03 Apr 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The former crime editor of the News of the World says she believes a “distorted picture” has been presented of how journalists work.
“We do not live a champagne lifestyle and the reality of the day to day grind of journalism is far from glamorous,” Lucy Panton wrote in her witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry.
Panton, who has been arrested and bailed as part of Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan police’s investigation into payments to police officers, wrote that she found it “bizarre that there seems to be such interest in what champagne I did or did not drink.”
Discussing her contact with police officers, Panton wrote that her objective was to “have a long term relationship with the police, which meant an open and honest relationship with the people I met.”
She added: “I am a journalist and therefore my objective is to seek information but not to the detriment of a police operation. I have never met a senior officer who is so ill-informed and naive that he or she gives out information that they were not authorised to divulge.”
She told the Inquiry that former assistant commissioner John Yates had attended her wedding, “along with many other police officers”, some of whom were “friends”. Panton added that her contact with former Met commissioner Lord Blair was “minimal”, she had not had drinks with fellow ex-commissioner Lord Stevens in a pub or restaurant setting, and had drank champagne with police officers when others were present, namely at the Crime Reporters’ Association (CRA) Christmas parties.
She also described an October 2010 email sent to her by her then news editor James Mellor, in which Panton was asked if she had spoken to Yates about an aviation bomb plot story, as “banter”.
Mellor’s email, read to the Inquiry during Yates’ evidence on 1 March, read: “Think John Yates could be crucial here, have you spoken to him, really need an exclusive splash line, time to call in all those bottles of champagne.”
“It’s the way people spoke to each other in our office,” Panton told the Inquiry. “I would read that at that time as banter mixed with a bit of pressure”, she said, describing the message in her written statement as similar to “many I received at work that contained an element of banter with a serious note of expectation that they were relying on me for a big story”. She later added that she did not feel there was a bullying culture at the now defunct tabloid, and that pressure was “part of the job.”
Panton also said she was “sad” to hear from colleagues that lines of communication between police officers and the press “seem to have stopped”.
“I would hate to see crime reporting over and police feeling they can’t have professional relationships with journalists,” she added.
Also giving evidence today was Chief Superintendent Derek Barnett of the Police Superintendents’ Association, University of Leicester criminology lecturer Dr Rob Mawby and Ed Stearns, head of media at the Met’s renamed Directorate of Media & Communications (formerly known as Directorate of Public Affairs).
A directions hearing for the third module of the Inquiry, which will examine the relationship between the press and politicians, will take place this afternoon.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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02 Apr 12 | Leveson Inquiry
A former senior executive of the News of the World who was contracted to provide PR advice to the Scotland Yard has defended his police contacts.
Recalled to the Leveson Inquiry today, Neil Wallis brushed off the suggestion by Robert Jay QC that dining with officers might lead to a perception of “over-cosiness”, rejecting the notion that experienced officers such as Lord Stevens were “going to be seduced by me taking him out for steak & chips”.
He said his going out for dinner with a police officer was no different from a civil servant doing so with a businessman. “Have you ever had a working lunch with somebody more than once?” he asked the Inquiry. “It is the way of the world.”
Defending his trade, Wallis said: “Journalists live and die by their contacts. I nurtured these contacts because that’s what journalists do. ”
“I’ve built relationships with the police, politicians,” he said, “I haven’t put an arm lock on these people.”
He emphasised what he saw as a greater need for public officials to talk to journalists. “We need more talking, rather than less,” Wallis said, arguing it was healthier for democracy and a free press.
The Metropolitan police has faced criticism for awarding Wallis’s company, Chamy Media, a £24,000-a year contract to provide communications advice to the Met on a part-time basis from October 2009 to September 2010. Giving evidence at the Inquiry last month, former commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said that it was with hindsight that he regretted the force entering into a contract with Wallis. Last week, the Met’s communications chief, Dick Fedorcio, resigned after disciplinary proceedings were launched against him, with an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) into Wallis’ contract finding that Fedorcio had a case to answer for gross misconduct.
Discussing the arrangement, Wallis said his value was providing “crisis management” to the force.
He also described his working relationship with senior officers at the Met prior to his departure from journalism in 2009. Wallis dated this back to the the tenure of Lord Condon (1993-2000) and stressed the setup was “corporate, strategic” and not about “a quick hit for a story”.
“One benefit of my relationship with senior offices was, if I rang and said ‘we have situation Met needs to get involved with’, they’d take it seriously because they’d know I’m a guy who wouldn’t mess them about,” Wallis told the Inquiry.
He added that he advised Lord Stevens on his application as Met commissioner, advising him to emphasise he was a “coppers copper”. Wallis stressed he himself had “strong views” on what was happening at the Met at the time in light of the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and that whoever succeeded Lord Condon was an “important appointment” for the force.
