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Bower awaits launch of tell-all book

July 24th, 2009 | No Comments

â€¢ Journalist believes paper boss committed perjury
â€¢ Express chief’s statement suggests he won libel case

When the press baron Richard Desmond lost his libel battle with the author Tom Bower on Thursday, he did not just land himself with a legal bill for an estimated Â£1.25m.

His defeat also meant that Rough Trader, Bower’s tell-all biography of the Express newspapers chief – a book that Bower today described as “the most devastating story of a businessman I have ever written” – is likely to be in the shops before Christmas.

Speaking to the Guardian after a night of celebrations, Bower also revealed he is preparing a dossier to submit to the director of public prosecutions containing evidence that he alleges proves that Desmond committed perjury in the witness box on at least three instances during the nine-day trial.

Desmond’s solicitors, Schillings, robustly denied the allegations yesterday and maintained there was no evidence he had perjured himself.

After the verdict, Bower and his supporters went to the Fleet Street drinking den El Vino’s, and then to the Garrick club in Covent Garden. “When I walked into the Garrick the whole bar stood up and cheered,” said Bower.

Desmond, meanwhile, issued a curious statement which suggested he had won the case and was pleased to have “set the record straight”. On the Express website the statement was printed in full with no reference to his costly defeat; the court report in the paper made just passing mention of the verdict, concentrating instead on Desmond’s “satisfaction” and errors he still insisted Bower had made.

Bower, famed for his brutal portraits of the rich and famous, believes the Express proprietor brought the action in the hope of suppressing his warts-and-all biography. Bower finished a 220-page unauthorised biography of Desmond in 2005, which he promised today contained “really quite unbelievable facts” about how the 57-year-old owner of Express and Star newspapers came to acquire a fortune estimated by the Sunday Times at Â£950m.

It is an extraordinary and sleazy story, said Bower, which shows how “a man who rose from earning Â£1 a night looking after a cloakroom in a Tottenham pub became a billionaire”. Bower says he spoke to “100-plus” of what he described as Desmond’s “victims” and claims to have uncovered evidence of alleged mafia connections, fraud and mistreatment of women.

But the book was never published. In court last week, Bower’s barrister, Ronald Thwaites, QC, suggested that Desmond had appointed the renowned libel solicitors Carter Ruck to “put the frighteners” on the original publishers, Aurum.

But Bower said today that as soon as Desmond got wind of the book, he “disappeared” from public life and stopped appearing in OK! magazine (which he owns) and making PR appearances. As a result, Aurum told him Desmond was no longer a public figure and therefore no one would be interested in buying the book.

Bower said he has a meeting next week with HarperCollins, who published his controversial biography of Conrad Black, and who funded his legal defence against Desmond. He is “very hopeful” that Rough Trader, complete with a new chapter documenting the saga of the libel action, will be on sale by Christmas.

But Desmond’s defeat also bodes well for Bower’s next book The Squeeze: Oil Money and Greed in the 21st Century, which is due to be published in October.

Desmond’s solicitors, Schillings, according to Bower, also act for some of the key characters/case studies in the oil book, including former BP chief executive Lord Browne and oil traders Vitol.

Bower claims he has been sent legal letters from Schillings making representations for both Browne and Vitol.

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Richard Desmond loses Bower libel case

July 23rd, 2009 | No Comments

â€¢ Express and Star owner faces estimated Â£1.25m bill
â€¢ Bower celebrates with some jurors after verdict

The press baron Richard Desmond lost a high court libel battle with journalist Tom Bower today, in a verdict that will give ammunition to those who claim he is an interfering proprietor who uses his publications to settle personal grudges.

The 57-year-old owner of Express and Star newspapers and OK! magazine was left with a legal bill estimated at Â£1.25m after the jury returned a majority verdict to say he had not been libelled in two pages of Bower’s unauthorised biography of the jailed newspaper tycoon Conrad Black.

Desmond complained his reputation as a tough businessman had been damaged because Bower made him look like a “wimp”, and in court denied allegations he ordered journalists to print hatchet jobs on his enemies.

As the jury foreman announced the decision, Desmond remained impassive. His wife of 26 years, Janet, who has been by his side for the whole of the nine-day trial, turned to him and said “Oh well,” and shrugged, as the pair headed to the back entrance where their chauffeur was waiting.

On the other side of court 13, Bower smiled, and accepted a kiss from his solicitor. His two barristers embraced: for a defendant to win a libel case is an exceptionally rare thing.

Desmond brought the libel action because he objected to Bower’s account of his relationship with Black back in 2001-02, when the pair owned rival newspaper groups â€‘ Desmond being newly in possession of the Express and Star newspapers, and Black running the Telegraph Group.

In his unauthorised biography of Black, entitled Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, Bower wrote that the Canadian tycoon humiliated Desmond by making him apologise for negative articles printed in the Sunday Express about the imminent demise of the Telegraph’s parent company, Hollinger International.

As Hollinger did implode, Bower argued that Desmond had been “ground into the dust” by Black by saying sorry for something which was true, just as the Canadian tycoon had got the better of countless others.

Proprietor’s feuds

In court, Bower’s barrister, Ronald Thwaites QC concentrated less on the words complained of and more on attempting to rubbish Desmond’s reputation. He dug up evidence of past feuds, rooted out a disgruntled former colleague and did his best to wind Desmond up in cross-examination.

He mocked Desmond’s “thin skin”, and said the case had merely been brought because of Desmond’s bruised pride at having been bettered by Black.

Central to Bower’s defence was the claim that Desmond regularly ordered his journalists to print negative articles about his rivals â€‘ specifically Conrad Black â€‘ to settle his grudges. Thwaites referred to Desmond as a “malevolent” and “interfering” proprietor who would tell lies “at the drop of a hat”.

After lengthy legal arguments, Thwaites was eventually allowed to play to the jury a tape of a phone call from July 2008, in which Desmond issued a threat to a business contact. In this conversation, Desmond warned he could be “the worst fucking enemy you’ll ever have”. Three days later a libellous article appeared in the Sunday Express about the contact and his hedge fund, Pentagon Capital Management.

Desmond in his evidence denied having anything to do with the Sunday Express printing a story about Pentagon, and denied any existence of a grudge against the fund. Yet the jury were told that earlier this year a statement, read out in open court after Desmond agreed to settle the libel action which resulted from that article, said: “Mr Desmond accepts that it was his comments in the presence of Sunday Express journalists that prompted the Sunday Express to publish the article.”

But even in defeat today, Desmond didn’t flinch, and issued an extraordinary statement that almost suggested he thought he had won.

It said: “I sued Mr Bower for defamation because he made inaccurate and damaging allegations about me, yet he refused to apologise and publish a correction â€¦ His biggest mistake was in thinking I would not go to court to uphold my reputation and the resulting action has cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds to defend a few ill-thought-out remarks that were not even essential to his book. It was worth it to stand up in court and set the record straight.”

