21 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A former financial reporter at the Daily Mirror has told the Leveson Inquiry that phone hacking seemed to happen daily at the paper, and was “openly discussed”.
James Hipwell, who wrote the City Slickers column for the paper from 1998 before being jailed in 2006 for writing about firms he owned shares in, stood by his witness statement in which he said phone hacking was a “bog-standard journalistic tool”. He told the Inquiry the practice was openly discussed by the showbiz desk, recounting that the team had deleted a message from a celebrity’s voicemail to stop the rival paper, the Sun, intercepting and getting the story.
“It didn’t seem to me to be an ethical way to behave, but it seemed a generally accepted method to get a story,” Hipwell said.
He said he did not report the practice to former editor Piers Morgan because it seemed that it was “entirely accepted” by senior editors on the paper.” He said that, while he did not see hacking talked about in front of genuine management of the company, he witnessed it being discussed with senior editorial managers.
Hipwell also said he witnessed a colleague hacking into Morgan’s phone in early 2000, although he said he did not think it elicited any useful information.
Morgan told the Inquiry yesterday he had “no reason to believe” the practice was occurring at the tabloid while he was editor from 1995 to 2004.
In a witness statement to the Inquiry, Morgan said Hipwell’s claims were the “unsubstantiated allegations of a liar and convicted criminal.”
Hipwell said he could not prove Morgan knew about the practice, but added that “looking at his style of editorship, I would say it was unlikely he didn’t know it was going on.”
He said Morgan was the tabloid’s “beating heart” and “dear leader”. He described how Morgan would go up behind reporters and look at what they were writing on screen, and would re-write headlines and copy late at night after publication.
“The newspaper was built around the cult of Piers,” Hipwell said, noting that as editor he did his job “very well”.
Yesterday Morgan told the Inquiry editors only knew 5% of what their reporters were doing, and that he only “very occasionally” asked reporters about the sources of their stories.
Yet, Hipwell said, “nothing really happened on that [showbiz] desk without Piers knowing about it.”
Hipwell also contradicted Morgan’s statement that the PCC code was on the wall of Mirror newsroom. He told the Inquiry he was never briefed about the code or journalistic ethics, and that he did not see any visible signs of ethical leadership from the paper’s senior managers.
He said corporate governance was not a term used in the newspaper office.
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20 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan told the Leveson Inquiry he does not believe phone hacking took place at the paper under his leadership.
Morgan said he had “no reason to believe” the practice was occurring at the tabloid. He added that he has never been made aware of any evidence of paying police officers while he was at the Daily Mirror.
He admitted private investigators were used “from time to time” at the redtop, but said he was “never directly involved”.
“Certainly all journalists knew they had to act within the confines of the law,” he said.
Morgan edited the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004, as well as the News of the World from January 1994 to November 1995.
Speaking to the Inquiry via video link this afternoon, Morgan challenged former Mirror reporter James Hipwell’s written statement that phone hacking was so frequent it seemed like a “bog-standard journalistic tool”.
Morgan said that “not a single person has made a formal or legal complaint against the Daily Mirror for phone hacking.”
He added he did not believe he had ever listened to recordings of what he knew to be illegally obtained voicemail messages.
Being quizzed about his diary entry from January 2001, in which he referred to the “little trick” of being able to listen to mobile phone messages, Morgan said he could not remember who had made him aware of this method.
During questioning by counsel to the Inquiry, Robert Jay QC, Morgan admitted he had listened to a tape recording of a voicemail message from Sir Paul McCartney to Heather Mills, but declined to say how he obtained it so as not to “compromise” his source.
When asked if he was acting ethically, Morgan said, “it doesn’t necessarily follow that listening to someone else talking to someone else is unethical.”
Lord Justice Leveson said he was “perfectly happy” to call Mills to see whether she authorised Morgan to listen to her voicemail.
