Amazing how £92,000 a year is so much small beer – £1000 a week payments not big enough to bring to the attention of the editor.
Day 56, Part 1:
Rebekah Brooks did not know that Glenn Mulcaire was on a £92,000-a-year contract with the News of the World, she told the phone hacking trial today. The paper had an annual £30 million editorial budget when she was editor.
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Very interesting that Rebekah Brooks said she had never heard of Glenn Mulcaire during her editorship.
Day 55, Part 2:
Rebekah Brooks relied upon the News of the World’s managing editor Stuart Kuttner to oversee the paper’s multi-million pound budget, she told the hacking trial this afternoon.
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The feminist defence of Rebekah Brooks against misogynist males at the News of the World.
Rebekah Brooks battled her way through a high-spending, hyper-competitive and sometimes “misogynistic” world to climb to the top of tabloid journalism, the phone hacking trial heard today.
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This is an important blog and worth following. If you are either concerned or interested in the issues surrounding the treatment of child abuse survivors it provides a valuable insight. I cannot reveal the identity of the person who is behind it for legal reasons but I can assure anyone following my blog that the person knows what he is talking about.
The Police clearly have a difficult job in investigating allegations of historical abuse.
These people are specialists in this area, and spend much of their time wading through the filth of our society. Their focus is on apprehending criminals, but they are human beings, and generally trying to make the world a better place. The time spent working in this area is limited, mainly due to the huge personal impact on them. Spare a thought for the officers who pursue allegations, aware that there is insufficient support for victims, but who do their utmost to make the best of a bad situation. Like a tanker, they leave a huge wake, and they know this but try to control this as best they can.
The Police do not have access to proper support for victims – and they know this! They understand that this is a force-wide issue, and people within…
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Interesting memo.This seems to reveal the desperation Rebekah Brooks felt as her Empire at the News of the World crumbled after the Milly Dowler hacking disclosure by The Guardian.
Day 54, Part 2:
Rebekah Brooks wanted to blame News International’s former chairman Les Hinton and the News of the World’s editor Colin Myler for the phone hacking scandal, according to a document disclosed today.
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These are amazing emails released by the Crown prosecution Service today. First a resume of what Blair told her and then admission that the News of the World was looking to close!
Finally an extraordinary email suggesting that after the paper closed it should be blamed on the former chief e3xecutive Les Hinton and Colin Myler, then the editor of the News of the World. Extraordinary
Copyright Prixpics – used with kind permission
A clearer copy of email evidence submitted in the jury bundles on the last part of the prosecution case has been released by the CPS. The first email, from 11th of July 2011 shows an exchange between Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch, which starts with a discussion of the sales for the last edition on the News of the World.
James Murdoch replies, querying why Brooks would put such things on email. The Daily Telegraph had reported that day on the ‘smoking emails’ which caused the closure of the News of the World. It was also the day that The Times led on reports that the police wanted to interview Brooks.
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This comes as complete bombshell and given recent tensions between Murdoch and Blair – it shows how close Rebekah Brooks thought she was to Tony Blair at the time. Blair’s office has dismissed this as informal advice!
Day 54, Part 1:
Tony Blair was privately advising Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers on the phone hacking scandal days after learning its best-selling Sunday title, the News of the World, had intercepted the messages of a missing girl, the Old Bailey heard today.
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A4e: Improving People’s lives -obviously not for lone parents in this case
Remarkably unreported this month (outside one Daily Mail report) is that four of private work provider A4e’s staff who ripped off the taxpayer and lone parents have pleaded guilty to 30 acts of fraud and forgery.
I am indebted to FE Week for a report from Reading Crown Court that saw the four admit their crimes and now face sentencing later. It reports:
“Ex-A4e recruiters Julie Grimes, Aditi Singh, Bindiya Dholiwar and Dean Lloyd, pleaded guilty to more than 30 charges of forgery and fraud when they appeared at Reading Crown Court on Monday, February 3.
The case followed a police investigation into financial rewards claimed for helping the unemployed into work through the European Social Fund ‘Aspire to Inspire’ Lone Parent mentoring programme, which ended in July 2011.
It is alleged that they forged documentation to support fraudulent claims for rewards for work with learners who had not found work or did not exist over a period of four years until February last year.
Grimes, 51, of Staines, admitted nine charges of forgery and Lloyd, 37, of Milton Keynes, admitted 13 offences of forgery.
Dholiwar, 27, of Slough, admitted seven counts of forgery while Singh, 30, of Slough, admitted two counts of forgery and one of fraud. No date was set for set for sentencing.
The magazine reports that the trial of eight other ex-A4e defendants, who pleaded not guilty to all charges at Reading Crown Court, including conspiracy to cheat, is expected to start on October 6.
A further defendant, Nikki Foster, aged 30, of Reading, recruiter, was not at court on Monday. She was due to appear later this month.
The magazine also carries a statement from the chief executive of A4e who appears to be remarkably complacent that everything is OK in the rest of the company.
Andrew Dutton, A4e chief executive, said: “I am deeply disappointed that a small number of people who formerly worked for A4e on the Aspire to Inspire contract in the Thames Valley up to 2011 clearly let down the people they were supposed to help, and in turn the taxpayer, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and A4e.