The Express website tonight carried Desmond’s statement under the headline “I set record straight”, but did not mention that the court case had been lost.

Outside the courtroom, six of the jurors rushed to congratulate Bower, and asked him to sign copies of the offending biography of Black.

He happily obliged, telling them they had done “a great service to British journalism” for which he would be “eternally grateful”.

Kissing jurors

They asked about his next book, a study on oil money and greed, and he promised to send them each a complementary copy. Two of the female jurors were even given a kiss by the moustachioed biographer. Not even Jeffrey Archer did this, muttered one Fleet Street veteran.

“I think I have been a victim of a very rich man trying to suppress the truth,” said a delighted Bower, adding that he very much hoped his long unpublished biography of Desmond, entitled Rough Trader, would soon be in the shops. Bower’s counsel implied throughout the case that Desmond’s real motive in bringing the action was to stop the publication of this no doubt brutal exposÃ©.

He seemed furious when the former Mirror editor Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at City University and MediaGuardian blogger, told the jury Desmond had a worse reputation than any newspaper proprietor since the second world war, including Robert Maxwell.

As Greenslade expanded on this theory, Desmond gripped the table in front of him tightly, and his wife whispered: “Are you OK?” Maxwell and Desmond have at least one thing in common: Maxwell fought a court battle to block Bower’s first book about him, although the late Mirror proprietor failed in the end, and the publicity of the case merely fuelled sales.

It is also a sweet victory for those who have been on the receiving end of Desmond’s volcanic temper over the years, such as Ted Young, a former executive editor of the Express, whom Desmond is said to have punched in the stomach in full view of the newsroom in 2004.

Young, now editor of the freesheet London Lite, was in court this week with his family to hear the closing speeches. Rumours circulated that he was due to give evidence for Bower and would finally be able to talk openly about being punched â€‘ he signed a gagging clause when accepting a substantial payout for the attack.

Despite rumours of Desmond’s interfering style circulating in the newspaper industry and beyond, Desmond insisted under oath that he never interfered in editorial policy. He insisted that newspaper proprietors never meddle in editorial matters. “It’s not the way it works. You do not instruct or order your editors or journalists to write features about people you know. It does not happen,” he said.

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Desmond loses Bower libel case

July 23rd, 2009 | No Comments

High court jury rejects Express owner Richard Desmond’s libel case against author Tom Bower by majority verdict

The Express Newspapers proprietor, Richard Desmond, today lost his libel battle against the author and journalist Tom Bower.

A jury at the high court in London returned a majority verdict rejecting Desmond’s claim that he was defamed by Bower in a biography of the former Telegraph boss Conrad Black.

Bower’s book said that Desmond had been “ground into the dust” by Black when he published apologies for articles in the Sunday Express detailing the Canadian tycoon’s business woes in 2002.

Desmond argued that the allegation was defamatory because it damaged his business reputation.

Speaking immediately after the verdict, Bower said he was “absolutely delighted”. “I have always believed in jury service,” he said. “I think I have been a victim of a very rich man trying to suppress the truth. I’m very grateful to the jury.”

Asked if his book about Desmond, provisionally titled Rough Trader, would now be published, he replied: “I do hope so.”

Desmond issued a defiant statement after the verdict. “I sued Mr Bower for defamation because he made inaccurate and damaging allegations about me, yet he refused to apologise and publish a correction,” he said.

“Bower made a series of errors about events and timings and even got the name of one of my newspapers wrong. His biggest mistake was in thinking I would not go to court to uphold my reputation and the resulting action has cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds to defend a few ill-thought-out remarks that were not even essential to his book. It was worth it to stand up in court and set the record straight.”

The total legal bill for the trial is believed to be Â£1.25m.

When the verdict was announced, Desmond’s wife Janet, who has sat alongside him during the trial, said: “Oh well” and shrugged her shoulders. The couple then walked out of court.

The trial centred on a passing reference to Desmond in Bower’s 2006 book, Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge.

Desmond objected to the claim that he had told Sunday Express journalists to run a string of stories that were critical of Black, with whom he was then locked in a business dispute over their West Ferry print joint venture, and then authorised the paper to apologise for the stories.

“If people believe that despite having this tough reputation he is actually a wimp and can be ground into the dust very easily, and can be made to say sorry for publishing things which are actually true â€¦ it’s very defamatory,” Desmond’s barrister, Ian Winter QC, told the court.

It was also defamatory, the jury heard, for Bower to suggest that Desmond used his position as proprietor to pursue a “personal vendetta” against Black.

Desmond himself denied influencing his editors: “I give no orders on the editorial. The editor decides what goes in the papers.”

This picture of Desmond as a hands-off proprietor was backed up by the Sunday Express editor, Martin Townsend, who rejected Bower’s barrister’s characterisation of him as a “puppet”.

“[Desmond] does not walk around ordering things,” Townsend said. “He does walk around the newsroom from time to time, as it happens, but he does not get involved.”

However, the jury heard evidence that contradicted this picture, for instance that Townsend’s predecessor, Michael Pilgrim, left the Sunday Express shortly after Desmond bought the title, apparently unhappy at management intervening in editorial matters.

And the former media editor of the Sunday Express, David Hellier, told the court that Desmond was seen in the newsroom “virtually every day between five and seven o’clock” and would regularly demand editorial changes. “My impression was that he effectively edited the paper,” said Hellier.

Hellier added that he was so “sickened by the interference” that he went to the National Union of Journalists to lodge an official complaint.

He claimed that, at the Sunday Express, Townsend once showed him an exercise book containing the names of “all of the companies Richard is interested in”, and that shortly afterwards he was asked to write a negative piece about Black.

He said it was well known Desmond did not like Black. “The general view was as far as Richard was concerned, he was an adversary,” added Hellier.

Black, now detained at a US prison after his conviction for fraud two years ago, gave his support to Desmond in the form of a witness statement dictated from his cell.

Desmond had chartered a private jet to the US the week before the trial to garner Black’s support.

â€¢ To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

â€¢ If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.

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Guardian editor calls for local news funding

July 22nd, 2009 | No Comments

Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s editor in chief, tonight threw his support behind a plan to give public funding to Britain’s national press agency to allow it to provide news from public authorities and courts as local newspapers withdraw because they can no longer afford it.

Rusbridger, speaking at a seminar on the future of journalism at the Media Standards Trust in London, also outlined his vision for a new digital world in which the public grows much closer to journalists.

Speaking in front of guests including film director Lord Puttnam, BBC business editor Robert Peston and Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards, Rusbridger said local news needed to be supported, or “corruption and inefficiency” would grow as scrutiny lessened.