He was also asked why he said in an April 2007 interview that phone hacking was “widespread”. He replied that “the Fleet Street rumour mill, which is always very noisy and not always particularly accurate, was buzzing loudly”, adding that he felt Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter jailed for phone hacking in the same year, was “made a scapegoat”.
“I feel sorry for him,” Morgan said.
Describing the industry, Morgan said that editors “know only 5 per cent of what their journalists are doing at any given time”, and that he had only “very occasionally” asked reporters about the sources of their stories.
He described victims’ lawyer David Sherborne’s assertion that he had learned of phone hacking through whistleblower Steven Nott as “absolute rubbish”. He said Sherborne was “massively self-inflating” the importance of the story, and that Nott was “slightly barking” and a leading a “psychotic campaign”.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with Hipwell giving evidence.
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09 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The former Information Commissioner told the Leveson Inquiry he was disappointed by the Press Complaints Commission’s lax response to allegations of illegal activities among the British press.
Richard Thomas said he wanted “loud, strident condemnation” from the regulator, having written to them in November 2003 after being advised by the ICO’s legal team that prosecuting journalists over the use of private investigators would be too costly. Yet he was told by PCC Chairman Sir Christopher Meyer that the regulator’s role was not to enforce the law. Thomas said he “just did not buy that line”, that the PCC could not intervene because the use of private investigators by the press was a criminal matter.
“I thought their response was less strident [than I expected],” Thomas said. “I think they could have and should have done more.”
He added that attempts to develop a “guidance note” with the PCC ground to a halt in April 2004.
Thomas reflected that, “with hindsight, I think I would’ve been more aggressive and assertive” with the PCC.
He noted his surprise and outrage at the PCC’s assertion that the ICO’s report on Motorman’s findings had “come out of the blue”, given that Thomas and PCC representatives had had two meetings about its contents.
Thomas described the data breaches exposed by Operation Motorman as “pernicious”, and felt deterrents would prevent further wrongdoing. In a “breakthrough” government consultation paper issued in July 2006, Thomas proposed two-year prison terms for those found guilty of trading in illegal data.
He admitted he was not expecting a “powerful campaign” of hostility from the tabloids. “It left me with the message that we were challenging something that went to the heart of tabloid activity,” he said. “As somebody said to me ‘you do realise you are challenging their business model’.”
Thomas reiterated his agenda “was not to send journalists to prison”, but to correct bad behaviour.
The Inquiry continues on Monday, with evidence from former News International staff.
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02 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Over the past ten days, Lord Justice Leveson has been overseeing an Inquiry that resembles more a daytime chat show than the first public examination into the standards and ethics of the British press in thirty years.
There have been some memorable moments: ex-Formula 1 boss Max Mosley claiming Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre was “completely naive about sex”; we learned Hugh Grant‘s middle name is Mungo; and on two occasions — to the horror of the the press gallery —Leveson admitted he had not read the morning papers.
But the comedy gold of the Inquiry surely came from Paul McMullan. Those watching sat agog as the News of the World deputy features editor ran through his life as a tabloid hack. He told us stories of pretending to be “Brad the rent boy” to expose a priest — “there’s two of us, in our underpants, running through a nunnery at midnight after getting the priest…it was such fun” — he admitted he “loved giving chase” to celebrities (“fun” before Princess Diana died, he said); he had tried and failed to hack David Beckham’s phone; he claimed “circulation defines the public interest”; and, in a quote he’ll now forever be associated with, affirmed that “privacy is for paedos.”
Then there was his solemn regret for having discovered actor Denholm Elliott’s homeless and drug-addicted daughter begging outside Chalk Farm tube station, took her to his flat, photographed her topless and turned it into a News of the World splash. She later killed herself.
Blend these two and you get an Inquiry that has been a cocktail of surreal, intense, sometimes hilarious, and at other times haunting.
