14 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The former legal manager at the News of the World has denied a “culture of cover-up” at the paper in settling a phone hacking claim in 2008.
Tom Crone told the Leveson Inquiry today that News International’s payout to Professional Footballers Association boss Gordon Taylor over a phone hacking claim was made to avoid “reputational damage” from bad publicity. Taylor was eventually paid over £700,000 by NI in 2008, in payment authorised by News Corp boss James Murdoch.
Crone also reiterated his assertion that Murdoch was made aware of “direct and hard evidence” that phone hacking went beyond “one rogue reporter”, saying he had shown Murdoch a copy of the “damning email” that implicated other News of the World reporters in the practice at a 2008 meeting.
Yet, in a letter to MPs released yesterday, Murdoch said he had not read a key email sent to him in June of the same year by former editor Colin Myler that indicated the practice was not limited to one journalist.
When asked by Lord Justice Leveson if the hacking allegations raised concerns about how NI approached ethical compliance, Crone replied that, in alerting Murdoch, he had notified the highest levels of the company.
“I didn’t see corporate compliance as really within my role,” Crone said, adding that ultimate responsibility lay with Murdoch.
However, former director of legal affairs at News International, Jonathan Chapman, told the Inquiry he believed compliance was within Crone’s remit and “would have been picked up by lawyers on the editorial side”.
Reiterating his tesimony from yesterday, Crone also denied knowing that Derek Webb, who was hired by the News of the World in 2010 to survey two lawyers for phone hacking victims, was a private detective. While he admitted he knew Webb was a former policeman, he repeated he was under the impression he was an accredited freelance journalist, with the paper urging Webb to join the National Union of Journalists.
Crone argued surveillance was standard practice in journalism, arguing that “there’s not a newspaper in the country that doesn’t occasionally or regularly watch people.”
It was also revealed that in one email from former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner, Webb was referred to as “silent shadow”, though Crone denied that this indicated Webb was an investigator.
This afternoon the Inquiry heard from former editor Colin Myler, who joined the tabloid in 2007 after the resignation of Andy Coulson in the wake of the 2006 phone hacking scandal. In a lengthy back-and-forth with counsel to the Inquiry, Robert Jay QC, Myler reiterated the steps he took to “change” the culture of the paper, which he described as “laddish”. Upon joining the paper he ordered all cash payments be recorded and have a “compelling justification”, and notified staff that the use of private investigators was only permitted in exceptional circumstances.
“Whatever acts that individuals took part in, the full force of the law should take care of them,” Myler said.
He added that he did not recognise the picture painted of the tabloid by Paul McMullan as one where blagging, phone hacking and “doing rather disagreeable things” was rife.
Yet Jay was keen to remind him of some of the paper’s questionable coverage under his editorship, namely the paper’s 2008 splash on Max Mosley, in which the ex-Formula 1 boss was accused of partaking in a Nazi-themed orgy. To Lord Justice Leveson’s amazement, Myler defended publishing the Mosley video on the paper’s website, arguing it was “custom” and not playing to “prurient interest”.
He conceded, however, that he should have reprimanded chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck over contentious emails sent at news editor Ian Edmonson’s request to two women involved in the orgy about a follow-up story. In agreement with Leveson, Myler said the messages were “totally inappropriate”.
He was also pressed about the paper’s 2008 publication of Kate McCann’s dairies on her missing daughter, Madeleine. Asked why he did not seek the McCanns’ consent before publishing, Myler said he was assured Edmonson had made the family’s spokesman aware of the story. Had she known, Myler said, he would not have published. “I felt very bad that she didn’t know,” he said.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with further evidence from Myler, as well as private investigator Derek Webb and Daniel Sanderson, a former News of the World reporter whose name appeared on the story about McCann’s diaries.
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13 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The former legal manager at the now defunct News of the World has told the Leveson Inquiry he first advised the paper on phone hacking in 2004, two years before the first arrests were made in relation to the practice.
After being pressed by an impatient Lord Justice Leveson, Tom Crone, visibly concerned about breaching legal privilege, revealed that he had advised the paper on the practice two years before the then royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were arrested and later convicted for hacking into the phones of members of the Royal family.
With Leveson anxious not to prejudice the ongoing criminal investigation into the practice, Crone was not asked further questions about the issue, but did add later that he believed the paper’s defence that hacking did not go beyond “one rogue reporter” was “erroneous from the outset”. Meanwhile, in a letter to MPs released today, News Corp boss James Murdoch said he had not read a key email sent to him in June 2008 by former editor Colin Myler that indicated the practice was not limited to the “rogue reporter”. One email in the thread warned of a “further nightmare scenario” arising out of a phone hacking case brought forward by Professional Footballers’ Association CEO Gordon Taylor.