He said the Press Association, in which most of the big British media firms including the Guardian Media Group are shareholders, should be the recipient of public money to provide local news as other providers such as newspapers and ITV regional news disappear.

In return, PA would contract out the reporting of public authorities and courts to local papers, with the content then shared with other outlets.

PA is currently looking for funding to trial the idea.

Rusbridger said the gradual disappearance of local journalism worried him.

“This bit of journalism is going to have to be done by somebody,” Rusbridger said. “It makes me worry about all of those public authorities and courts which will in future operate without any kind of systematic public scrutiny. I don’t think our legislators have begun to wake up to this imminent problem as we face the collapse of the infrastructure of local news in the press and broadcasting.”

Rusbridger said local public service journalism was a “kind of utility” which was just as important as gas and water.

“We must face up to the fact that if there is no public subsidy, then some of this [public service] reporting will come to pass in this country,” he said.

“The need is there. It is going to be needed pretty quickly.”

Rusbridger also laid out his vision of what he called “mutualised news,” which he said would “take down the walls” of traditional media companies by distributing information through new means such as social networking site Twitter and by asking the public to get involved through experiments such as “crowd sourcing”, used by the Guardian to help with its investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests.

“It was a piece of conventional reporting and tapping into the resources of a crowd,” he said. “There are thousands of reporters in any crowd nowadays. There was nothing to stop people from publishing those pictures but it needed the apparatus of a mainstream news organisation for that to cut through and have impact.”

He added: “What I like about idea of mutualised news is it gets over the concept of us versus them. It is us and them. It blurs the line between journalists and reader. It is much more diverse and plural than a conventional newspaper. It gives us a huge extensive resource.”

Rusbridger denied it would be the end of conventional journalism, saying that trained journalists and the public could work together, adding it was “futile” to deny that “something interesting and exciting is going on here.”

“There are many things that mainstream media do which in collaboration with others is still really important. The ability to take a large audience and amplify things and to give more weight to what would [otherwise] be fragments. Somebody has to have the job of pulling it all together.”

Rusbridger admitted that he had originally dismissed Twitter as “silly” but now saw its huge benefits for media companies in building communities and distributing news. “When Twitter started, I confess, I didn’t get it. Sometimes you are too old to keep up with all these things and Twitter just seemed silly and I didn’t have time to add it to all of these other things, but that was completely wrong.”

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NoW paid hackers after convictions

July 21st, 2009 | No Comments

The News of the World made payments to its disgraced royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire after the two men were jailed for phone hacking, MPs were told today .

The newspaper claimed the “arrangements”, details of which were not given, were made to comply with employment law, rather than to buy to their silence.

The MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee reopened their inquiry into privacy and press standards after the Guardian revealed that the paper’s owner, News Group, had secretly paid Â£700,000 to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, in a confidential settlement.

Today, the MPs pressed executives from News Group to disclose the terms on which Goodman and Mulcaire were dismissed.

The Tory MP Philip Davies asked Stuart Kuttner, the former managing editor of the tabloid, : “Have you made any payments to either Glenn Mulcaire or Clive Goodman since their convictions for their offences?”

Kuttner replied: “As far as I know arrangements, agreements were made with them. I have no details at all of the substance of those agreements.” He promised to investigate further and supply the committee with the relevant details.

Tom Crone, legal manager for News Group, told the committee Mulcaire, jailed for six months in January 2007 for hacking into voicemails of royal aides and others, had received a settlement, though it “bore no relation” to the Â£200,000 suggested by one MP. Asked if Mulcaire was paid to keep quiet, Crone replied “absolutely not”.

During the three-hour session, it also emerged that James Murdoch, News International’s executive chairman, was “appraised” of the decision to pay Taylor Â£700,000 in damages and legal costs for breach of privacy.

Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World and now the Conservative party’s director of communications, told MPs he had no knowledge of the phone hacking carried out by Goodman and Mulcaire while he was in charge.

Coulson, who resigned after the Goodman/Mulcaire convictions, admitted “things went badly wrong” during his editorship. “I deeply regret it and suspect I always will. I gave up a 20-year-career with News International, and everything that I had worked towards since I was 18″, he said.

He said he had never “met, emailed or spoke to” Mulcaire, who was on a Â£100,000-a-year contract with the paper for his “legitimate” and “lawful” work.

He did not know of the extra cash payments Goodman had made to Mulcaire to hack the phones of royal aides. He stressed there was “no evidence any other journalists on the paper had hacked phones”.

Coulson added he was not aware of any evidence linking Mulcaire’s hacking of non-royal targets, including the model Elle Macpherson and publicist Max Clifford, to the News of the World.

He told the hearing Scotland Yard informed him after the Guardian’s disclosures that it was suspected his own phone was being hacked by Mulcaire. Asked if there was any suggestion it was being hacked for someone from the News of the World, he replied: “I sincerely hope not.”

The Labour MP Paul Farrelly asked Coulson how he would be able to have a “sustainable” relationship with Buckingham Palace if he became an adviser in a Cameron government.

Coulson said he had met Palace spokesman Paddy Harverson socially and apologised to the royal family.

Justifying Mulcaire’s annual contract, current editor Colin Myler said the former AFC Wimbledon footballer had undertaken many duties for the paper which included checking Land Registry records, directorships and court records.

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NoW paid investigator after jail term

July 21st, 2009 | No Comments

Glenn Mulcaire received a payment from newspaper after phone-hacking conviction, editor admits

News of the World executives admitted today that the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire was given a payment by the company after his conviction for phone hacking, as MPs cast doubt on elements of their testimony.

During a parliamentary hearing lasting almost three and a half hours, MPs heard evidence from four senior company figures including former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, now David Cameron’s director of communications.

It also emerged that:

â€¢ Scotland Yard never asked Coulson and former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner to help with their investigation into former royal correspondent Clive Goodman, who was also jailed for phone hacking.

â€¢ News International confirmed the Guardian’s revelation that it had paid to settle a claim over phone hacking from Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association.

â€¢ News International’s executive chairman, James Murdoch, was aware of the decision to pay Â£700,000 to settle Taylor’s case.

â€¢ Coulson was recently told by police that his phone may also have been hacked.

â€¢ One MP questioned Coulson’s credentials for becoming an adviser to a future Tory government because phones belonging to staff in the royal household were hacked during his editorship of the News of the World.

â€¢ The judge who presided over Goodman and Mulcaire’s trial said the private investigator had “dealt with others at News International”.

The Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price cast doubt on the account given by News International executives of an email sent by a junior reporter to Mulcaire, containing a transcript of a series of hacked phone messages, that referred to the News of the World’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck.

Crone told MPs that the reporter could not remember the email, while Myler said Thurlbeck had no recollection of receiving it and there was no IT evidence to suggest that he did.

