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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14 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Lord Justice Leveson has dismissed claims that the Milly Dowler case was the only reason his Inquiry into press standards and ethics was set up.
Agreeing with the lawyer for victims of phone hacking David Sherborne, Leveson said the past month of evidence of press intrusion and harassment should “dispel any doubt” that the hacking and deletion of messages on the murdered schoolgirl’s phone was the only reason the Inquiry was taking place.
This follows what Sherborne dubbed had been a “storm of misreporting” after the Metropolitan police announced that the News of the World may not have deleted the girl’s voicemails and giving her family false hope she was alive.
Yesterday Richard Caseby, managing editor of the Sun, accused the Guardian of having “sexed up” their original coverage of the case in which they reported the News of the World was responsible for deleting Dowler’s messages.
Yet it remains uncontested that the tabloid did hack into her phone.
This morning Sherborne told the Inquiry that hacking victims’ solicitor Mark Lewis was contacted on Tuesday evening by a Daily Mail reporter who asked him if the Dowler family will be giving money back in light of revisions.
The Dowlers had previously issued a statement through Lewis, stating they had a “clear recollection” that the police had told them the now-defunct News of the World had deleted their daughter’s voicemails.
Lewis told BBC News the reporter’s actions were “appalling”.
Leveson reiterated the significance of the issue, stressing that it was in the public interest to be resolved in an “orderly manner”.
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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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06 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Can phone hacking ever be justified in the public interest? The Guardian’s investigations editor told the Leveson Inquiry today that in rare cases it could be.
David Leigh said the one occasion he did hack the phone of a businessman was a “minor incident” that seemed “perfectly ethical”. He said, “I don’t hack phones, normally. I’ve never done anything like that since and I’ve never done anything like that before.”
Referring to his admission in a 2006 article, Leigh described that the businessman in question had inadvertently left his PIN on a printout, allowing Leigh to dial straight into his voicemail. In the same article Leigh confessed to “a voyeuristic thrill” in hearing another person’s private messages, but added that, unlike the hacking of phones of members of the royal family carried out at the News of the World by Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, his aim was to expose bribery and corruption, not “witless tittle-tattle.” He added, “unlike the News of the World, I was not paying a private detective to routinely help me with circulation-boosting snippets.”
Leigh also admitted to blagging, having telephoned Mark Thatcher, pretending to be an arms company executive to prove the pair knew each other and had entered into a business deal together. “I give that as an example of when the use of subterfuge is okay,” Leigh said.
Public interest, he said, was the “compass” for journalists, although the boundaries are unclear and judgments on whether to pursue certain stories must be made on a case-by-case basis. When asked about obtaining documents illegally, such as in the case of MPs’ expenses being exposed, Leigh said he believed the “overwhelming” public interest meant the Telegraph was “right to do what it did”.
Leigh went on to highlight the differences between broadsheets and tabloids, arguing that the latter are “incapable of self-regulation.” He said he would be in favour of abolishing the PCC, which he called a “fraud and bogus institution” that works largely to keep the government and royal family off the back of the popular papers.
He argued in favour of punitive damages, which he said would act as a more effective deterrent than Max Mosley’s proposed method of a prior notification system. “Prior restraint,” Leigh said, “is another word for censorship.”
Also speaking today was filmmaker Chris Atkins, who described selling fake celebrity stories to tabloid newspapers. “We called them up, gave them fantastical lies and they wrote them down and published them the next day,” he said, noting one of their most successful, which was featured in the Sun, that claimed Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding was a fan of quantum physics.
Atkins asserted the quote featured in the piece was fake, despite the paper contesting it was from Harding’s PR. Atkins called it a “remarkable coincidence.”
Atkins also described approaching four tabloids with a potential story about celebrity medical secrets, indicating he could provide records. While the Sunday Express deemed it a “legal minefield”, the Sunday People and Sunday Mirror showed interest.
He argued journalists should be disciplined for trying to buy medical records, adding that the Mirror’s reporter in question, Nick Owens, may not have gone on to write a libellous article for the Sun about wrongly arrested Bristol landlord Chris Jefferies had he been punished while at the Mirror.
“Newspapers understand one thing: money,” Atkins said. “The PCC ajudications are as good as meaningless really in terms of correcting mistakes.”
Charlotte Harris, a solicitor for phone hacking victims, was also in the witness box today. She said it was “incredible” and “obstructive” that News International had placed her under surveillance, along with fellow victims’ lawyer Mark Lewis. Farrers, NI’s lawyers, had been suspicious that Lewis and Harris were exchanging confidential information gained from acting for claimants. To then hire a private investigator to survey her, rather than approaching the her firm, Harris said, was the “wrong approach.”
“You shouldn’t have to be suspicious of your opponents in that way,” Harris said, claiming that surveillance “got in the way.”
Also providing evidence was Welsh sales manager Steven Nott, who in 1999 tried to alert the British press and authorities to insecure voicemail systems. Nott said that, during a network outage, Vodafone customer services had told him he could access his own voicemail from another phone by entering a default code. Concerned about the ease of intercepting voicemails, Nott then contacted Oonagh Blackman at the Daily Mirror, who tested the method herself and indicated the story would be published. Nott said he received £100 for the tip, but the story was never printed.
Nott accused the paper of keeping phone hacking methods for their own purposes, adding that Blackman had threatened him with court action if he divulged that he had passed on the information to them.
Alerts he made to the Department of Trade and Industry, the Home Office and HM Customs and Excise also went unheeded, he said.
The hearing continues on Thursday with evidence from various academics.
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