“A4e co-operated fully with the police enquiry, after our own internal investigation first brought these incidents to light.
“Since these events took place, we have augmented our controls and processes to seek to ensure that nothing like this could ever happen again…..
He goes on: “I would also like to say thank you to our 3,000 loyal, hard-working and principled staff who each day deliver public services to the highest standards that help to improve the lives of thousands of the most vulnerable in our society.
“I am intensely proud of what they do and deeply sorry that the allegations have for so long cast a shadow over their good work.”
There is a little bit of amnesia here. I seem to remember a certain Commons Public Accounts Committee report in 2012 following hearings from whistleblowers who worked for A4e among others.
Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, is reported as saying at the time “Where the Government chooses to use private companies to deliver public services it is essential that proper arrangements are in place to prevent and detect fraud and malpractice. In this instance, the DWP’s arrangements for overseeing and inspecting its contractors were so weak that vital evidence on potential fraud and improper practice was not picked up. The Department failed, for example, to obtain from A4e damning internal audit reports produced in 2009 which pointed to instances of potential fraud and malpractice across the country.” …
“If it had not been for whistleblowers, a range of systemic issues would not have been identified. The Department might have identified these issues if it had asked the right questions of providers. The recent investigation into A4e looked at particular allegations of fraud but not at the more fundamental question of whether the company was a ‘fit and proper’ contractor.”
Need I say more! I won’t in respect of the eight other A4e employees so they get a fair trial.
A good comprehensive guide to what will happen next in the phone hacking trial – and also a heads up on two new trials fixed for later this year.
The defence case in the phone hacking trial will begin on Wednesday 19 February 2014, which is week 14 of the trial. Each of defendants presents his or her case in the order that their names are on the indictment: Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Stuart Kuttner, Clive Goodman, Cheryl Carter, Mark Hanna and finally Charlie Brooks.
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People queuing outside Jobcentre Plus. Pic courtesy: The Guardian
For the last year an extraordinary war has been going on between the Department of Work and Pensions and some of Britain’s tweeters and bloggers.
The battle has been over the centuries old right to free speech, to send up self-seeking bureaucrats and insult and satirize government ministers and the heads of private companies profiting from public services. This example is very modern, the battleground is Twitter rather than over some pamphlet.
The row began over a year ago when the Department of Work and Pensions used Twitter’s complaint procedure to lodge a trademark complaint against @UKJCP, a satirical account attacking Jobcentre Plus.
The application came from one Jon Woodcock, calling himself brand and information manager – his actual title is senior public information publishing manager – objecting to the site using the Jobcentre Plus trademark.
What was extraordinary was his reasoning. I quote from the document :
“The @UKJCP account has been set up with deliberate and malicious intent to devalue and criticise the work of Jobcentre Plus. In addition, there are a number of rude and potentially libelous tweets aimed at UK government, elected politicians and the heads of large private sector organisations who are committed to working with government on reducing unemployment.”
Not surprisingly Twitter quite rightly rejected such a request.
But the ministry came back – this time I am told using a discreet phone call – specifically objecting to what are called PTs – parody tweets – which were frankly taking the Mickey out of Jobcentre Plus – but where quite clearly linked to information that showed it couldn’t possibly have come from them. Some were true. One was a link to an article showing Jobcentre Plus backed sending claimants to work at strip clubs and for porn film companies – providing they didn’t participate- which I ‘m afraid is correct.
There has been storm of protest from bloggers and tweeters who used Twitter’s appeal process to overturn the decision. The account was restored on February 8 after ten days.
An official spokesperson from the DWP Press Office told me :
“The changes we’re making to the welfare system to ensure that work pays are important to many people, and we work hard to make sure claimants have access to correct factual information.
“We alerted twitter to an account that was falsely sending out tweets claiming to have been published by our official account. It’s for twitter to decide what action is appropriate – we have not asked for any account to be taken down or suspended.”
An official spokesperson for @UKJCP told me:”I am sure @DWPgovuk has no basis to complain about anyone who does a Parody of a Parody Tweet …Some of what was tweeted by me after 9/1/14 was focused on letting followers know what DWP and Jobcentre rights they have. I take the view that the DWP inspired suspension of @UKJCP was not only to censor Freedom of Expression and criticism of the Government but an attempt to suppress the sharing of rights based information.”
What is interesting is that I have been told that NO minister – not even Iain Duncan Smith – asked for Jobcentre Plus to close down this Twitter account,. The idea that ministers, MPs, and anyone running a big private business should be immune from rude comments or libelous views seems to have been taken by managers at Jobcentre Plus’s HQ in Sheffield
Sorry DWP there is a very long tradition in this country from John Wilkes and Liberty to Hogarth,Steve Bell and comedians like Mark Thomas, to poke fun and be rude and tear the governing classes apart. David Cameron is regularly portrayed by Steve Bell as a condom ( he doesn’t like it and has complained to no avail to The Guardian).
If Mps and big bosses don’t like it they should take out a writ and sue. But they know that under the coalition the cost of a writ has risen to £1600 and legal fees are phenomenal. And they know claimants aren’t worth suing because they could never recover their money. That’s why they would love the government to resort to censorship, particularly if they haven’t even asked them to do it.
Westminster Confidential 