21 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Actor Hugh Grant linked the Mail on Sunday to phone hacking today as he and other witnesses gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, starting what is set to be a week-long attack on the practices of the tabloid press.
In his marathon account, he spoke of a 2007 story in the paper 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.”
He also told the Inquiry about a chance encounter with Paul McMullen, former features editor at the News of the World, who “boasted” about hacking at the paper.
A spokesman for the Mail on Sunday said this afternoon: “Mr Grant’s allegations are mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media.” Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Mail, has consistently denied that any of its staff were involved with hacking.
Grant went into detail about a slew of other incidents. He noted how he and his girlfriends had been “chased at speed” by papparazzi, the Sun and Daily Express had invaded his privacy by publishing details of his medical records, and that the life of the mother of his newborn baby had “been made hell” due to press intrusion. He also alleged that the Daily Mail paid £125,000 to the ex-lover of the child’s mother for photos of her.
Grant said the “licence the tabloid press has had to steal British citizens’ privacy for profit” was a “scandal that weak governments for too long have allowed to pass.”
In their brief but raw account this morning, the parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler spoke of the moment they believed their daughter was picking up and deleting her voicemail messages. Sally Dowler said, “it clicked through on to her voicemail so I heard her voice and [said] ‘she’s picked up her voicemail Bob! She’s alive!’.”
Milly’s voicemail had been hacked into and her messages deleted, making room for new ones to be left. Sally Dowler said she did not sleep for three nights when she was told of the interception this year.
The Dowlers also described a walk they took seven weeks after their daughter had gone missing to retrace her steps, a photo of which was featured in the News of the World. The Dowlers believed it was a result of photographers being tipped off after their own phones had been hacked. “How did they know we would be doing that walk on that day,” Sally Dowler asked. She called the photo an “intrusion” into the family’s private moment of grief.
Of the press attention that followed Milly’s disappearance, Sally added that the family had to “train” themselves not to answer questions. “Someone would come up to you when you least expect[ed] it,” she said.
The Dowlers added that the press had been a “double-edged sword”, noting the efforts made by the papers to spread information about Milly’s disappearance.
They said they would leave it to the Inquiry to make decisions, but wanted the extent of hacking to be exposed. Bob Dowler said he hoped News International and other media organisations would “look very carefully” at how they procure information for stories. “Obviously the ramifications are very much greater than just an obvious story in the press,” he added.
Journalist Joan Smith also gave evidence. She discovered her phone had been hacked around six weeks after the daughter of her partner, Labour MP Denis MacShane, had been killed in a skydiving accident in 2004. She revealed that detectives had shown her notes taken by Glenn Mulcaire earlier this year, which listed her name, address and phone numbers.
She attacked tabloid culture as “so remorseless” that those involved have “lost any sense that they’re dealing with human beings.”
She said she did not consider herself a celebrity. “You don’t have to be incredibly famous to be a target for their intrusion,” she said, adding later that the press interest in her came from her relationship with MacShane.
Smith was keen to defend freedom of expression, noting that she opposed state regulation and the licensing of journalists. She added that there needed to be a “successor body to PCC (Press Complaints Commission) that isn’t dominated by editors.”
Media lawyer Graham Shear also attacked the redtops, calling the industry a “business model which has become dependent on titillating and sensationalist stories.”
He said his clients began to suspect they were under surveillance in 2004, when “stray facts” known to few began to appear in the press. Several would clients would change their mobile telephone numbers two or three times a year, he added.
He spoke of “orchestrated” attempts to persuade clients to pay off kiss and tell girls, and noted the reluctance of press to contact him and his clients prior to publishing, preferring to pay any damages for breaches of privacy afterwards. He also described the £60,000 in damages paid by the News of the World to Formula 1 boss Max Mosley for privacy invasion as a “very gentle parking fine”.
The hearing continues tomorrow, with evidence from Steve Coogan, Elle Macpherson’s former business adviser Mary-Ellen Field, ex-footballer Garry Flitcroft, and Margaret Watson, mother of murder victim Diane Watson.
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18 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A provisional list of witnesses and hacking victims giving evidence next week in the Leveson Inquiry has been announced.
The schedule is as follows:
Monday 21 November
Bob Dowler
Sally Dowler
Hugh Grant
Graham Shear
Joan Smith
Tuesday 22 November
Steve Coogan
Mary-Ellen Field
Garry Flitcroft
Margaret Watson
Wednesday 23 November
Sheryl Gascoigne
Mark Lewis
Gerry McCann
Tom Rowland
Thursday 24 November
“HJK”
Sienna Miller
Max Mosley
JK Rowling
Mark Thomson
Monday 28 November
Charlotte Church
Anne Diamond
Ian Hurst
Chris Jefferies
Jane Winter
After David Sherborne’s scathing illustration of the British tabloids on Wednesday, next week’s sessions are expected to be even more damaging to the reputation of the press.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
16 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The solicitor representing hacking victims attacked Britain’s tabloid press today as he pledged to unmask the “tawdry journalistic trade” at the third hearing of the Leveson Inquiry.
David Sherborne, who is representing 51 core participant victims, gave a powerful and emotional account of how murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked by the News of the World. He called the act one of “cruelty and insensitivity” and said that Dowler’s parents will testify of the euphoria they felt when the deletion of their daughter’s messages meant they thought she was alive.
Sherborne questioned News International’s earlier claims that hacking was limited to one rogue reporter, adding that there was a cover-up at the newspaper over the extent of the practice, and that there was a concerted effort after the event to “conceal the ugly truth from surfacing.”
He said the paper’s former glory has been so “fatally befouled by its cultural dependency on the dark arts”, giving journalism a bad name.
