Fascinating evidence given by Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor of the News of the World, over the Milly Dowler voicemails and his lack of knowledge over the use of phone hacking.
Day 31: One of the News of the World’s most senior executives had not even realised phone hacking was possible before the arrest of the paper’s royal editor seven years ago, the hacking trial heard today.
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An interesting explanation from Andy Coulson, former News of the World Editor, about what ” do his phone” meant – eg not hack but check Calum Best’s phone because he was boasting about leaks from the News of the World using another reporter’s phone!
Day 29: Former News of the World news editor Ian Edmondson was discharged from the phone hacking trial on Thursday 12 December. Mr Justice Saunders told the jury a “consensus” of medical evidence suggested he was unfit to participate in the current case.
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this from the excellent @peterjukes means the News of the World’s news editor will not be tried in this case. But significantly the judge has not adjourned the trial, just decided that Mr Edmondson will be tried by a different jury in the future.
This is the statement Justice Saunders made in court on Thursday Afternoon:
SAUNDERS – Can I talk for a moment about Mr Ian Edmondson….
I have received and read a number of medical reports about the fitness of Mr Edmondson to continue to participate in the current trial. The consensus of opinion of doctors instructed both by the Defendant and the Prosecution is that he is currently unfit. It is not anticipated that it will be long before he is fit to continue but it will be several weeks and there can be no guarantee that at the end of that period of time he will be fit. Bearing in mind the current estimate of the length of this trial, I do not think it is appropriate to adjourn to wait for his recovery and accordingly I shall discharge you from giving a verdict in his case. He will be…
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Another extraordinary phone hacking episode – evidently according to the witness a matter of jokes between Rebekah Brooks and former Mirror editor Piers Morgan at Andy Coulson’s 35th birthday bash.
Day 28: Rebekah Brooks and Piers Morgan bantered about hacking into each other’s phones at the 35th birthday party of their fellow tabloid editor Andy Coulson, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. Former lawyer Ambi Sitham told the phone hacking trial that she had gone to a steak restaurant in Balham, south London, for the party as the girlfriend of publicist Neil Reading, who knew all three editors.
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The Department of Health is refusing to disclose the names half the very senior people who have received big pay-offs as part of this year’s re-organisation of the National Health Service..
Nine months after the last Primary Care Trust and Strategic Health Authority closed down in England the ministry is stalling on releasing the names of people who have walked off with payments of anything between £100,000 and £600,000 plus.
A report by me and Frederica Whitehead in Exaro News shows that 44 very senior people – chief executives or directors – have received £12.2m in redundancy payments- an average of £277,000 each.
The National Audit Office said in a report in July on NHS reforms that the payments went to board-level managers in strategic health authorities (SHAs) and chief executives of primary care trusts (PCTs).
According to the NAO, 10 SHAs and 151 PCTs were scrapped in March under Hunt’s reforms to the National Health Service, and new commissioning bodies created.
They are released as a result of the assiduous work of Conservative MP, Stephen Barclay, a member of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, who quite rightly pursues whether taxpayers money is being spent properly.
But the ministry is refusing the publish details of the remaining 21 – saying it is up to those who received the largesse to decide whether they should be named and the payments revealed.
Mr Barclay rightly thinks this is unacceptable – in any big company or in Whitehall – these figures for senior people would be published as part of an annual report.
I agree. At a time of big pay restraint, shortage of money for services in the NHS, is it right that say in the North of England some £3m should be set aside for redundancy and early retirement of just 12 individuals?
Again a two tier system is in operation and the ministry is aiding and abetting it by allowing those in receipts of large sums of taxpayers money to escape being held to account.
It is absolutely extraordinary that the Met police should withhold for SIX years from the Royal Household that they had found highly sensitive directories giving the private telephone numbers of the Royal Family at NoTW Royal editor Clive Goodman’s home. It shows in the early stages the Met Police seemed reluctant to investigate the phone hacking scandal.
Day 27: Police did not tell a senior member of the Royal Household that a large number of Buckingham Palace phone directories had been found at the home of the News of the World’s royal editor for six years, the hacking trial heard yesterday.
