11 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Associated Newspapers’ legal chief was questioned at the Leveson Inquiry today over the company’s statement accusing Hugh Grant of making “mendacious smears” against the paper.
Liz Hartley said Grant has used speculation “to accuse our group of phone hacking, which is a very serious allegation. We respond by defending ourselves.”
“And you’re responding by accusing him of perjury,” Lord Justice Leveson responded.
During his November testimony, Hugh Grant spoke of a 2007 story in the Mail on Sunday that claimed his relationship with Jemima Khan was on the rocks due to his late night calls with a “plummy voiced” studio executive. Grant said the only way the paper could have sourced the story was through accessing his voicemail, and that he “would love to hear what their source was if it wasn’t phone hacking”.
Associated Newspapers, the Mail’s publisher, responded with a statement accusing Grant of making “mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media”. Hartley also revealed today that editor Paul Dacre, due to appear at the Inquiry next month, helped to draft the statement.
Victims’ lawyer David Sherborne suggested to Leveson this afternoon that the journalists responsible should give evidence under oath on 6 February to establish the source of the article.
Associated Newspapers has consistently denied that any of its staff were involved in phone hacking.
The Mail’s recent coverage of Grant, namely the birth of his daughter, was also a topic of discussion. Hartley denied that details regarding the birth had been obtained from a hospital source, asserting that the source came from Grant’s “celebrity circle” of friends.
She noted the difficulty of reporters establishing facts in the story, suggesting the real solution to this would have been for Grant’s publicists to say they would prefer the media to “desist”.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with evidence from Daily Express publisher Northern & Shell.
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11 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The editor on the Mail on Sunday today conceded that the paper used private investigator Steve Whittamore after he had been charged with illegally trading information.
Peter Wright, who has edited the paper since 1979, told the Leveson Inquiry that Whittamore was used in a “small number of cases” after he was charged in February 2004.
In the same month, Wright said he instructed staff not to use Whittamore “unless there was an extremely good reason and all other means had been exhausted”.
Wright said the Mail’s use of Whittamore “virtually stopped altogether” in September 2004. Whittamore was given a conditional discharge in 2005.
During a lengthy exchange with Robert Jay QC and Lord Justice Leveson, Wright said he discovered in August 2011 that Whittamore provided information illicitly to some reporters. “I was uncomfortable that it appeared he might be using methods of which we would not approve, without the knowledge of those who were commissioning him,” he said.
Operation Motorman, carried out in 2003, investigated the use of a private investigators by the media to obtain personal information. In the 2006 report published by the Information Commissioner’s Office disclosing the 22 newspapers that had regularly used Whittamore to access illegally-obtained information, the Daily Mail topped the list with 952 transactions. The Mail on Sunday came fourth, with 266 transactions.
Wright said Whittamore had been used for a story published in February 2003 to establish the ownership of a scooter used by union leader Bob Crow.
He said: “Whittamore didn’t supply stories. He was used primarily to find names and addresses of people we needed to speak to in the course of researching stories.” He added that Whittamore was paid a total of £20,000 to trace information.
He said that Associated Newspaper’s request to see the ICO’s report was turned down, although the company accepted its findings.
Wright also said he did not believe the paper’s staff had used phone hacking to obtain stories.
“I have absolutely no evidence that phone hacking ever did occur,” he said. “I would hope that if phone hacking had been going on that it would have been brought to my attention.”
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11 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The picture editor of the Daily Mail faced a tough grilling over the paper’s policy of photographing celebrities and their families at the Leveson Inquiry.
Pressed on the the paper’s seeking a photo Hugh Grant and the mother of his child soon after the baby’s birth, Paul Silva said there was no suggestion from the press release at the time that there was a privacy issue.
“It was a major showbiz story of great interest to our readers,” Silva said, adding that the paper sought a posed photo of the new family, as it had done with David Cameron after the birth of his daughter.
When asked by Robert Jay QC whether or not he should have sought Grant’s permission beforehand, Silva defended his paper’s policy. “A story breaks, we then go to their home, we ask them to pose up, if they say no we’ll move on and go away.”
Silva agreed with a celebrity asking for privacy for their children, and that he “would go along with whatever they ask”. He said it was the paper’s policy that images of children would be pixellated, and when asked by Lord Justice Leveson whether it was questionable that photographers should be taking such pictures in the first place, he responded, “possibly, yes.”
Asked why he used unblurred pictures of the McCanns’ children, Silva responded that there was no objection at the time. “It was the most intense story I’ve ever worked on,” he said, adding that in hindsight he “possibly” should not have used the pictures.
Gerry and Kate McCann, whose daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in May 2007, gave their testimony of alleged press intrusion to the Inquiry in November, detailing how journalists had camped outside their Leicestershire home upon their return to the UK.
Silva also clarified that he only deals with pictures for the newspaper, not for its website, Mail Online. Asked about photos on the website of actress Sandra Bullock trying to shield her child from photographers, he conceded, “if that was a British celebrity taken in a British park we’d be asking a lot of questions.”
He added that the Mail’s picture desk receives 300-400 photographs daily of the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister Pippa Middleton, but there was “no justification” in using them.
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10 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The former editor-in-chief of the Telegraph told the Leveson Inquiry he felt it was his duty, not a choice, to publish the paper’s revelations about MPs’ expenses in 2009.
Will Lewis said it was his “ethical obligation to bring this profound wrongdoing at heart of House of Commons into public domain.”
Lewis said it was a topic that was “laced with risk all round”. Having worked for the Sunday Times when it printed the fake Hitler diaries in 1983, Lewis also said he was concerned the expenses story was a hoax.
He described the steps leading to publication, an initial £10,000 for a sample disc was paid to an intermediary, with a further £140,000 once it was verified that the leaked documents were genuine. Lewis said it was only when Jack Straw had confirmed the details of his expenses that he gave the green light to publish.
Lewis described the role of an editor as risk mitigation. “At the end of the day you have to ask yourself, ‘does it feel right?'” he said, adding that mistakes he had made in his career came about because he had not followed his instincts.
He urged for a greater focus on a more transparent newsroom culture, noting that “sunlight is a fantastic disinfectant.”
The paper’s current editor, Tony Gallagher, also testified today, arguing that the best outcome of the Inquiry would be an arbitration system for resolving legal disputes and complaints. “The chilling effect of libel on small media organisations has to be seen to be believed,” he said.
Earlier in the day Lord Justice Leveson also spoke in favour of a low-cost libel mediation system. He cautioned against government involvement, telling Telegraph Media Group CEO chief executive Murdoch MacLennan, “I would be surprised if government regulation ever even entered my mind.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with evidence from Associated Newspapers.
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