In the first week of evidence, it was at times impossible not to feel a sense of guilt for being a journalist, as witnesses gave example after damning example of press intrusion, harassment and, in some cases, indefensible and vile exploitation. In a raw, 30-minute account, the Dowlers recounted the moment they managed to get through to their missing daughter Milly’s voicemail, leading them to believe she was alive. It was only nine years later, this year, that they were told the reason they had managed to was because Milly’s voicemail messages had been hacked and deleted to make room for new messages to come through. She was almost certainly dead at the time.
How bizarre it was to have that chilling testimony juxtaposed with Hugh Grant’s lengthy afternoon account of press intrusion, sprinkled with his wit and movie-star charm.
As the first week drew to a close, paparazzi emerged as the villains. Sienna Miller described being chased down her street by 10 photographers —- “take away the cameras,” she said, “and you’ve got a pack of men chasing a woman”. Sheryl Gascoigne recalled driving to a police station to chase off a paparazzo who was following her, only to be told nothing could be done. JK Rowling had more than one tale of being long-lensed while out with her family, with her daughter, then aged eight, being snapped in her swimsuit. These photos were later printed in OK! magazine. An image, she said, “can spread around the world like a virus”.
It was hard not to sympathise with the witnesses as they doled out story after story of questionable press standards, reminding us of the worst of the trade to which we belong and have cultivated, seemingly limitless in its desire to get just one shot.
This reminder turned into guilt with the stories of ordinary people. The pain of the McCanns was almost palpable: a couple, desperate in the search for their missing daughter, being accused in the papers more than once of killing her and freezing her body. The wrongly arrested Bristol landlord Chris Jefferies described how, in a matter of days, the British media’s distorted coverage had “vilified” him and left him “effectively under house arrest.” And there was the haunting revelation by the Watsons, whose remaining son had killed himself and was found clutching copies of the articles that had, they said, defamed their murdered daughter.
That the Dowlers in particular remained balanced, conceding that the press had been helpful in spreading information about their missing daughter, made the tabloid pill an even more bitter one to swallow.
As journalists took to the witness box, we were been doled out sizeable home truths about the British press, elements of which Alastair Campbell deemed “putrid”. He slammed the Daily Mail for a “culture of negativity”, where speed and ideology reign supreme. Former tabloid hack Richard Peppiatt portrayed a tabloid culture of bullying, fabrication and agenda-setting more intent on delivering impact than seeking truth. And then there was McMullan, who revealed his editors did indeed know about phone hacking and were “scum” for denying it.
The PCC was criticised throughout the Inquiry, notably for its failure to investigate phone hacking in 2009 or mitigate in the coverage doled out to the McCanns. JK Rowling called the regulator “a wrist-slapping exercise at best”. Libel was also repeatedly highlighted as something for the “rich”.
Various solutions that were offered included a public interest advisory body to help guide reporters; a regulator with the power to issue fines and impose sanctions; and a league table of newspapers to see which ones adhered to a code of conduct. A cheaper and more accessible system in which it would be possible for libel or privacy cases to heard in county courts, not just the high court, was also suggested. Unsurprisingly, Max Mosley championed a policy of prior notification to warn people before publishing stories exposing their private lives.
The past ten days of revelations, criticisms and potential solutions hammered home the quandary Leveson has on his hands: how to avoid infringing free speech — “the cornerstone of democracy”, to quote Hugh Grant — while finding ways to restrain further bad behaviour in the British press. Listening to Nick Davies’ account alone, recounting a history of rigorous and meticulous reporting, we were reminded that it was an act of brilliant journalism that exposed an act of putrid journalism; and it is of credit to this Inquiry that it is giving those on the receiving end a rare platform to criticise the redtops.
But there is far more to come. Before Christmas we will hear from the former information commissioner, a solicitor for phone hacking victims, and News International. In the new year editors and proprietors will take to the witness box to face the accusations of unethical behaviour they have received.
McMullan may have set the entertainment bar high, but what will go on in court 73 is set to be no less intense than ten days just passed.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