In his witness statement Wallis wrote: “It should not come across that my involvement in advising the senior police officers from Scotland Yard was entirely altruistic. There was something in it for me and my newspaper.”
He added that when the paper was running a highly public campaign, senior officers would write exclusive articles of give quotes in support which would go into the tabloid.
Wallis was arrested in July 2011 as part of Operation Weeting, the Met’s investigation into phone hacking. He was bailed and has not been charged.
Also giving evidence this morning were Stewart Gull of Jersey States Police, Paul McKeever of the Police Federation, and Mark Burns-Williamson and Nathan Oley, both of the Association of Police Authorities. Oley, the APA’s head of press and public affairs, said guidelines for press-police contact as suggested in the Filkin report would be “helpful” for the future.
“We’re entering unchartered territory,” Oley said, citing greater media interest in policing. He said the Inquiry’s outcomes were crucial to ensure a “free flow of information” by both parties.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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27 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The head of corporate communications at Avon and Somerset Police told the Leveson Inquiry that the public has a right to know “within boundaries”.
Discussing the “unrelenting” media frenzy during the inquiry into the murder of Joanna Yeates in 2010, Amanda Hirst stressed the importance that any information that might have prejudiced the integrity of the investigation would be “contained”.
Hirst said there was a “lot of inaccurate reporting” throughout the inquiry, which “created problems for the investigation team”. She cited a request made by a BBC journalist for an interview with the parents of the murdered Bristol architect, which the force declined on their behalf.
When asked by Lord Justice Leveson why she did not take the matter to Ofcom, Hirst said it was felt that “it probably would not have made a substantial difference”, noting that the force was in the middle of a “fast-moving” investigation.
“We are robust in complaining when we feel the justification to do that,” she said.
Also speaking this afternoon, Barbara Brewis, a former reporter and current manager of media and marketing at Durham Constabulary, stressed the importance of having a solid working relationship based on trust with the media, particularly the local press, but said journalists are “not your friends”.
Her colleague, Chief Constable Jonathan Stoddart, also emphasised the “high-trust” relationship the force has among its staff and with local media. “They have an important social role in holding us to account and challenging poor practice, improper conduct or malfeasance,” Stoddart wrote in his witness statement.
He flirted with the idea of a “central repository that records contact and content of conversations”, suggesting it would be feasible in a constabulary such as Durham’s, but less so in a bigger force such as the Metropolitan Police.
Brewis disagreed with claims that a logging system would have chilling effect. “If it’s the right thing to do, we’ll do it,” she said.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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27 Mar 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The chief constable of Avon and Somerset police has denied that the force leaked information or guided the press about Chris Jefferies after the Bristol landlord was wrongly arrested for the 2010 murder of Joanna Yeates.
Testifying at the Leveson Inquiry this morning, Colin Port said to behave in a collusive manner was “abhorrent”.
“We don’t give off the record briefings,” Port said, stressing it was “not normal practice”. His colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Philip Jones, who was the sneior investigating officer in the Yeates inquiry, also testified that there were no off the record briefings on Jefferies. “If there were, they were unauthorised,” Jones said.
In his second witness statement to the Inquiry in January, Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace claimed he had been informed off the record that “the police were saying that they were confident Mr Jefferies was their man.”
Port said Wallace’s claim was “absolutely outrageous”.
Jefferies, a retired English teacher, successfully sued eight newspapers for libel last year, with the Mirror being charged £50,000 for contempt of court. Dutch national Vincent Tabak was later convicted of Yeates’s murder.
Wallace called the episode a “black mark” on his editing record and expressed “sincere regret” to Jefferies and his friends and family.
Port said the force did not name Jefferies either on or off the record. He said there had been an “inadvertent” leak, but stressed this was a “genuine error”. He noted that leaks in the force were rare, and if they did occur, it would be due to “malice, spite or money.”
Also testifying this morning was Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Kirkby of Surrey Police. He described the press interest around the abduction and subsequent murder of teenager Milly Dowler in 2002 as “unprecedented” and “immense”, with some senior officers involved deeming elements of the media “extremely demanding, and in some respects, mischievous”.
He said the force’s Media Relations Team was “unprepared” for such heavy press attention and that there were not enough resources to deal with the “overwhelming” interest in the case.
He added that the senior investigating officer in the Dowler case initially declined offers from the News of the World and the Sun for rewards relating to information of Milly’s whereabouts, “fearing that it would generate large numbers of spurious calls that would distract from the core police investigation.” Yet the officer eventually felt that he “had little choice but to cooperate with them”, after the papers indicated they would offer a reward with or without Surrey Police’s cooperation.
“Rewards can be really useful in investigations in generating interest. In this case I’m not sure that a reward was necessary,” Kirkby added later.
Kirkby told the Inquiry he was conducting an internal investigation into the information obtained by the News of the World in 2002 regarding the hacking of Dowler’s voicemail. The findings, due to be completed by May, will be made public and submitted to the Inquiry.
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