But phone hacking was, Sherbone said, “just one symptom” of a disease afflicting Britain’s tabloid press. He called the red-tops’ treatment of the parents of Madeleine McCann, he little girl who went missing in Portugal in 2007, “a national scandal”. He noted that Kate McCann’s diary that was given to Portuguese police was published by the News of the World and left her feeling, in her husband’s words “mentally raped”.
He also attacked the reporting of the arrest of Christopher Jefferies, the landlord of murdered Bristol woman Joanna Yeates who was later released without charge and cleared of any involvment of any involvement in her death. Reading out a range of damning headlines referencing Jefferies, Sherborne accused the press of a “frenzied campaign to blacken his [Jefferies’] character, a frightening combination of smear, innuendo and complete fiction”,
Sherborne said such stories were printed to “make money, not solve crimes”, and that none of them had a public interest defence. Earlier this year, both the Daily Mirror and the Sun were fined for contempt of court for articles published about a suspect arrested on suspicion of Yeates’ murder.
The Dowler family, Gerry McCann and Jefferies will all give evidence to the Inquiry next week.
Sherborne also made the case for respect to individual privacy, saying it was “as much a mark of a tolerant and mature society as a free and forceful press.” He condemned tabloid culture of kiss-and-tell-stories, citing reporters’ invasions into the lives of JK Rowling, Charlotte Church, Max Mosley, Sheryl Gascoigne and Hugh Grant, all of whom will be giving evidence in the coming weeks.
In a recent development, Sherborne added that the mother of Hugh Grant’s child had received abusive phone calls because the actor had criticised the press. She was allegedly told to “tell Hugh Grant to shut the fuck up”. Sherborne said that last Friday he had to seek an emergency injunction on behalf of a woman who just had the actor’s baby, the real reason for which being the threats she had received.
Sherborne said he was calling for “real change.”
Earlier in the day, the National Union of Journalists’ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet painted a stark picture of journalistic life in the UK, with an omnipotent editor, a slew of relentless pressures, and “brutal” consequences for reporters who did not deliver stories. She said a culture of fear among journalists inhibited them defending fundamental and ethical principles, and that speaking out publicly was “simply not an option” for fear of losing their jobs.
Referring to one of the Inquiry’s key questions raised by Lord Justice Leveson earlier this week, Stanistreet argued that the protection of journalists by way of a trade union could help “guard the guardians” and promote ethical awareness.
Following her, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger made the case for a stronger Press Complaints Commission that must have the power to intervene, investigate meaningfully and impose significant sanctions. Unimpressed by how the PCC handled phone hacking, Rusbridger argued in favour of a press standards and mediation commission, a “one-stop shop” that is responsive, quick and cheap. He added that the industry needed to establish a public interest defence that could be agreed upon and argued for.
Leveson agreed on the value of a “mechanism being set up that benefits all”, but questioned how to persuade those who do not subscribe to the PCC that it is a sensible approach.
Sherborne, however, vowed that his victims’ evidence will show “how hopelessly inadequate this self-regulatory code is as a means of curbing the excesses of the press.”
While conceding he, his clients and Rusbridger may agree on strengthening the PCC, Sherborne also quoted a client who claimed that leaving the PCC in the hands of newspapers would be tantamount to “handing a police station over to the mafia.”
The Inquiry will continue with evidence from victims on 21 November.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
15 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The need for a free press is now “as great, if not greater, than it has ever been”, a lawyer for News International said today as the Leveson Inquiry began its second day of hearings.
For Rhodri Davies QC, a key issue is “not why does the press know so much, but why does it know so little”. He stressed that NI supported a model of independent self-regulation, that the PCC could be improved, and that the press is “not above the law.”
Davies also apologised to phone hacking victims, stressing that the practice was “shameful” and “should not have happened”. He added that NI accepts “there was no public interest justification” in hacking.
Regarding the hiring of a private investigator to carry out surveillance on hacking victims’ lawyers and members of the select committee, Davies said “it wasn’t journalism at all and it was unacceptable.”
Davies contested the figure revealed yesterday by Robert Jay QC, counsel to the Inquiry, that 28 NI reporters had been involved in phone hacking. He said that believes the police are the only people who have seen the entire set of Glenn Mulcaire’s notebooks, which contained five corner names — Clive Goodman and other News of the World staff referred to as A, B, C and D — and asked Jay’s figure of 28 be “rechecked”.
He conceded, however, that the 2,266 requests for voicemails cited in the 11,000 pages of notes were “2,226 too many”. Referring to the five reporters, Davies said “five names is five names too many”.
He added that he was not going to give any assurances that phone hacking did not occur “by or for the News of the World after 2007”, but stressed that lessons had been learned from the jailing of Goodman and Mulcaire. He cited the setting up of an internal committee at NI as one of the steps the company was taking to ensure phone hacking did not happen again.
Also speaking this morning was Jonathan Caplan QC on behalf of Associated Newspapers. He too condemned the practice of phone hacking, adding that no journalist at Associated Newspapers has engaged in phone hacking, bribed or bribes police officers.
Caplan also stressed that the PCC could be made more effective but “did not need to be replaced.” The virtue of the current system, he said, is that complaints are generally heard and resolved quickly, free of charge and without the use of lawyers.
He made the case for all newspapers being part of a self-regulatory system, adding that it was “unacceptable” that a newspaper owner should be permitted to opt out of one.
To this, Leveson said he could not see how this would be achieved without a law forcing all newspapers to sign up.
The hearing will continue this afternoon with an opening statement by Northern and Shell, which publishes the Express and Daily Star.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
