28 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Political blogger Paul Staines, better known as Guido Fawkes, was today summoned to the Leveson Inquiry to explain how he gained access to Alastair Campbell’s witness statement three days before Campbell was due to appear in the Inquiry witness box.
Staines posted a draft of the former Number 10 communications director’s written evidence on his website yesterday, claiming he obtained it legally. The document was still available on the site today. [Update: the statement was removed at 9:30pm tonight.]
Staines is due to appear at the Inquiry on Thursday afternoon.
Lord Justice Leveson warned this morning that anyone leaking or publishing future witness statements could face high court action under a breach of section 19 of the Inquiries Act, which restricts the publication or disclosure of any testimony prior to it being made orally, outside the confidentiality circle of Leveson, his assessors, the Inquiry team and core participants.
Leveson added that he did not want to give Staines “the oxygen of additional publicity”, and so withdrew his plan of posting Campbell’s statement on the Inquiry website today, deciding to delay publication until Wednesday — the originally intended time. Associated Newspapers’ counsel, Jonathan Caplan QC, argued in favour of delaying publication, saying that relevant parties should be given time to make submissions on the Campbell evidence before it is made public. Robert Jay QC, counsel to the Inquiry, said that the version on Staines’ website was “quite an early draft.”
As with last week’s evidence, today also saw further exposure of the worst excesses of the tabloid press. Chris Jefferies, the former teacher wrongly arrested on suspicion of murdering his tenant Joanna Yeates last year, described how the media “shamefully vilified” him with coverage that was “intended to appeal in every possible way to people’s voyeuristic instincts”.
He and Jay ran through a series of headlines, largely from the Sun and the Mirror. One read “Murder police quiz nutty professor”, another “Was killer waiting in Jo’s flat?” A slew of articles labelled him a “creepy oddball”, “lewd”, a “peeping Tom” who had an obsession with death and was associated with a convicted paedophile. “The press were trying to have it every possible way,” he said.
While in custody, Jefferies was unaware of the coverage. He said lawyers and friends advised him against reading it or to go out and visit friends for fear of being “besieged” by the press. ” I felt like some recusant priest at time of reformation,” he said, “going from safe house to safe house.”
The stories were untrue, and Jefferies successfully sued eight papers in total for libel earlier this year, with the Sun being fined £18,000 and the Daily Mirror £50,000 respectively for contempt of court.
Jefferies said he would “never be able to recover” from the events of the past twelve months, and that “there will always be people…who retain the impression that I’m some sort of very weird character who is best avoided.”
Broadcaster Anne Diamond and singer Charlotte Church also gave evidence. Diamond claimed she had been targeted by Rupert Murdoch after telling him his newspapers “seem intent on ruining people’s lives.” She described a phone call she received from a News of the World reporter after a visit to a Harley Street clinic. “He said, ‘we know you’re pregnant, confirm or deny’,” Diamond said. Out of fear of miscarrying, Diamond denied she was pregnant, but said the paper called her a “liar” when her pregnancy was eventually revealed. She added that a Sun reporter posed as a doctor in the hospital where she gave birth.
She described the death of her son from cot death when he was four months old, and how, within an hour, a scrum of photographers were outside her home. Diamond added that she and her husband had “begged” Fleet Street editors to stay away from the funeral, but the couple were long-lensed by a photographer there. A photo of them carrying their son’s coffin then on the front pages of the Sun. Diamond revealed that the paper had told her and her husband they had the photo and would print it with or without the couple’s permission; claiming their image would be tarnished if they refused to co-operate with the tabloid’s cot death campaign.
When asked by the Inquiry counsel why she credited the paper with raising funds for a cot death campaign in an article earlier this year, Diamond said: “the Sun was a very large circulation tabloid paper, and we were able to use it as a force for good.”
She also upheld regulation of broadcasting as proof that solid, investigative journalism can thrive. “I wish we could achieve same in the press,” she said.
