Category Archives: Uncategorized

Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks offered Goodman a job after phone hacking conviction, court told – Martin Hickman

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Well this is not such a surprise if you follow @exaronews , both Rupert Murdoch and Tom Mockridge, the ex chief exec, have according to secret recordings offered to do this for all the people now facing trial. Obviously Rebekah set the tone with Goodman.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Clive GoodmanRebekah Brooks responded to the imprisonment of the News of the World’s royal editor Clive Goodman by offering him a job, the prosecution at the phone hacking trial revealed today. Shortly after Mr Goodman came out of jail for plotting to hack the phones of royal aides, Mrs Brooks’s expenses records showed that she invited him for lunch at a private member’s club in London’s Pall Mall on 13 April 2007.

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Phone Hacking Trial Report: Coulson cleared payments to police for Queen’s private phone book, jury hears – Martin Hickman

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Latest revelation of Coulson’s approval of corrupt £2000 cash payments to police two Royal directories – one with the Queen’s private no on it- illustrates the excesses the tabloids went to set up the hacking scandal- and they knew in internal emails they risked jail if they were found out.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Clive-GoodmanAndy Coulson approved two corrupt payments to “palace cops” despite being warned by one of his reporters that he risked criminal charges, the phone hacking trial heard today. 

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Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson-Brooks affair assists Crown’s conspiracy claim – Martin Hickman

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At last one of Fleet Street’s best known secrets – the Coulson-Brooks affair becomes public. The 6 year affair was going on, it appears, while Milly Dowler’s phone was being hacked in 2002. This the prosecution allege is why the pair could easily conspire together to commit crimes!

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Coulson BrooksThe News of the World ordered the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone on the same day it sympathised with her distraught parents’ anguish, the phone hacking trial heard today. Milly went missing near her home in Walton on Thames, Surrey, in March 2002, sparking a large public police investigation and a parallel, covert one at the News of the World, the Old Bailey was told.

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Phone Hacking Trial Report: Brooks and Coulson would have known about phone hacking at NoTW, jury is told – Martin Hickman

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blistering report of the opening of the prosecution case against Rebekah Brooks in the great hacking trial on the Hacked Off and Inforrm blog websites.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Rebekah Brooks personally approved payment of almost £40,000 to a civil servant in return for information, the phone hacking trial heard today. Mrs Brooks was editing the Sun newspaper when the payments were made to the official, Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, told the jury.

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Phone Hacking “Trial of the Century” begins tomorrow: eight defendants face a total of seven charges

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This is going to be very interesting as alongside Rupert Murdoch must be wondering whether his company may face corporate charges. This follows the two secret recordings of his and former chief executive Tom Mockridge released on the Exaro website over the last few weeks, particularly as Murdoch’s private views are in the hands of the Met Police.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Brooks and CoulsonThe first phone-hacking trial begins next week before Mr Justice Saunders and a jury in Court 12 at the Central Criminal Court (the “Old Bailey”) in London on Monday 28 October 2013.  The first day or two are expected to be taken up with legal argument and the selection of the jury so the prosecution opening is not likely to begin until Tuesday or Wednesday. The trial is expected to last at least 4 months.

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Exaro Exclusive: £1bn bill for phone hacking says Murdoch ex chief exec

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Tom Mockridge Pic couretsy mediaweek.co.uk

Tom Mockridge Pic couretsy mediaweek.co.uk

In the second comprehensive leak of a meeting from the Murdoch Empire Tom Mockridge,now the former chief executive of News International, has admitted that News Corp is facing a bill of up to £1 billion just to cope with the phone hacking scandal.
He also discloses in the second transcript of a private meeting last November obtained by Exaro News that without US backing every UK paper -including the Sun and the Sunday Times – would now be closed down because of huge costs.
This is the second secret recording – the first revealed what Rupert Murdoch really thought about the hacking scandal.
In the new secret recording,Mockridge says: “There’s a shitload of just financial expense – across the civil cases,” he says. “The hacking probably, by the time it’s all over, is going to cost News Corp minimum of £500 million, if not a billion.”
On the future of NI in Britain he says: “If NI wasn’t a subsidiary to News Corporation, this company would be bankrupt now. There wouldn’t be a Sun, a Times, a Sunday Times. There’s no way this company, as a stand-alone operation, could afford to financially sustain the exposure it’s taken.”
The rest of the conversation is spiced with racy comments describing what has happened to NI as ” open heart surgery”. Lawyers who conducted the investigation into NI are described as ” bastards” and he gives the strongest commitment to saying NI will keep employing arrested journos even if found guilty in the courts.
Mr Mockridge now has a new job as chief executive of Virgin Media. News UK- the successor to News International – didn’t want to know about his comments while they employed him yesterday. A terse statement to Exaro said: “Tom Mockridge no longer works for the company”.
With a trial imminent I feel constrained from commenting except to say these figures are far higher than anything that has been revealed to shareholders and don’t include costs for other actions. However on the Inforrm blog there is a good comment piece by Michelle Stanistreet, president of the National Union of Journalists on the present situation facing journalists.

