germany. He added he is considering bringing proceedings against the search engine in California in an attempt to remove certain search results.
Also appearing today was actress Sienna Miller, who described how she had been verbally abused and spat at by photographers, who had on occasion chased her down the street. “I felt like I was living in some sort of video game,” she said, noting that the press intrusion and surveillance left her in a state of “complete anxiety and paranoia.”
Miller, who has taken out a court order against the paparazzi, revealed she had accused friends and family of having leaked stories to the press. She later learned she and her friends had been victims of phone (and in Miller’s own case, email) hacking, and that private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had “created a project” under her name. “It’s unfathomable to feel like they [the press] can justify doing this,” she said.
Her lawyer, Mark Thomson, was also in the witness box today, primarily discussing regulation. He accused the Press Complaints Commission of wearing “too many hats”, and that an improved body “with a few extra teeth” would not work.
He said an effective regulator would need to deal with all news gatherers, including freelance photographers. As for the grey area of regulating content online, Thomson said: “bloggers are best ignored until they reach a critical mass of attention in the newspapers.”
He added that redtops and tabloids do not want the PCC to be effective. “As long as it exists, this kind of activity will go on, he said.”
The Inquiry will continue on Monday, with evidence from Chris Jefferies, Anne Diamond, Charlotte Church, Jane Winter and Ian Hurst.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
23 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The father of missing toddler Madeleine McCann called for change in the British press at the Leveson Inquiry today, saying that a “commercial imperative is not acceptable.”
In a powerful reminder of some of British media’s darkest days, Gerry McCann, with counsel to the Inquiry Robert Jay QC, ran through a series of Daily Express and Daily Star articles from September 2007 to January 2008 insinuating that he and his wife, Kate, had killed or sold their daughter, who went missing in Portugal in May 2007.
One headline read, “It was her blood in parents’ hire car, new DNA tests report”. Kate McCann said this was untrue.
Jay said there were about 25 similar stories over a three to four month period implying the McCanns had hidden their daughter’s corpse in the car. Another article was built around a Portuguese story that quoted a police officer saying he did not know if Madeleine was dead or alive. His quotation of “probably dead” turned into the headline “She’s Dead” on the front page of The Mirror, McCann said.
David Sherborne, the lawyer representing core participant victims, last week called the red tops’ treatment of the McCanns a “national scandal.”
Describing legal action as a “last resort”, the McCanns accepted £550,000 in damages and apology from Express Newspapers in March 2008 for what the publisher admitted were “entirely untrue” and “defamatory” articles. The damages were donated to the fund set up to find the toddler.
Gerry McCann, while conceding the press had been useful on occasions of appeals launched to help find his daughter, said that the “tremendous speculation” in reports that followed his daughter’s disappearance was unhelpful. “It’s crass and insensitive to say that engaging with the media to find our daughter meant the press could do what they liked,” he said.
Questions remain as to how the News of the World gained access to copies of Kate McCann’s diaries that she had written to her missing daughter. McCann revealed that the journal had been taken in the police clear-out of their holiday apartment in Portugal, and it was later deemed by Portuguese police as of no use to the investigation.
McCann said the paper’s printing of her diary in its entirety and without her knowledge showed “no respect for me as a grieving mother or as a human being, or for my daughter”. She added the experience left her feeling “totally violated.”
Wrapping up his testimony, Gerry McCann said that “lives are being harmed” on daily basis by stories that are distorted or factually incorrect. Of holding journalists to account, he said, “if they are repeat offenders they should lose their privilege of practising.”
Earlier in the day, solicitor Mark Lewis said that when journalists talk about press freedom, “it’s not freedom of the press they want, it’s freedom to do what they like.”
Lewis, who represents the Dowler family and was recently revealed as having been under surveillance by a private investigator hired by the News of the World, spoke out against statutory regulation of the press. He said that self-regulation “should be what journalists do and newspapers do themselves, not the PCC.”
He also warned of a “reverse chilling effect” if people cannot afford legal fees to bring a claim forward to stop certain information about them being printed.
Voicing his support for libel reform, Lewis advocated a cheaper and more accessible system in which it would be possible for libel or privacy cases to heard in county courts and not just the high court.
“Libel is something for the very rich,” he said, arguing against merely abolishing conditional fee agreements — in which fees are only payable in the case of a favourable results — would lead to people not being able to bring cases forward.
Also giving evidence today was journalist Tom Rowland, who argued that defamation lawyers acted as a “quality control mechanism”. He added that it was “wrong” to say that “having lawyers at your elbow inhibits press freedom”.
