Important developments in the News of the World hacking and bribing public officials story .
Yesterday saw two important developments on the criminal prosecutions of former News of the World employees. First, it was disclosed that on Wednesday 5 November 2014, a former News of the World journalist (who cannot be named for legal reasons) had been found guilty of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.
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Peter Jukes reports here that Mr Justice Saunders has rejected claims totalling £630,000 from the taxpayer for costs by Charlie Brooks and Stuart Kuttner. Both were acquitted in the hacking trial. But the judge says they put themselves under suspicion and he refused their applications. The judge is right in my view. The judge’s ruling is published in full in this blog.
While News UK withdrew, at the last minute, their £10-20 million application for costs for Brooks and other corporately defended clients, the claim by Charlie Brooks and Stuart for their private expenses has also been rejected my Mr Justice Saunders today: his full decision is below. Charlie had claimed half a million for his defence, while Stuart Kuttner £130,000 for his individual costs.
Meanwhile, Private Eye has added more detail to the reason News UK withdrew it’s cost application ten days ago,
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Crown Prosecution Service continue phone hacking investigation in wake of trial by charging two more senior figures but drop cases against six others
The Crown Prosecution Service has announced today that it has authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Jules Stenson, former features editor of the News of the World and to summons Neil Wallis, former deputy editor of the News of the World on a ‘phone hacking’ charge.
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Dan Evans, the journalist who helped blow the story that there was phone hacking at the News of the World gets his reward. He gets a one year suspended sentence for admitting what others tried to deny.
The former Sunday Mirror and News of the World journalist Dan Evans was, today, sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment, suspended for one year. Mr Evans had pleaded guilty to two phone hacking offences, misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice by lying in a civil claim brought by Kelly Hoppen.
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What the judge said about Coulson and the other defendants in full.Andy Coulson got 18 months in jail.
R –v- Coulson and others.
Sentencing Remarks
Parliament has decided that it is a criminal offence to access the voicemails of other people without their consent or an order of the court. Parliament has decided that the offence applies to members of the press in the same way as it does to all other citizens. This law provides the same protection to all citizens including those who, for one reason or another, are in the public eye. Parliament set the maximum sentence for the offence of intercepting communications at 2 years imprisonment and Parliament has decided that the same maximum sentence applies to an offence of conspiracy which can cover, as it does in this case, a very large number of individual offences.
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Further problems for Andy Coulson prior to his sentencing as Neville Thurbeck’s mitigation plea says phone hacking was sanctioned by him and Stuart Kuttner, the managing editor, who was acquitted by the jury last week.
Phone hacking at the News of the World was sanctioned by managing editor Stuart Kuttner and three other top executives at Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper group, one of its most senior journalists told a court yesterday.
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The CPS pushes ahead with a retrial of Coulson and Goodman on bribery of police to obtain copies of internal phone directories. The prosecution also summarised its case against all FIVE News of the World journalists convicted of phone hacking. He described the News of the world as a ” thoroughly criminal enterprise” and said the five hackers should pay £700,000 between them top cover the prosecution’s costs. Another bad day for bad journalism.
Andy Coulson, former award-winning editor of the News of the World, is to face a re-trial over allegations he approved cash bribes to “palace cops” to obtain copies of phone directories for the Royal Family, the Old Bailey heard today.
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Andy Coulson, Cameron’s Red Top Shaman
I am rather surprised in the wake of Coulson’ s conviction for conspiracy over phone hacking none of the commentators have picked up the extraordinary passages about his appointment to the Tory Party in Matthew D’Ancona’s revealing book In It Together, The Inside Story of the Coalition Government.
In a series of purple passages he describes the determination of both George Osborne and David Cameron to woo him to become the £275k Conservative Party’s director of communications on 9 July 2007 – so soon after he resigned from the News of the World as editor over the conviction of Clive Goodman for phone hacking.
It is quite clear from Matthew’s account that Coulson himself had reservations about taking the job – which led him to become the Downing Street press secretary by 2010 at a salary of £140,000 a year – and in hindsight might suggest he was worried about further fall out over the phone hacking scandal.
But what is more extraordinary are the purple passages about Cameron’s passion for his professional abilities.. George Osborne is portrayed as a hard-headed strategist – Matthew describes his view of Coulson as ” a street fighter who could take the battle to Labour and win in a media knife-fight.”
But Cameron comes over as besotted with Coulson. According to Matthew ” Cameron..was awestruck by his communications director, whom he privately described in lyrical language.”