Moving on from matters of phone hacking, Crone described the News of the World’s use of private investigators. He said the only ones he knew of that were commissioned by the paper were Mulcaire and Steve Whittamore, the PI involved in personal data breaches uncovered in Operation Motorman. He added that PIs were not used at the paper after the Goodman-Mulcaire convictions in 2007, and that Myler introduced measures to “eliminate illegal or unethical practices”.
Crone’s written evidence also stated that private investigators were commissioned “on a handful of occasions” to check matters that may arise in post-publication litigation.
Crone told the Inquiry he was “not a guardian of ethics” and that his job was merely to “advise on legal risk”.
He denied being consulted about plans for a follow-up story to the paper’s notorious 2008 splash on Max Mosley that accused the ex-Formula 1 boss of taking part in a Nazi-themed orgy. Crone also claimed he was not asked to advise on the posting of a video of Mosley apparently engaging in the orgy to the paper’s website. He said he felt the footage was “pushing it”, but did not advise for it to be removed.
Mosley sued the paper for breach of privacy in 2008 and was paid £60,000 in damages. Crone claimed he was not asked to advise the paper in relation to any appeal, and said he was unaware if chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck had been disciplined after Mr Justice Eady’s ruling on the case.
Crone received a thorough grilling on his involvement from a stunned Lord Justice Leveson and Robert Jay QC. “Here was a high court judge,” Jay said, “was it not of interest to you…didn’t you feel that it fell within your jurisdiction?” Crone responded it did not.
In his testimony he also defended the publication of the Mosley article, arguing it was a “justifiable story without the Nazi element”, but conceded that Thurlbeck’s emails to two women involved in the orgy about a follow-up story were “close to” blackmail.
Also speaking today was Julian Pike, a partner at Farrer & Co, which has advised News International for around 25 years. He revealed that he knew in April 2010 that surveillance ordered by the News of the World was being carried out on phone hacking victims’ solicitors Mark Lewis and Charlotte Harris, but did not know of its nature or who was conducting it.
One hoped, Pike said, that the paper “would be able to carry out a very straightforward job of surveillance”. He denied knowledge of Derek Webb, the PI hired to survey Lewis and Harris, in 2010, and insisted that a surveillance operation would not always involve a private investigator, noting that a freelance journalist may also be commissioned to do the work.
Farrers was commissioned in May 2010 to look into the pair, over what Pike said was “perceived to be some very serious breaches of confidentiality over a significant period of time.” He added that it was a “perfectly legitimate exercise” but did not condone the subsequent surveillance of Lewis and Harris’s families.
Earlier in the day the Inquiry heard from Lawrence Abramson, formerly of solicitors Harbottle & Lewis, who were hired by NI to review around 2,500 internal emails following claims by Goodman that the then editor, Andy Coulson, knew about phone hacking at the paper and that others were involved.
Abramson revealed that around a dozen emails reviewed by the firm could have been “potentially embarrassing”, leading to “adverse publicity” and showing NI in “an unfavourable light”. He said the emails showed confidential sources, cash payments and an “active involvement” in Goodman’s prosecution, namely that NI “tried to influence how the defence was conducted”.
He added that he felt the emails “fell outside what I had been asked to consider because they did not suport Mr Goodman’s allegations.”
He also noted that, while working for NI, he had not seen emails from 2003 that may also have been significant. Abramson was asked if he has since seen them, and said his advice to the company would have been different had he known about the emails in 2007.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with further evidence from Tom Crone, as well as the News of the World’s former editor, Colin Myler, and Jon Chapman, News International’s former legal affairs chief.
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12 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The former chief reporter of the News of the World has Denied any involvement with the paper’s strategy over publishing a story accusing ex-Formula 1 boss Max Mosley of engaging in a Nazi-themed orgy,
Neville Thurlbeck told the Leveson Inquiry he was not involved in any decison to put video footage of Mosley’s orgy on the News of the World website. He added that he was not instructed by the newsdesk to notify Mosley of the story, and therefore did not seek his comment.
“I am just person who is investigating [a story]”, Thurlbeck said.
Lord Justice Leveson seemed stunned at Thurlbeck’s lack of involvement. “Aren’t you being a bit unkind to yourself,” he asked, “you were the chief reporter.”