Price said the email was a “smoking gun”. “The sender of the email does not remember sending it, the recipient does not remember receiving it: it’s completely implausible,” he added.

News International executives twice attempted to get MPs thrown out of today’s hearing of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee.

They claimed Labour MP Tom Watson should not be there because he was involved in legal action against the Sun, while Kuttner accused Philip Davies MP of prejudging him after raising questions about the timing of his recent resignation. The Committee’s chairman, John Whittingdale MP, rejected the complaints.

During the hearing, it emerged that Mulcaire was paid following his conviction in January 2007 for hacking into voicemail messages.

MPs were also told that an “arrangement” was made with Goodman after his conviction and that News International would make more internal inquiries about the details.

Tom Crone, the legal manager for News Group, the News International subsidiary that publishes the News of the World, said Mulcaire had earned rights as a contracted employee with a annual deal with the worth more than Â£100,000.

“Mr Mulcaire raised legal issues over his status … if someone has worked for you for x hours a week he has certain employment rights. Given these employment rights, there’s a process that has to be followed when that relationship comes to an end. I believe as a result of failures in the process, there was a sum of money paid to him,” Crone added.

He said this “bore no relation” to a figure of Â£200,000 suggested by Davies.

Davies also asked whether Mulcaire had been paid to keep quiet. Crone replied: “Absolutely not.”

Later, Paul Farrelly MP brought up the matter again, questioning why Mulcaire had been paid.

“Mr Mulcaire was convicted on six counts, a convicted criminal, who breached the press code of conduct all over the place, yet at the end of it he still has claims against the company in terms of employment rights?” Farrelly said.

Crone responded that Mulcaire apparently did have such rights. “If you don’t get the process right, you have to pay them,” he said.

Colin Myler, the News of the World editor brought in when Coulson resigned over the phone-hacking affair, who also gave evidence to the committee today, added: “In all seriousness, HR laws on employment are incredibly complicated. I think it allows people to do rather extraordinary things and still come back on an employers and say you still have not got a right to fire me.”

Asked whether there had been any payment to Goodman, Crone and Myler both said they were not aware of such an award.

Kuttner, who has stepped down as NoW managing editor this month, was also asked if Goodman had been paid since his conviction. “As far as I know, arrangements or agreements were made with them [Goodman and Mulcaire],” he added. “I have no details at all of the substance of those agreements.”

Asked by Davies who then would know, he said he would make inquiries, adding: “It’s quite a large company.”

Myler reeled off a list of the activities Mulcaire, a former AFC Wimbledon footballer, undertook for the News of the World, which included checking Land Registry records, directorships and court records.

“He gave advice on crime issues, had vast professional football knowledge, he was involved in all aspects of the game,” Myler said. “He came up with story ideas, tips, some that worked out, some that did not. He had a vast database of contact numbers in the sports industry and the showbiz world.”

MPs also heard that the police investigation that led to Goodman and Mulcaire’s convictions did not call on Coulson or Kuttner.

“I was never interviewed, never asked to give any form of evidence,” Coulson told the hearing.

Farrelly asked Coulson whether he found that strange. “It’s a question for the police,” Coulson replied. “I think I’m right in saying the police have made clear, the Guardian have made clear, the PCC have made clear, that there’s no evidence of my direct involvement in any of this.”

Kuttner also said he had not been asked to help the police.

Farrelly asked Coulson how he would be able to have a relationship with Palace spokesmen if he became an adviser in a Cameron government.

Coulson said he had met Palace spokesman Paddy Harverson socially and apologised to the royal family. “There’s no problem my end,” he added.

â€¢ To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

â€¢ If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.

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Give Desmond 40p damages, libel jury told

July 21st, 2009 | No Comments

Any libel damages to Express proprietor Richard Desmond should be limited, QC for Tom Bower tells jury in high court

The jury in the libel battle between Richard Desmond and Tom Bower were today urged to give the newspaper owner damages of no more than 40p â€“ the price of a copy of the Daily Express â€“ should they decide that Bower had defamed him.

In his closing speech today, Bower’s barrister Ronald Thwaites, QC, told the jury that Desmond was “too sensitive” and had brought the action simply to repair his “bruised” ego. But he told the jury that, if they did believe Bower had truly damaged Desmond’s reputation â€“ by saying Desmond had been “ground into the dust” by Conrad Black in a biography of the Canadian tycoon â€“ the damages they awarded should be minimal.

“You must consider giving him the cover price of one day of the Daily Express â€¦ as a reflection of your feelings about him were you to find he had been in any way defamed by this book,” said Thwaites.

But the barrister suggested there were inconsistencies in Desmond’s evidence over the past week, such as how he claimed to have only read Bower’s book about Conrad Black on holiday in August 2007, when in fact he had instructed libel solicitors to start action against Bower the previous month. He also claimed to have never exchanged more than a cursory hello with Bower, yet made a “slip-up” in the witness box when he said that Bower had been “driving me mad for years”. Thwaites suggested Desmond was unhappy to have learned Bower had written a biography of him called Rogue Trader.

The key to proving Bower’s case, said Thwaites, was the tape played to the jury yesterday in which Desmond was recorded issuing an expletive-laden threat to a business associate. In the recording Desmond promised he could be “the worst fucking enemy you’ll ever have” if the contact did not submit to his wishes. Three days later a “hatchet job” about the contact and his hedge fund appeared in the Sunday Express.

This “sinister conversation” showed Desmond’s “dark side, the side he didn’t want anyone to see”, said Thwaites, and a quite different facet to the “smiling” Desmond who stood in the witness box last week. It revealed him to be a “malevolent proprietor” who regularly interfered in editorial matters in order to settle his own grudges, said the QC.

Thwaites said Desmond had been backed up in court by Martin Townsend, the editor of the Sunday Express, who had protected his boss by claiming he never ordered articles to be printed about his enemies. Townsend was Desmond’s “yes man”, the jury were told.

“He was here to adopt whatever Mr Desmond wanted him to say. He has no independence. He has no independence as an editor,” Thwaites said.

Thwaites told the jury that the fact Bower had not been called as a witness should not “trouble” them. The barrister argued that it would be an unnecessary step, as the defence had been made without him.

Desmond’s barrister Ian Winter, QC, is due to make his closing speech this afternoon.

â€¢ To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

â€¢ If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.

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Murdoch ‘knew of hacking payout’

July 21st, 2009 | No Comments

â€¢ News International chief agreed with Â£700,000 settlement
â€¢ Andy Coulson admits ‘things went badly wrong’ at NoW
â€¢ Coulson also says he has evidence his own phone was hacked

James Murdoch, the News International executive chairman, was aware of Gordon Taylor’s breach of privacy claim and agreed with the decision to settle for Â£700,000 after a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into the Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive’s phone, MPs were told today.