Church, meanwhile, recalled having to “suffer the indignity” photographers trying to take photos up her skirt and down her top; she described a News of the World story reporting her father’s affair as “horrific”; revealed that the paper printed details of where she lived despite having previously published a threat of plots to kidnap her.
The Sun revealed she was pregnant before her family knew, Church told the Inquiry. She said she suspected a voicemail from her doctor had been hacked by the paper. “Only my doctor and partner knew,” she said.
Church also claimed that, aged 13, she was offered either “good press” or £100,000 to sing at Rupert Murdoch’s wedding to Wendi Deng. While Church and her mother were keen on the payment, the singer’s management advised she waive the fee. Church was told Murdoch was “a very, very powerful man and [I] could certainly do with a favour of this magnitude.”
News Corporation, meanwhile, has denied the allegations and said that Church’s performance was a surprise to Murdoch.
The finger was also pointed at the police today, with former army intelligence officer Ian Hurst accusing the Metropolitan police of “corruption” and had covered up journalistic misdeeds.
Hurst was informed by BBC’s Panorama programme this year that his computer had been hacked by the News of the World, and was shown transcripts of his own emails that were sent to the Dublin office of paper in July 2006. Hurst was told that the paper hired a private detective who employed a “specialist hacker”, known as Mr X, to access his computer. Hurst revealed that, through sending a bogus email in 2006, Mr X had infected the Hurst family’s computer with a Trojan programme that could allow him to access Hurst’s messages and other documents.
Mr Hurst added that documents seized in 2007 by the police showed the security on his computer had been compromised and information had been obtained. However, he added, the authorities chose not to act. Hurst was only told by the Metropolitan police about the hacking this year. The Metropolitan police, he said, had “let society down”.
Jane Winter, director of human rights organisation British Irish Rights Watch, also told the Inquiry today that Hurst had told her earlier this year that “confidential” and sensitive” emails between them had been accessed illegally.
The hearing continues tomorrow, with evidence from Guardian journalist Nick Davies, former News of the World reporter Paul McMullen, and ex-tabloid reporter Richard Peppiatt.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
24 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A litany of complaints and revelations at the Leveson Inquiry today concentrated on the contentious issue of the level of privacy those in the public eye can reasonably maintain.
It was a marathon session, and in a sobering testimony that took up much of the afternoon, Harry Potter author JK Rowling said she felt “under siege” by the press, listing a slew of incidents in which she and her family had been covertly photographed and followed by reporters.
She accused the press of putting her family under surveillance for their “amusement”, noting how photographers had camped outside her home. After a photo had been published of her house number and street name, Rowling was forced to move, saying it was “untenable” to stay at that address.
Rowling said protecting her children’s privacy was crucial. “A child, no matter who their parents are, deserves privacy”, she said, adding that she and her husband had gone to great lengths to prevent their children from being photographed or targeted.
She spoke of feeling “invaded” having found a note in her daughter’s schoolbag addressed to her from a journalist. On another occasion, a reporter had contacted her daughter’s school, telling the headmaster the girl had upset other pupils by telling them Harry Potter dies in the final book. Rowling said her daughter had not done so, and was made out to be a “bully”. Photographs of her daughter, then aged eight, in a swimming costume also appeared in OK! magazine.
Rowling passionately defended the occasions when she had spoken openly about her personal life. “Our cultural life would be greatly diminished if creative people not allowed to say where they received inspiration,” she said, noting that she had openly discussed having suffered from depression, and had received letters of support in return.
Ex-Formula 1 boss Max Mosley, who sued the News of the World in 2009 for breach of privacy, also gave evidence today, reiterating his staunch campaign for reform in celebrity privacy laws.
Mosley was at the centre of a 2008 News of the World splash which falsely reported him taking part in a “sick Nazi orgy” with five prostitutes.