Thurlbeck responded that strategy decisions were made by the editor. “The chief reporter and the news editor…are all very grand-sounding titles but they don’t really call the shots at all.”
Thurlbeck said he imagined the editor would fear the story would be prevented from coming out if Mosley were notified prior to publication. “We all know Mr Mosley would have sought an injunction,” he told the Inquiry. in the event of an interim injunction, he said, the story would have been leaked and become the “currency and property of our rivals.”
Thurlbeck agreed with counsel to the Inquiry, Robert Jay QC, that there was no public interest in the piece without the suggestion of a Nazi theme, and it was this feature that “persuaded” him the story was in the public interest. He said the consenus at the paper was “we had a legitimate story we need to run.”
Thurlbeck received fierce questioning from Jay and Leveson. He was examined over emails to the women involved in the Mosley orgy about a follow-up story. They were offered anonymity, a sum of money and pixellation of their photographs, or the opposite if they did not agree to the paper’s terms. Thurlbeck took full responsibility for sending the emails, but told the Inquiry they were drafted by news editor Ian Edmonson.
“It was offering the girls a choice,” Thurlbeck claimed. Leveson pressed him, reminding him of Mr Justice Eady’s inference that the emails constituted blackmail, and asked if the girls’ right to privacy had been discussed at any point. Thurlbeck said it had not.
Mosley sued the paper for a breach of privacy in 2008. He was paid £60,000 in damages.
Thurlbeck also defended his splash on David Beckham’s affair with Rebecca Loos, noting that the footballer had cultivated and marketed an image of having a fairytale marriage. “We felt it important to expose it as a sham,” Thurlbeck said.
He repeatedly refuted evidence given to the Inquiry by former News of the World reporter Paul McMullan that painted an image of corruption at the redtop. Thurlbeck asserted that the paper’s staff were “exemplary” and that the culture at the paper was one of “thoroughness”. He added that McMullan’s view that circulation defined public interest was a “travesty”.
Thurlbeck added that a greater focus on privacy matters had rendered kiss and tell stories a “dead” genre.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with evidence from the News of the World’s former head of legal, Tom Crone; Farrer & Co lawyer Julian Pike; and Harbottle & Lewis’ Lawrence Abramson.
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09 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The former Information Commissioner has denied that there was a policy of not investigating journalists during Operation Motorman.
Testifying at the Leveson Inquiry, Richard Thomas CBE said “there was no policy from the outset that we were not going to go against the press.”
He added he did not want to “let the press off the hook” but was advised by the ICO’s legal team that the financial aspect of prosecuting journalists over the use of private investigators to obtain personal data was too great.
The ICO’s counsel’s written advice, shown to the Inquiry on Monday, stated that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute journalists. Yet both he and the Office’s in-house lawyer told Thomas that journalists confronted would be well-briefed and well-armed, “like a barrel of monkeys”.
Thomas also denied any recollection of Motorman’s lead investigator Alec Owens suggesting journalists should be investigated, or of former deputy Francis Aldhouse saying the press were “too big” to take on.
On Monday Aldhouse himself denied saying this, negating Owens’s testimony.
Thomas said he was not involved in any discussion of investigating journalists, adding he was unaware of any decision that anyone “actively considering” prosecuting journalists.
His focus, he said, was the prosecution of private investigators, who he called “the middlemen who were organising the illegal trade”.
After a series of grilling questions from Robert Jay QC, counsel to the Inquiry, Thomas said he took full responsibility for everything that happened, while adding that it was hard to have details of what takes place in a large organisation.
He repeated that he was pleased no journalists were prosecuted, noting that would be “very demanding indeed” on the ICO. Journalists confronted would have “gone straight to Strasbourg”, he said, had they raised issues of freedom of expression.
Thomas told the Inquiry that “prosecution is not the only way to deal with a particular problem”, adding that the 2004 prosecution of private investigator Steve Whittamore produced a “perverse outcome” in his conditional discharge.
In a letter to the former chairman of the PCC, Christopher Meyer, Thomas had also written that the body could provide “more satisfactory outcomes than legal proceedings” in taking on the issue.
Discussing the outcomes of Motorman and its findings, Thomas said he could not categorically say all the journalists identified had committed offences. “They were driving the market,” he said.
When pressed by Jay, Thomas admitted that he could not think of a public interest defence for obtaining the contact numbers of friends or family through a private investigator. He added it would indicate a breach of section 55 of the Data Protection Act “at some stage”.
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