The News International head of legal, Tom Crone, and the News of the World editor, Colin Myler, took the settlement figure to Murdoch for his approval, MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee hearing into privacy, press standards and libel heard.

Myler told the committee that Crone â€“ who was also giving evidence to MPs today â€“ advised him after taking legal advice that News International should settle the case brought by Taylor, whose phone messages were hacked into by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Mulcaire was sent to prison for six months in January 2007 for hacking into the messages of Taylor and other public figures, including Elle Macpherson, and members of the royal household.

Murdoch, also the chairman and chief executive of News International parent company News Corporation’s businesses in Europe and Asia, was told about the Taylor claim, and Crone continued negotiations with the PFA boss until a settlement was agreed last year, Myler told the committee.

“James Murdoch was apprised of the situation and agreed with our recommendation to settle,” Myler said. “It was an agreed collective decision.”

The Labour MP Tom Watson, a member of the select committee, asked Myler and Crone when they told the News Corporation chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, about the payment, but his question was unanswered.

Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, also appeared before the committee today and admitted to MPs that “things went badly wrong” during his editorship at the tabloid, which ended in his resignation over the jailing of the paper’s royal editor for illegal phone hacking.

Coulson said he did not condone phone hacking and had “no recollection” of it taking place while he was News of the World editor. He also that rejected MPs’ suggestions that the paper had a systemic culture of phone hacking.

The former editor, now the Conservative party’s director of communications, announced his resignation from the paper in January 2007 when royal reporter Clive Goodman went to jail for four months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to intercept communications, which involved hacking into the phone messages of members of the royal household. Goodman was jailed at the same time as Mulcaire.

Coulson told the MPs that “mistakes were made” during his four years as editor. “Things went badly wrong under my editorship of the News of the World, I deeply regret it,” he added.

“When I resigned I gave up a 20-year career with News International and everything that I had worked towards since I was 18. I have to accept that mistakes were made and I have to accept that the system could have been better,” Coulson added.

But he said that Goodman’s extra cash payments to Mulcaire were unknown to him. “Goodman deceived the managing editor’s office and deceived me,” Coulson told MPs.

He added that his initial reaction when he learned of the payments was one of surprise and anger.

Coulson said he was not aware that any other journalists from the paper were involved in phone hacking with Mulcaire while he was editor.

“As far as I am aware there is no evidence linking the non-royal phone hacking by Glenn Mulcaire with any member of the News of the World staff,” Coulson added.

However, Coulson also said he had evidence that his own phone was hacked by Mulcaire. He added that that he had recently been contacted by a Scotland Yard detective.

“There strong evidence to suggest that my phone was hacked,” Coulson said. “There is more evidence to suggest that my phone was hacked than John Prescott.”

Coulson’s revelation comes two years after MediaGuardian.co.uk revealed that Rebekah Wade, then Sun editor and News International chief executive designate, had her own phone hacked into by Mulcaire.

He was also asked about the settlement with Taylor. “I never asked for a Gordon Taylor story, I never commissioned an Gordon Taylor story, I never read a Gordon Taylor story, I never published a Gordon Taylor story,” he replied. “With all respect to Gordon Taylor, he is hardly a household name.”

Coulson said he would regularly spend a five-figure sum on a picture or a story so that Mulcaire’s Â£100,000-a-year contract “did not stand out”. “The idea that I would micromanage the budget, it just wasn’t the case,” he added.

He told MPs that News of the World staff were expected to obey the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.

“My instructions to the staff were clear â€“ we did not use subterfuge of any kind unless there was a clear public interest in doing so. They were to work within the PCC code at all times,” Coulson said.

He later said that he did not think that phone hacking was in the public interest.

Coulson added that he did give senior reporters free rein and that as the News of the World published more than 100 stories a week he was not involved in all of them but focused on the first 15 pages of the paper, as well as the main sport pages, the features spread and the comment section.

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CPS not given key evidence in hacking case

July 20th, 2009 | No Comments

Pressure on Scotland Yard as prosecutors say detectives did not give them a key email in News of the World phone-hacking case

Scotland Yard will come under fresh pressure today to reopen its inquiry into phone-hacking and the News of the World after prosecutors said they were never handed a document that appeared to implicate another of the paper’s senior staff.

The Crown Prosecution Service told the Guardian that detectives did not give them a key email naming the tabloid’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck.

In the email, a junior News of the World reporter has copied a transcript of more than 30 messages hacked from the phones of the Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive, Gordon Taylor, and his legal adviser Jo Armstrong.

The email recorded that the transcript had been prepared “for Neville”.

The News of the World has consistently claimed that the hacking of voicemail by a private investigator involved only one rogue journalist, their royal reporter Clive Goodman, acting alone.

The CPS confirmed that the email was not “physically” provided to them as evidence to support the prosecution of Goodman and private investigator Glen Mulcaire.

Instead it formed part of a bundle of documentary evidence that was retained by the police. Prosecuting counsel would have seen it, but as it had no specific relevacne to the case, the wider significance of it would not have been obvious.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, last week carried out an internal review of the 2007 files and decided not to reopen them, saying that the case had been properly dealt with at the time based on the evidence provided to them by the police.

In a new statement, the CPS said: “The email was not in the possession of the CPS and so did not form part of the examination that the DPP carried out earlier this week.”

The statement added: “The DPP is now considering whether any further action is necessary.”

This development follows previous disclosures that:

â€¢ Police never interviewed Thurlbeck or other journalists named, according to the paper.

â€¢ Police failed to warn everyone who may have been hacked and are now still in the process of informing people who were potential targets.

â€¢ Police did not investigate the possibility the tabloid’s private eye succeeded in hacking the phones of many other targeted public figures, including the former deputy prime minister John Prescott.

The previously unknown email was one of the documents obtained by the Guardian and was provided to the House of Commons media select committee. The committee is due tomorrow to question the News of the World’s then editor, Andy Coulson, on his claims of ignorance.

The Guardian also handed over a contract in which the News of the World’s then assistant editor for news, Greg Miskiw, agreed to pay a bonus of Â£7,000 for information about Taylor. The CPS says that, unlike the email, that contract was passed to prosecutors by police, and was available to them as part of the evidence.

At the time of the investigation, Miskiw was no longer working for the News of the World, having left in 2005.

The documents only came to light because victims took legal actions in which police were required to hand over “unused material” they had obtained in a raid on the private detective concerned, which garnered a mass of paperwork.

The Guardian two weeks ago disclosed that the News of the World then paid more than Â£1m to secretly settle the legal actions by Taylor and two other figures from the football world.

Their lawyers had uncovered the evidence that other journalists had been involved.

Scotland Yard’s original inquiry began in December 2005 after members of the royal household suspected their voicemails were being intercepted.