” He treated Coulson as a red top shaman, a source of secret knowledge about the world of tabloids, Essex and kitchen- table politics. The phone hacking story refused to go away but Cameron was determined not to yield to those who urged him to ditch Coulson.”
Matthew later adds – and remember that this written before the trial verdict – that Cameron was determined he must follow him into Downing Street and as a result didn’t want ” to ask too many questions.”
He writes:” Coulson had the talent of the outsider, and exercised a quietly magnetic influence upon his privileged bosses, bringing Billericay to Bullingdon.”
All this makes Cameron’s badly timed apology for appointing him show Cameron up as shallow turncoat. While it may not quite rank as an equivalent of Peter thrice denying Jesus, it says something about how a man who treats Coulson as a Messiah figure to connect with the working class and then distances himself as fast as he can when he is down and out. Particularly when it is clear from Matthew’s account that Coulson more than once offered to resign because of his Murdoch past.
Coulson has had a bad time – his trial and subsequent conviction – has led to a jury hearing about his ” love cheat “affair with Rebekah Brooks , his bullying manner from co accused Royal reporter Clive Goodman, and how he listened to the David Blunkett love tapes before publishing the story.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not sorry for Coulson or his fate but I do think the Prime Minister is being let off far too lightly. Peter Oborne has already exposed flaws in his apology statement, Matthew D’Ancona,a Tory insider himself, to my mind, exposes flaws in Cameron’s own character.
Lord Justice Leveson: Pic courtesy of Leveson inquiry website
Yesterday’s clash between Ed Miliband and David Cameron over the Coulson affair was dominated by the Prime Minister’s assertion that he had been cleared by the Leveson inquiry of doing anything wrong.
He could happily quote Leveson’s findings which clear not only him but Rebekah Brooks – also now cleared of knowledge of phone hacking by a British jury – of behaving badly in any improper relationships between Number Ten and the Murdoch empire.
But delve a bit deeper into this rather contorted report – all one million words of it – which probably neither Cameron nor Miliband have – and you will find quite a different story.
Go to Volume Four and Appendix Five – and get one of the most devastating critiques of the incestuous relationship between top politicians and the media I have ever read from a High Court judge in my 27 years of political journalism.
As I reported before “he attacks what he calls the ” inappropriate closeness” between media bosses and successive governments not just now – but for over 35 years. Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron are all indicted in a damning charge sheet.
He baldly states “ politicians have conducted themselves in a way that I do consider has not served the public interest”.
He accuses them of being vulnerable to unaccountable interests, missing clear opportunities to address public concern about the culture, practices and ethics of the press and seeking “ to control ( if not manipulate) the supply of news and information to the public in return for expected or hoped-for favourable treatment by sections of the press.”
He concluded that all this gave rise to “legitimate perceptions and concerns that politicians and the press have traded power and influence in ways which are contrary to the public interest and out of public sight. These perceptions and concerns are inevitably particularly acute in relation to the conduct by politicians of public policy issues in relations to the press itself.”
Some exoneration for Mr Cameron and his predecessors!
If Labour had been sharp enough yesterday Ed Miliband could have rebutted Cameron’s confident assertions. But it may not be surprising that he missed it – because of the mismatch between Leveson’s conclusions and his comments on the sad state of the relationship between leading politicians and media proprietors. It has close similarities to the way the Hutton inquiry exonerated Blair and Campbell despite revealing some devastating facts.
But in no way can either Cameron or Murdoch be complacent about their respective roles in trading power for influence which is at the heart of why both the mainstream media and politicians are widely distrusted by the general public.
And with more to come no politician can afford to brush this aside as ” a here today, gone tomorrow” story!
Despite the hype this is the REAL cost of the trial. Note the astonishing figure that 5500 people are thought to have been hacked by the News of the World. What a disgrace to journalism if this figure is indeed accurate. I note that 3500 people have been informed that they were hacked.
In response to the advance media storm last night (before the trial had closed) the CPS have released the following statement
“This case was not about whether phone hacking took place or whether public officials were paid for information; there are a significant number of recent convictions which show that both did happen.
“This has been a lengthy and complex trial which was required to explore a culture of invading privacy. Despite a number of applications by the defence to have the case thrown out the Judge agreed that the evidence was sufficient for consideration by the jury.
“The jury has found that Andy Coulson, former editor of a national newspaper, conspired with others to hack phones. Others who have admitted their role in this illegal practice – Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup, Glenn Mulcaire and Dan Evans – all now face sentencing…
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Westminster Confidential 