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This latest disclosure shows Rebecca Brooks being asked to authorise payments to a serving police officer while editor of The Sun and allegations that the Sun had bribed a Ministry of Defence official to get premature disclosure of the deaths of serving soldiers in Afghanistan. In one case Rebekah Brook’s lawyer pointed to a MOD press release before they published the story.
Day 26: Rebekah Brooks was asked to authorise a cash payment to a “serving police officer” while she edited Britain’s best-selling national newspaper The Sun, the phone hacking trial heard yesterday.
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Met police have seized a picture and amateur film from a known paedophile of a gay sex party attended by a former Tory cabinet minister where boys were sexually abused some 30 years ago.
A report in today’s Exaro News and the Sunday Mirror reveals that the Met Police’s Paedophile obtained the information under their Operation Fairbank scoping inquiry. The paedophile cannot be named for legal reasons and the ex-minister is not being named as it would interfere with police operations.
The unit is focussing on a series of parties in London three decades ago at which boys were supplied for the sexual gratification of men.
Sources close to the investigation say that this line of enquiry will spin-off from Fairbank to become a separate operation with its own name in the New Year.
Exaro has also learnt that police have “talked to” the ex-minister about his attendance at the “sex party”.
The ex-minister, according to the sources, confirmed to police that he was at the party, and that he “knew of” a specific victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons. But the ex-minister denied that he carried out any sexual abuse.
The new information obtained by the police follows two separate but linked operations,Operation Fernbridge and Operation Fairbank – one sparked off by one of my sources and the other by Tom Watson, MP who made allegations in the Commons.
The police action follows a setback when the Crown Prosecution Service dropped charges against two people in connection with abusing boys at Elm Guest House in the London borough of Richmond. Separately the police made a decision to release without charge, Harry Kasir, the former co-manager of the guest house.
While it would be wrong to speculate about police inquiries, I think it is worth pointing out that in this long investigation the Met Police Paedophile Unit seems to be woefully inadequately resourced to handle all the leads it gets. When you realise that fewer police are employed in this tightly knit unit than the Met Police employ to pursue the Plebgate affair and journalists from News International, you wonder who sets the priorities. It is not to say that Plebgate or News International should not be pursued, but one would have thought the life damaging crime of child sexual abuse should receive the highest priority for police investigations. excluding say murder or terrorism. It is clearly not
This vignette about a £4000 payment by the Sun for a picture of Prince William in a bikini shines light on another aspect of a current police investigation, Operation Elveden, corrupt payments to officials by News International. The court is told by the Met police that they have 60 officers pursuing 80 to 90 lines of inquiry – a very large operation indeed. Unusually the court is told of an existing police investigation- with one army officer due to be interviewed by the police about payments for the picture when he comes back from an overseas posting.
Day 25: Detectives are carrying out a live investigation into whether a senior Army officer leaked a photograph of Prince William in a bikini to the Sun, the phone hacking trial heard today. An email from a Sun journalist discussing a payment of £4,000 for the image, taken at a fancy dress party while the prince was undergoing his military training, referred to it coming from “William’s direct platoon commander.”
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Harry Kasir, the co-owner of Elm Guest House in Barnes, south west London has been released without charge by the police.
A report in Exaro News today discloses that detectives at Operation Fernbridge released Mr Kasir who ran the guest house with his wife Carole and said to be the centre of a VIP paedophile ring between 1979 and 1983.
Investigations into Elm Guest House are still continuing by the police as are investigations into the now closed Grafton Close children’s home run by Richmond Council in south west London.
Kasir has refused to comment about what happened at Elm Guest House. He did not return calls seeking comment about the police decision to release him without charge.
Sources close to Operation Fernbridge told Exaro that detectives were hoping that Kasir would become a key witness. However, he refused to talk to them about his time as co-manager of Elm Guest House.
After a police raid on the guest house in 1982, the Kasirs were convicted at the Old Bailey of running a disorderly house – meaning a brothel – and fined £1,000 each. They were given nine-month prison sentences, suspended for two years.
The former Elm Tree Guest House i Pic courtesy: Exaro
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