In January 2007, the News of the World’s royal reporter, Clive Goodman, and Mulcaire, were jailed as a result. But their guilty pleas avoided a full trial at which more evidence may have come out.

More evidence may now be disclosed in legal actions being brought by other hacking victims, including the celebrity publicist Max Clifford, who has hired Taylor’s legal team.

News International said in an earlier statement that, apart from Goodman, “the police have not considered it necessary to arrest or question any other member of the News of the World staff”.

After saying last week that “where there was clear evidence that people had been the subject of tapping, they were all contacted by the police”, Scotland Yard 24 hours later announced that they were now also contacting people where there was a suspicion that they had been hacked

Statements from the DPP and Scotland Yard indicate that to avoid the case becoming unmanageable, they investigated at the time only a small sample of half a dozen, choosing those where evidence was strong, corroboration was available and the victims were willing to testify.

Tomorrow the spotlight moves to News International figures due to give evidence to the media select committee. As well as Coulson, listed witnesses include the paper’s former managing editor Stuart Kuttner and its current editor, Colin Myler.

The committee reopened its inquiry after noting “some contradiction” between disclosures in the Guardian and evidence given two years ago by News International’s then chairman, Les Hinton.

So far, the News of the World has remained silent following publication of the Thurlbeck and Miskiw documents.

The Metropolitan police said in a statement that the CPS trial barristers would have seen the Thurlbeck email at the time, because it had been in the police’s own files of “unused material”.

Scotland Yard did not explain why detectives had not followed it up, or turned it over to the DPP in their original submission of evidence.

The CPS said that “as in every case”, “The unused material was seen by prosecution counsel to determine whether or not it was capable of assisting the defence case.”

The Thurlbeck email would have been irrelevant to the Goodman and Mulcaire defence.

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PM ‘speechless’ after McBride email

July 20th, 2009 | No Comments

Read our exclusive Damian McBride interview

Damian McBride, the senior No 10 adviser who resigned after smearing senior Tories, has revealed that Gordon Brown was so angry when he learned about the slurs that “he could barely even speak to me”.

Talking about the affair for the first time, McBride told the Guardian: “I was brought down by the newspapers, and obviously my own stupidity.”

McBride was forced to quit after details of emails he sent to the former Labour aide Derek Draper were leaked to the press.

They contained salacious gossip about frontbench Conservatives, including speculation about David Cameron’s health.

“I let [Downing Street] down appallingly,” he says. “No 10 should have stuck the boot into me much harder.”

Recounting the weekend that the story emerged, he said: “It was running on the news that there was this scandal brewing, but not with any details. So I rang [Brown] and told him what was in the emails and that I knew I’d have to resign.

“I lost my dad three years ago. He was from a religious Scottish upbringing, very stern, and he would have hated reading those emails. I remember thinking, ‘Thank God my dad didn’t have to see this’, but the way Gordon reacted to me that day, it was as bad as telling my dad.” Brown “was just so angry and just so let down he could barely even speak to me”.

The prime minister’s former official spokesman, who was removed from his day-to-day briefing of journalists at the end of last year, said he was “sorry for the damage I did to Gordon and the reputation of No 10. And I’m sorry for the offence I caused to various people by writing those emails about them.”

However, he added he could not apologise for the fact the emails were printed “because that had nothing to do with me, and I never wanted it to happen. As far as I was concerned, those emails went in the bin shortly after they were written â€¦ and that’s where they should have stayed”.

Speaking about the aftermath of the affair, he said: “That is the only period when I went through what you would classically call an element of depression or sleepless nights.

“You feel genuinely devastated because of the impact you’ve had.”

McBride also confirmed he has kept an account of the weeks following his resignation and did not rule out publishing the diary. He begins a job as business liaison officer at his old school, Finchley Catholic High, in north London in a week’s time.

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Andy Coulson faces phone-hacking inquiry

July 16th, 2009 | No Comments

Commons media committee to quiz David Cameron’s communications chief about his role in intercept affair

Andy Coulson, the Conservative party’s communications chief, will next week be questioned by MPs about phone-hacking by News of the World journalists during his time as editor of the paper.

The Commons media committee will ask Coulson about reports in the Guardian showing that phone-hacking was much more widespread than News of the World admitted after its royal reporter, Clive Goodman, was jailed for illegally intercepting royal telephone messages.

Coulson â€“ who resigned as the paper’s editor after Goodman was convicted â€“ has said he did not know what his employee was doing.

But he has never been questioned in public about the affair, and at the hearing next Tuesday he is expected to come under pressure from MPs who find it hard to believe that News of the World executives did not know how Goodman was getting his information.

Coulson was the editor of the paper for three and a half years until resigning in January 2007.

In July that year, he became the Tory communications chief and is now viewed as a key member of David Cameron’s inner circle.

Last week, following the latest Guardian revelations about the News of the World, several Labour MPs, including the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, said Cameron should sack Coulson because of his background.

But the Tory leader insisted Coulson had already paid a price for mistakes that happened at the paper while he was in charge, and that his job was safe.

Coulson will be giving evidence with some of his former colleagues from News International.

The full list of witnesses has not yet been finalised, but could include Stuart Kuttner, the News of the World’s outgoing managing editor, Rebekah Wade, the former Sun editor who will become the News International chief executive by the end of the year, and Colin Myler, the current News of the World editor.

After Goodman was jailed, the News of the World said his behaviour was a one-off and that other staff at the paper did not know he was involved in phone-hacking.

Les Hinton, the executive chairman of News International at the time, told the culture committee then he “believed absolutely” that Coulson did not know what was going on.

Hinton also told the committee the paper had carried out a rigorous inquiry and that he believed Goodman was the only person on the paper who knew about the phone-hacking.

But last Thursday, the Guardian revealed the paper had paid more than Â£1m to Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers Assocation, and two others who complained about having their phones hacked.

At a culture committee hearing on Monday, the Guardian produced further evidence that the News of the World had been involved in illegal activity, including an email from 2005 showing that other reporters on the paper were involved in handling material obtained by phone-hacking.

Last week, after the Guardian broke the story about the Taylor payment, Coulson issued a statement saying: “This story relates to an alleged payment made after I left the News of the World two and a half years ago.

I have no knowledge whatsoever of any settlement with Gordon Taylor. The [Goodman] case was investigated thoroughly by the police and by the Press Complaints Commission.

“I took full responsibility at the time for what happened on my watch, but without my knowledge, and resigned.”

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Nick Davies and Alan Rusbridger face MPs

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Documents produced by Nick Davies involve senior News of the World journalists in Mulcaire affair

Nick Davies and Alan Rusbridger face MPs

July 15th, 2009 | No Comments

Documents produced by Nick Davies involve senior News of the World journalists in Mulcaire affair

Guardian shows MPs hacking proof

July 14th, 2009 | No Comments

MPs investigating allegations of widespread use of private investigators by the News of the World to hack into phones were handed documents today revealing that more journalists were involved in the practice than the paper’s owner, News International, has previously admitted.