Sheryl Gascoigne, ex-wife of footballer Paul Gascoigne, also called for improved journalistic standards. While conceding media attention “comes with the territory” of being married to a celebrity, Gascoigne took issue with inaccurate reporting. “If you’re going to print anything about me, just make sure it’s factual,” she said.
She added, “the onus is on you as the victim to prove your innocence, not the journalist to prove what he has printed is true.”
She gave a detailed account of her experience of press intrusion, noting that papparazzi had camped outside her home, and that one photographer followed her as she drove to a police station to try to escape from him. Heavily pregnant at the time, Gascoigne was told by the police that they were not able to take action unless the photographer had touched her.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with anonymous evidence to be heard first from “HJK”, for which the court will be closed to press and public. Sienna Miller, JK Rowling, Max Mosley and Mark Thomson will follow.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
23 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
This article was first published in the Guardian
Nothing titillates journalists more than talking about their profession or, should I call it, their trade. The Leveson inquiry has spawned almost daily public discussions about the future of the Press Complaints Commission, freedom of the press and standards. At the last count three parliamentary committees are looking into the issue, listening to academics and former editors opine ad infinitum about “co-regulation”, “enhanced regulation”, “self-regulation” and “statutory regulation”.
Most of the time, however, the people who matter are silent or surly. Present-day tabloid and middle-market editors seem to have convinced themselves that the hacking scandal is a bit of a diversionary tactic by the government, and that, aside from a few technical changes here and there, it will blow over in time. Keep calm and carry on.
An atmosphere of denial permeated the recent Society of Editors conference. On the issue of phone hacking, many simply did not engage, beyond saying that the guilty will be punished and we will all move on. We have moved on … to the Royal Courts of Justice, and it does not make for a pleasant spectacle.
The first two days of victims’ hearings at Leveson have been enervating. From the quiet dignity of Milly Dowler’s parents to the fragile suffering of Mary-Ellen Field – sacked by Elle Macpherson, who wrongly suspected her of feeding the press – those who have suffered at the hands of the phone hackers have illustrated the bullying and the snooping of the hacks.Margaret and Jim Watson saw a child die as a result. Others had gone through breakdowns.
Their heart-rending testimony was somewhat overshadowed by Hugh Grant’s angry exchanges, his accusations against the Mail on Sunday, and the subsequent war of words among the lawyers. The more studied performance of comedian Steve Coogan this afternoon, including damning testimony against Andy Coulson, the prime minister’s former head of communications, was piercingly effective.
All the while Leveson has sat largely in silence, absorbing the magnitude of the task he has taken on. He has to find a way to prevent future criminality; to help create a new body that can regulate and punish quickly and effectively, and come up with guidelines on privacy that leave the private individual in peace but allow the press to expose the hypocritical. He needs to defend free expression and reinforce good investigative journalism that already faces a host of restrictions. He must try not to hasten the economic decline of an industry that is adopting increasingly desperate measures to keep itself afloat.
From everything I’ve seen of Leveson and those advising him, he gets it. Of course, caution is in order. Memories turn to the Hutton inquiry. The sharp questioning from the presiding judge then lulled everyone into a false sense of security. Hutton’s report was a shocker, a whitewash for government that opened the door to the emasculation of the BBC. And Leveson knows his recent history.
Yet those who need him most – the tabloids – are not helping him. By hiding or lashing out against their critics, the editors, proprietors and their legal teams are playing into the hands of the many voices calling for strict controls. Anyone who has sat before a parliamentary committee knows that the default position of MPs and peers is to hit back at the “beasts” in the media.
This is reflected in ministers’ positions. Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, told the Society of Editors not to underestimate the “shocking effects” of recent revelations. Later that day, Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, served warning about a government clampdown on contempt of court. He has since acted on his threat.
The PCC, under its new chairman, is looking at its own future. It aims to submit a detailed report to Leveson in the spring. By the nature of its constitution, it depends on the constructive engagement of its members. The more they resist, the more churlish their involvement with Leveson, the worse for the tabloids will be the result.
For a small army of celebrities the demise of the papers they loathe will be a cause for celebration. Yet the narrowing of a media discourse to an elite talking to an elite, through three or four “quality” papers, will ill serve freedom of expression and democracy. It is not too late for the tabloids to get real. Their obduracy is furrowing Leveson’s brow – and narrowing his room for manoeuvre.
John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship. He’s on twitter @johnkampfner