He said that when he challenged the story, “the entire resources of News International were deployed to destroy me.” He described that, when he took the paper to court, their response to send a film of him taking part in an alleged sado-masochistic orgy to the governing body of world motorsport, the FIA. He then launched legal action against the tabloid, receiving £60,000 in damages for breach of privacy.
During his lengthy account, he dismissed the Sun headline ‘The Day Freedom Got Spanked’ in response to his case as “typical of gutter press.” Responding to Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre’s accusation of Mosley being “guilty of unimaginable depravity,” the ex-motorsport boss said “it reflects badly on his [Dacre’s] imagination.”
Mosley reaffirmed his case for newspapers adopting a prior-notification policy to warn people before publishing stories exposing their private lives. “Once information is made public, it can never be made private again,” he said. “The only effective remedy is to stop it becoming public.” In May 2011, Mosley lost his bid impose a legal duty of prior notification, with the European Court of Human Rights ruling that such a system would have a “chilling effect” on the press.
Mosley also veered into the contentious territory of policing content online, noting that search engines such as Google “could stop a story appearing, but don’t or won’t as a matter of principle.”
“The really dangerous thing is the search engines,” he said, to which Leveson responded: “That’s part of the problem.”
Mosley is currently taking litigation action in 22 countries and suing Google in France and Germany. He added he is considering bringing proceedings against the search engine in California in an attempt to remove certain search results.
Also appearing today was actress Sienna Miller, who described how she had been verbally abused and spat at by photographers, who had on occasion chased her down the street. “I felt like I was living in some sort of video game,” she said, noting that the press intrusion and surveillance left her in a state of “complete anxiety and paranoia.”
Miller, who has taken out a court order against the paparazzi, revealed she had accused friends and family of having leaked stories to the press. She later learned she and her friends had been victims of phone (and in Miller’s own case, email) hacking, and that private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had “created a project” under her name. “It’s unfathomable to feel like they [the press] can justify doing this,” she said.
Her lawyer, Mark Thomson, was also in the witness box today, primarily discussing regulation. He accused the Press Complaints Commission of wearing “too many hats”, and that an improved body “with a few extra teeth” would not work.
He said an effective regulator would need to deal with all news gatherers, including freelance photographers. As for the grey area of regulating content online, Thomson said: “bloggers are best ignored until they reach a critical mass of attention in the newspapers.”
He added that redtops and tabloids do not want the PCC to be effective. “As long as it exists, this kind of activity will go on, he said.”
The Inquiry will continue on Monday, with evidence from Chris Jefferies, Anne Diamond, Charlotte Church, Jane Winter and Ian Hurst.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
22 Nov 11 | Leveson Inquiry
The Leveson Inquiry continued with its blend of the harrowing and the invasive today as more victims of alleged press intrusion gave evidence at the high court.
Margaret and Jim Watson, whose daughter Diane was stabbed to death by a fellow pupil at her school in 1991, slammed “misleading” articles written in the Glasgow Herald and Marie Claire that portrayed their daughter’s killer as a victim. Without legal recourse, they were told there was nothing they could do to clear their daughter’s name. The following year, their teenage son killed himself. He was found holding copies of the articles, which the Watsons say contributed to his suicide.
The Glasgow Herald released a statement this afternoon, saying it “deeply regrets any action which added to the Watson family’s grief over the tragic loss of their daughter and later their son.”
In a powerful account today, Margaret Watson said the articles “tore everything we had of Diane apart.” She added, “the dead shouldnt be besmirched by the will of some sick journalists.”
Watson has campaigned for the law to be changed so it is no longer impossible for the dead to be defamed. While the Scottish government has published consultation paper on defamation of the deceased, the Watsons are waiting for the results.
She also criticised the notion that restrictions on reporters would have a “chilling effect” on the press. “What about the deadly effect it has on the victims?” she asked the Inquiry.