During testimony to the Commons committee on culture, media and sport, the Guardian investigative reporter Nick Davies produced previously unseen records which showed that two senior figures on the paper as well as a junior reporter had a role in obtaining the contents of private voicemail messages through a private investigator.

News International has previously insisted that only one of its journalists, the royal editor, Clive Goodman, had used this illegal method. He was jailed for four months in January 2007, along with a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire.

Yesterday Davies handed over copies of an email from an unnamed junior News of the World reporter to Mulcaire that also referred to the paper’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck. In the email, the reporter says: “Hello, this is the transcript for Neville.” Davies told the committee that the email, dated 29 June 2005, contained “a typed-up transcript of 35 messages which Mulcaire had hacked from the telephones of Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, and Jo Armstrong, a legal adviser at the PFA”.

The second document handed to MPs was a contract dated February 2005 between the News of the World assistant editor Greg Miskiw and Mulcaire â€“ who was using an alias, Paul Williams. In the document, Miskiw promises Mulcaire a bonus of Â£7,000 if he delivers a specific story about Gordon Taylor.

The Guardian revealed last week that Taylor, Armstrong and a third person were paid a total of more than Â£1m in costs and damages by the News of the World’s parent company, News Group, to settle a lawsuit for breach of privacy and to keep it secret. Davies told the committee: “It is hard to resist the conclusion that [News International] have consistently admitted only what has been dragged into the public domain and is indisputable.”

The Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, who was also giving evidence to MPs, said the Taylor story was significant “because it undermines the assurances given both to you and the PCC [Press Complaints Commission] about the sole reporter and the sole detective â€“ the so-called rotten apple defence”. He continued: “News International have known about the involvement of other journalists, including at senior level, for at least a year. It is believed the case [Gordon Taylor] was settled last September. So that begs the question: why they did not tell the PCC, the regulators, or this committee, of the new facts that have come to light.”

The Conservative party’s director of communications, Andy Coulson, who was editing the News of the World at the time of the Goodman case, resigned when Goodman was convicted.

Both documents produced by the Guardian today had been seized by police during the Goodman case.

Rusbridger said the Guardian story was not “a campaign to oust anybody”.

“It wasn’t a campaign to reopen the police inquiry, or to call for prosecutions or to force anybody to resign. We have not called for any of those.

“As a paper we do believe in effective self-regulation and we don’t want a privacy law. When it comes to effective self- regulation, it seems to me it can only work if newspaper groups are truthful and open with the regulators.”

He suggested to MPs that a possible way forward for newspaper editors would be to draw on a definition of the public interest proposed by the government’s former security co-ordinator Sir David Omand.

John Whittingdale, who chairs the culture committee, said the Guardian’s revelations “raised questions” about the extent of phone hacking at the tabloid. News of the World editor Colin Myler and Tom Crone, the paper’s in-house lawyer, will give evidence to the MPs next week.

It also emerged today that the Home Office questioned the decision by Scotland Yard’s assistant commissioner, John Yates, not to reopen the Met’s phone-tapping investigation.

An exchange of letters placed in the House of Commons library discloses that Stephen Rimmer, the Home Office’s director general of crime and policing, wrote to Yates last Friday asking what the Met was doing about the allegations about the involvement of 27 other journalists and whether the police would be informing all those allegedly targeted.

Yates’s reply, sent the same day, said that he had not conducted a review and said he had only been asked by the Met commissioner to establish the facts in the light of the Guardian’s articles in connection with the 2005 police investigation.

Yates’s confirmation that the original investigation did not cover any other journalists has fuelled demands at Westminster that Scotland Yard reopen its investigation. Its understood the Commons home affairs select committee is also likely to open its own investigation into the police failure to look into the wider allegations unless it receives a satisfactory explanation by the end of this week.

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Guardian shows MPs hacking proof

July 14th, 2009 | No Comments

Documents produced by Nick Davies involve senior News of the World journalists in Mulcaire affair

â€¢ How the Guardian committee hearing unfolded

The Guardian today produced evidence to MPs that shows phone-hacking at the News of the World was more widespread than its owner News International had claimed.

Documents passed to the Commons culture, media and sport committee, which is investigating phone hacking, reveal that Neville Thurlbeck, the paper’s chief reporter, read transcripts of 35 hacked telephone messages between PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor and Jo Armstrong, a legal advisor at the PFA.

They were sent in an email to Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator on the paper’s payroll, by an unnamed junior reporter on the paper on 29 June 2005. In the email, the reporter says “Hello, this is the transcript for Neville”. The committee was told by Guardian reporter Nick Davies this was Neville Thurlbeck.

Mulcaire was used by the paper’s former royal editor, Clive Goodman, who was jailed in January 2007 along with Mulcaire. Executives at the NoW’s owner, News International, have always maintained that Mulcaire and Goodman were acting alone and without the knowledge of managers or executives at the paper.

A second document is a contract between the News of the World and Glenn Mulcaire offering him a bonus of Â£7,000 if he worked to develop a story they were after. It includes the name of Greg Miskiw, then the paper’s assistant editor in charge of news. It used the false name of Paul Williams but was sent to Mulcaire.

MPs were also shown an invoice from an unnamed private investigator for work carried out for the News Group, which publishes NI’s tabloid titles, dating back to 1998.

Nick Davies, the Guardian reporter who wrote the story, told the committee: “It is hard to resist the conclusion that [News International] have consistently admitted only what has been dragged into the public domain and is indisputable.”

Earlier, PCC director Tim Toulmin told MPs. “People had raised eyebrows that Andy Coulson did not know what was going on. I would say â€“ having been exposed as not knowing â€“ he then resigned because he did not know what was going on. For that reason he resigned and paid a high price.”

The Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, said: “This is not a campaign to oust anyone, to reopen the police inquiry, for more prosecutions [or to] force anyone to resign. We have not called for any of those.”

He added that one of the key questions was whether self regulation of the press was “effective”.

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MPs shown phone-hacking evidence

July 14th, 2009 | No Comments

John Whittingdale, the chairman of the commons culture committee, said today that the Guardian revelations about alleged phone hacking at the News of the World “raised questions” about the extent of the practice and “might contradict” evidence given by former News International executive chairman Les Hinton.

Speaking at the start of a hearing prompted by Guardian stories that the paper’s publisher had secretly paid Â£1m to victims of phone hacking at the tabloid, he revealed that Hinton did not want to change the evidence he gave to a previous culture committee inquiry into press self-regulation in 2007.