New law to protect bloggers from defamatory comments on their sites

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The government has just tabled draft regulations under the new Defamation Act to protect English and Welsh bloggers from being sued if people put up unwanted libellous comments on their websites.
I am indebted to Rupert Jones,a Birmingham barrister who specialises, among other things, in media law for drawing my attention to draft regulations which have been tabled by the Ministry of Justice. The regulations have to be debated by a committee of MPs and peers before becoming law. As far as I can see these regulations do not apply to Scottish or Northern Ireland websites.
From my reading as a journalist it allows bloggers 48 hours or two working days after a complaint has been received to contact the person who put up the comment and make a decision whether to take down the comment. It also allows – if both sides agree – for the person complaining about the comment to be put in touch with person who posted it.
For WordPress users like myself this is particularly good news. Under present arrangements I can moderate comments from new people who want to debate issues. But I cannot stop existing commentators putting up a new comment which is automatically published at the same time as I am alerted by WordPress.
Luckily all people commenting have to leave an email address – even if they are not using their real name – where they can be contacted.
The regulations also allow a ” get out” clause for websites carrying comments from people who cannot be traced – to remove the comment within 48 hours as a strong defence against anybody suing them for carrying an anonymous comment. There is also a lot of leeway for the courts to extend the 48 hour period to cover disputes.
All this is welcome news given my last report about the mad decision of the European Court of Human Rights to allow people to sue websites for comments from anonymous people even after they had taken them down.
Luckily I am told Britain does not have to follow the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights – unlike – and this has confused some people – the European Court of Justice, which is an EU institution.
These new rules – if followed by a website – will make it much more difficult for an intransigent complainer to win any libel action in the UK. And if they want to take it to the European Court of Human Rights they will have to go through the whole British justice system which will cost them a fortune.
So there is some good news to protect bloggers from comments they have never made.

Exclusive on Exaro: New police leads in ex cabinet minister paedophile investigation

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The Metropolitan Police’s Operation Fernbridge is following new leads in their investigation into sexual abuse allegations involving a former Tory Cabinet minister.
The investigation is now looking at new allegations involving links to gay brothels in Amsterdam and a now closed residential school with some special needs children in the North of England near Bradford. It is also looking at allegations from a boy in care in London who was taken out of town to a house where he was sexually abused by the same minster.
The full story by me and Mark Conrad is now on the free to view Exaro News website .
The disclosure should quell unfounded rumours that Operation Fernbridge is being run down and closed.
The main reason for this fear is that a line of investigation involving the ex Cabinet minister has hit a problem. A complaint dating from the 1960s by a young woman alleging rape by the ex-minister is not being pursued after the Crown Prosecution Service advised that the guidelines and law at the time could not justify the charge.
This just illustrates how difficult it is for the Met Police to pursue and get convictions in historic child abuse cases despite people thinking the police are not doing their job. However the disclosure that more leads are being followed up suggests the inquiry is very much alive.
Operation Fernbridge has already led to two people facing trial on multiple charges involving indecent images and sexual abuse.

The Mail maketh Miliband

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A loving father and son: Ed and Ralph Miliband.

A loving father and son: Ed and Ralph Miliband.

The Daily Mail has achieved something that Labour activists could only dream about. Their ill-judged headline on Ed Miliband’s dad, Ralph Miliband, for hating Britain has enabled the Labour leader, to turn a potential weakness into a great strength.
For all his abilities one of Miliband’s great problems in presenting his image to the great British public is that he appears to be a geek. He is the sort of guy that you might think is too bookish and too engrossed in detail (penalty for being an ex special adviser to Gordon Brown) to be a natural born Prime Minister.
But in one fell swoop Paul Dacre has turned a geek into someone who practically the entire nation can empathise and understand. He has made him all too human.
What person in Britain does not understand the natural love to defend one’s dad -particularly if he can’t answer back beyond the grave. What person doesn’t know the natural love between father and son – even if they disagree over politics and football teams.
The Mail’s mess has allowed Miliband to transcend party politics and for people who don’t take any interest in political matters – to remember one thing , he is the sort of guy who stands up for his dad.
I am sure Ed Miliband never would have wanted this in the first place – and certainly wouldn’t even think of exploiting it politically. But the result is that Paul Dacre has achieved the exact opposite of what he wanted and it serves him right.
One can scarcely believe the ineptitude of the next event. The Mail on Sunday is caught going to a private memorial service for Ed Miliband’s uncle to gather more dirt on Ralph Miliband.
What editor would be daft enough a- a week before the highly sensitive decision on a successor to the Press Complaints Commission – to allow his paper to engage in activities that the general public would find distasteful and abhorrent. No wonder apologies were offered – but the probable effect – unless Cameron is completely foolhardy – is that the alternative regime to Leveson is now dead in the water.
Even though this is not directly about press regulation – it will be seen that papers have not learned any lessons.
And with the potential for more striking revelations at the end of the month when the trial of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson starts over the phone hacking scandal, the situation for an embattled media can only get worse.

Dada Hari Ni Vav

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This is an absolutely fascinating travel blog written by a retired American grandmother on a four month trip to India. Not only does it explore places off the tourist track, it has great pictures and a feeling for people as well as places. I put up this particular blog as an example of a whole series she has put together on an Indian journey for those who enjoy travel writing.

annetbell's avatarTalesAlongTheWay

dada-hari-ni-vav02

Dada Hari, was the  chief attendant of Sultan Muhmud  Begada’s royal harem at the turn of the 16 century. She commissioned the building of this step well as well as a garden, mosque, and her own tomb.  The ancient rulers had chosen aristocrats to  build their own burial tombs while they were still alive.  Dada Hari was a very powerful and influential woman in a time where that was not usual.  A story goes is that she wanted the step well to be built as a cool, peaceful spot for the women in the area to rest and visit with  their friends while collecting water for their families.  She was an early feminist helping  other women.  She created one of the coolest places, literally, for a man or a woman  to spend a hot afternoon in Ahmedabad.7976365609_d6bb63b6b6_z

View down into the nearly dry well.  It will be replenished during monsoon.

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