Ex-footballer Garry Flitcroft made a similar argument when he described the taunting his family received once the press revealed details of his extra-marital affair. Flitcroft had sought an injunction preventing the Sunday People revealing details of the affair, but once the injunction was lifted, Flitcroft said his marriage collapsed and his children were teased. He added that fans’ chants at his football matches caused his father to stop attending the games, and contributed to his suicide several years later.
Flitcroft maintained his affair was a matter between himself and his wife, and was not of public interest. “If I’d been done for match-fixing or taking cocaine, it’s in the public interest,” he said.
Though he did not have evidence, Flitcroft said he “strongly suspected” the Sunday People had hacked his phone to get details of his affair. He said his 2001 injunction spurred the paper to launch a “dirt-digging exercise”, which to led to the discovery of a second extra-marital affair.
Also giving evidence today was Mary-Ellen Field, a former business adviser to supermodel Elle Macpherson. Field told the Inquiry of how Macpherson had accused her of leaking stories to the press, and was told she could either go to rehab for “alcoholism” (an accusation Field denies) or be fired.
She heeded Macpherson’s request out of fear for losing her job, but was then sacked in 2006 by her company, accountancy firm Chiltern. Field said this had a “very serious effect” financially, adding that her health suffered as a result.
Field learned in 2007 of phone hacking carried out at News of the World by Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, and that Macpherson had been targeted. Her subsequent emails and texts to Macpherson went unanswered. Attempts to find out from the police if she had been a hacking victim were also fruitless, until earlier this year, when Field was contacted by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Metropolitan police investigating the practice.
Lord Justice Leveson described her experience as “collateral damage”.
Last to give evidence was actor Steve Coogan, who said an extra-marital affair was revealed in a “sociopathic sting” led by former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and the paper’s then showbiz reporter.
Coogan said reporter Rav Singh had warned him in 2002 of a suspected “sting”, telling Coogan he would receive a phone call from Coulson’s office: “There was a girl in Andy Coulson’s office who was going to speak to me on the phone, the phone call would be recorded and she would try to entice me into talking about intimate details of her and my life,” he said.
While no story was published, Coogan claimed he was the victim of a successful sting by Singh and Coulson in 2004. Singh agreed not to publish explicit details about Coogan’s extra-marital affair in April of the same year, provided he would confirm certain details. However, Coogan said his manager later received a phone call from Coulson saying his phone interview with Coogan had been recorded, the story would be published, and that Singh’s word was “just a ruse”.
He also detailed how a profile of him in the Sunday Times featured photos of his children, which Coogan had not authorised. Although the Times later apologised, Coogan said “all these apologies are closing door after horse has bolted. You can’t give back the pound of flesh you’ve taken.”
Defending why he had not challenged the press, Coogan quoted his agent as saying, “they will come after you. Do you really want to make enemies of these people?”
Coogan said choosing silence was the “lesser of two evils”, adding that mechanisms of redress were not straightforward. “I wish the press were able to regulate itself. But has been given many opportunities and failed.” He said of the PCC, “the hacking scandal completely passed them by.”
Earlier in the day, Associated Newspapers were accused by victims’ lawyer David Sherborne of adopting “intimidatory tactics” after it issued a statement saying Hugh Grant was guilty of of spreading “mendacious smears” in the evidence he gave to the Inquiry yesterday.
Neil Garnham, QC for the Metrpolitan police, warned Leveson that witnesses may fear giving evidence if they were to then face similar accusations of lying by the press. Leveson, who admitted he had not read this morning’s papers, shared concern, saying that he “would be unhappy if it was felt that the best form of defence was always attack.”
Jonathan Caplan, QC for Associated, argued the paper was “under pressure” to respond to Grant’s claim yesterday that the only way the Mail on Sunday could have sourced a 2007 story on his relationship with Jemima Khan was through phone hacking. Caplan added that he had had no opportunity to cross-examine Grant yesterday.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with evidence from Mark Lewis, Sheryl Gascoigne, Tom Rowland and Kate and Gerry McCann.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
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.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