Whittingdale said “when the committee saw these stories it did raise questions. It appeared there might be some contradiction between [them and] the evidence given by Les Hinton two years ago”.

In his letter to Whittingdale, Hinton said the answers he gave in 2007 were “sincere” and “comprehensive” and that he declined to appear.

Giving evidence to the committee, Tim Toulmin, the director of the Press Complaints Commission, said that the watchdog would contact the News of the World again in the light of the Guardian stories, which revealed that PFA chief exec Gordon Taylor and two others were paid a total of Â£1m in out-of-court settlements by the Murdoch title after suing on privacy grounds.

He said that the Guardian stories “gave us cause for concern. We’re going to ask further questions [to discover] whether there was any evidence we were misled.”

“The fact that Gordon Taylor had sued the paper and the suggestion that another reporter at the NoW knew about Mulcaire’s activity â€“ I think that’s new, and we will be chasing that with the Guardian”.

Glenn Mulcaire was the private investigator used by Clive Goodman, former NoW royal editor to obtain information illegally, sometimes by hacking into mobile phone messages. Both men were jailed in January 2007 after admitting the offence.

Toulmin said the PCC would be “writing to the paper [NoW] once we have as much information as we can possibly lay our hands on.”

He added that the board of the PCC, which meets next week, will ultimately decide whether further action should be taken. “If there is any evidence we have been misled, we will be straight on it.”

Paul Farrelly MP asked Toulmin what aspects of the case the PCC would investigate.

Farrelly said the PCC might want to ask how Mulcaire was paid: if it came out of a retainer or a “separate slush fund”.

Farrelly also said the PCC should ask “how far up the chain of command a settlement of the Taylor case went? Did it go to the board of NI?”

Toulmin said “We weren’t told about the Taylor settlement”.

Farrelly pointed out that NoW journalists and executives who organised and attended PCC training seminars held in the wake of the Goodman case would have known about the Taylor case.

He also asked whether the PCC regretted his decision not to call former NoW editor Andy Coulson during its 2007 investigation into the extent of phone hacking and other activities on Fleet Street. Toulmin said “maybe it would have been better for the PCC to have done so. The focus of this is on have we been misled?

“If Andy Coulson has any evidence … he may come into it as a relevant party. That is a decision for the board. We are going to test what they said to us two years ago with what [we] now know.”

Toulmin added that he was convinced such practices were no longer commonplace on Fleet Street because of the amount of publicity they received in the wake of the Goodman trial. The hearing is also taking evidence from the Guardian News & Media editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, reporter Nick Davies, and the GNM deputy editor, Paul Johnson.

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New claims of tabloid phone hacking

July 12th, 2009 | No Comments

â€¢ Top BBC executive was affected, says newspaper
â€¢ Police have begun to contact alleged victims

A top BBC executive and the former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair were targeted by the News of the World’s phone hacking operation, it was claimed today.

Blair was named in a report in the Sunday Times, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, which also owns the News of the World. However, tonight police sources denied his name was on the list.

The names emerged as the Met said it had begun to contact people who allegedly had been the subjects of hacking by the tabloid newspaper, but warned that the process could take some time to complete. “We are not discussing who we are contacting at all,” a spokeswoman said.

BBC sources said that the corporation did not know which of its executives had been affected by the scam at the paper, which led to Clive Goodman, then News of the World royal correspondent, and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, going to jail in 2007.

Andy Coulson, former editor of the tabloid and now director of communications for the Conservative party, subsequently resigned from the paper saying he did not know about the hacking.

Late on Friday the police confirmed they had started to contact people after the Guardian revealed last week that News International had paid Â£1m to settle privacy actions brought by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, and two others who took action after Mulcaire hacked into their mobile phone messages.

“The process of contacting people is under way and we expect this to take some time to complete,” the police said.

The Met today refused to divulge how many people it was contacting.

The Sunday Times reported that the police investigation into Goodman and Mulcaire uncovered a list of “fewer than 20 people”; it included Boris Johnson, now the London mayor, and a senior executive at the BBC, whose phones were illegally accessed.

This list includes those named in the 2006 court action against Goodman and Mulcaire â€“ besides Taylor, the model Elle Macpherson, the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, the publicist Max Clifford, and football agent Sky Andrew.

Macpherson’s publicist said in a statement: “Elle is obviously very concerned that her private telephone conversations and those of other people may have been intruded upon by reputable newspapers. She is aware that the director of public prosecutions (DPP) and the information commissioner have files on the issue. “Miss Macpherson is confident in the ability and the determination of the DPP, the police and information commissioner to ensure that appropriate and proportionate action is taken to prevent any further abuse.”

The DPP is reviewing police evidence and could recommend further charges.

A second, larger, list of about 50 people, contained the names Mulcaire had obtained mobile phone details for, but which police had no evidence had been successfully hacked. The Sunday Times reported that Blair and the former culture minister Tessa Jowell were on this list.

The third list, according to the Sunday Times, reportedly included the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and held between 400 and 500 names that Mulcaire wanted to target but for which he had no numbers.

This week the culture, media and sport committee, which has reopened its 2007 phone hacking inquiry in the light of the Guardian’s revelations, will hear evidence from the Guardian.

The following week, the News International lawyer Tom Crone, and News of the World editor Colin Myler (appointed after Coulson’s resignation), will go before the MPs. The committee hopes to hear evidence from the former executive chairman of News International Les Hinton, who at the original inquiry said Goodman had been acting alone without the knowledge of News of the World executives. Hinton has yet to confirm his attendance.

Public figures and celebrities who fear they were the subjects of the phone hacking have been contacting lawyers. The Bethnal Green and Bow MP George Galloway said he was seeing if any action could be taken. The politician had clashed with the paper in 2006 when its investigations editor, Mahzer Mahmood, attempted to “sting” him at a hotel and implicate him in illegal political funding.

Rod Christie-Miller, partner at the specialist media law firm Schillings, said: “Clients are going to want to see what comes out. Sooner or later there is going to be more concrete evidence about who has been targeted.”

Christie-Miller said his firm was already suspicious that phone hacking could have been used against high-profile clients before the story broke.

“It is something we were concerned may have been happening,” he added. “We have advised clients to change settings on phones and turn off bluetooth.”

One lawyer told mediaguardian.co.uk he had advised clients to “hold their horses” to see what details emerged over the coming days but added that legal claims were “imminent”.

The report in the Sunday Times, sister paper of the News of the World, shed further light on the Gordon Taylor case.

The paper stated: “Taylor’s claim was settled when new evidence emerged out of the police files that another News of the World reporter knew how Mulcaire was obtaining some of his information,

“That reporter has since left the paper and there is no evidence he committed any offence. News International executives are not aware of any other evidence in the police files that show any other News of the World journalist was involved in commissioning Mulcaire to hack phones.”

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