Extracts from the full digital recording of Rupert Murdoch’s astonishing views on the police investigation Operation Eleveden is now available on Exaro’s website. The link is http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5032/audio-rupert-murdoch-was-aware-of-payments-to-officials. For those who have never heard Rupert in private you will notice the huge difference between ” This is the humblest day of my life” approach to MPs in 2011 and his aggressive and angry response to the ” total incompetence” of the police this year. There is also a contrast between this and his appearance before Lord Leveson.
Exclusive: Gotcha! Shocker Sun Tape Reveals the Real Rupe
rupert murdoch picture courtesy of The Guardian
Today I have read a transcript and heard a rather sensational tape of Rupert Murdoch facing the music for 45 minutes from his embattled Sun staffers and executives as his organisation hands over loads of information to the Met Police in the current hacking and bribery investigations.
Full amazing story is on Exaro at: http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5025/rupert-murdoch-secretly-admits-i-knew-about-bribing-officials
Exaro provided extracts of the audio to Channel Four News for a special report tonight and a full transcript – suitably redacted to protect people for legal reasons – is on the Exaro website: http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5026/transcript-rupert-murdoch-recorded-at-meeting-with-sun-staff. Tomorrow you can hear 13 minutes of the great man, sometimes angry, sometimes put out as a grown man sob about his plight at a private meeting inside the mighty News International (now News UK) London HQ. All will be revealed on the Exaro website.
In a series of extraordinary revelations the media mogul reveals:
He knew the practice of paying public officials had been going on for years at The Sun and the News of the World
He attacks Britain ‘s judges ( Lord Leveson watch out) for being biased against News International and put his faith in juries to acquit them all.
He describes the Met Police and other police forces as ” totally incompetent ” in their investigations into News International. He cites the way police turned up to arrest Rebekah Brooks as a particularly crass example. Another staffer reveals the police pulled up his floorboards in searching his home.
He says the police inquiry into the Sun is about “next to nothing.” This contradicts what he said to Parliament.
Hints that he may give the arrested journos their jobs back – ” even though I am not supposed to say this.”
Names checks Lord Puttnam and people close to Gordon Brown ( Tom Watson Mp?) for wanting to get at the Sun for years.
Claims the Management Standards Committee set up by Murdoch is refusing to hand over stuff now to the police after journos complain about a decade of expenses and authorised payments being turned over to the Met.
Also the recording reveals that the Sun’s agony aunt,Deidre Sanders, read out a letter to Murdoch from one of the wives of the newspaper’s executives. The letter is so poignant that the executive bursts into tears , interrupting Murdoch’s angry reaction.
News UK in a statement to Exaro deny some of this. “The Sun has been and continues to be supportive of its employees. Mr. Murdoch has great empathy for those whose lives have been overturned and continues to believe everyone charged deserves the right to be presumed innocent unless proven otherwise. It is simply false that Mr. Murdoch knew payments were made to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK Authorities. The MSC continues to cooperate with those authorities, under the supervision of the court.”
However what is really revealing is how different Murdoch is at this meeting in comparison with his appearance before the Commons Culture,.Media and Sport. The bumbling elderly media boss who had never heard of Neville Thurbeck and never knew anything because it was only one per cent of his Empire is transformed into a man who says spends an hour every day worrying about his staff and has a great grasp of detail about people who have been hacked.
Perhaps the super rich have a secret stash of regenerative pills- not available on the NHS – so they improve with age. Or perhaps it is all the adrenalin flowing in front of his staff.
Altogether this is an amazing revelation of what the real Rupe is like in private. Just for the record, Rupe,to obtain this story no phone or computer hacking was used and no payments were made by me. But I must congratulate you for the way you have trained your staff and executives to make covert recordings. It does you credit when it is in public interest.
No animals or children were hurt in this investigation.Only the rich and powerful.
Atos deaths: A letter to Mr… Smith
This is an appalling situation. Officlal statistics on the deaths of disabled claimants -particularly in the climate where individual suicides have been already been reported- should be kept. I can well see it is remarkably convenient for the DWP to save money by not bothering to produce them. It seems to me part of nastyagenda- saying the government does not want to know the consequences of its own policies. Part of the view of the right wing that there is no such thing as society as Margaret Thatcher once said.
Is the Department for Work and Pensions unable to compile data about the number of incapacity benefits claimants (including IB and ESA) who have died because it is underfunded – or understaffed?
That is the main question in Samuel Miller’s latest letter to Iain (Something) Smith, which you can find over at http://mydisabilitystudiesblackboard.blogspot.ca/2013/06/my-latest-letter-to-iain-duncan-smith.html
This blog mentioned a few days ago that LieDS and his department have decided to withhold up-to-date information on the number of deaths involving people going through the assessment process for benefits (via Atos), who have been refused benefit or who are appealing against a decision.
Vox Political has put in a Freedom of Information request, requiring the DWP to produce that information, and we know that many of you have followed that lead.
Mr Miller has been in the fortunate position to write an authoritative inquiry – as the person who made the original request all…
View original post 411 more words
Tom Watson MP: SEVEN Boxes Of Evidence Recovered !
Tom Watson’s point here shows that his controversial allegation is not based on mere party political point scoring or fiction. The fact that seven boxes of evidence exist and are in the hands of Metropolitan Police speaks volumes. Tom Watson’s source had three days to study the documents and the first investigation was inexplicably closed down after four months. It is not the case now.
From the 24th October 2012, Tom Watson MP at Prime Minister’s Questions.
“The evidence file – used to convict paedophile Peter Righton – if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring. One of it’s members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former Prime minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad. The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it, and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and Number 10″.
Did the Met recover this evidence ?
Yes they did ! Seven boxes of it, recovered from a repository in Leicestershire !
More on this later but I’d just like to take a little time to thank The Needle team member Daedalus. Daedalus works quietly behind the…
View original post 76 more words
Loving care at Gossoms End: An unsung NHS success story
The view of Gossoms End garden from the terrace of the dining room. A good NHS facility
The NHS is taking a beating from the press and media at the moment – just at the point Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, wants to open it up to the private sector. Here is a rather heart warming story of why it is still very good. Not everybody is being neglected by uncaring nurses and health professionals.
The entrance to Gossoms End Community Hospital.| Pic courtesy: NHS Herts
Unless you live in the Chilterns town of Berkhamsted you probably will never have heard of Gossoms End Community Hospital named after an ancient hamlet adjoining the town.
This unsung place is providing excellent physiotherapy for my wife, Margaret, who is recovering from a stroke after a rather dramatic rescue by air ambulance from the Isles of Scilly – see my earlier blog at David Hencke.
What is particularly good is that some one has properly planned this facility so that stroke victims and people recovering from serious injuries can get proper physiotherapy and nursing care in a decent environment. The hospital unlike Watford, the main accident and emergency hospital for West Herts, is under no pressure to throw people out at the earliest opportunity. The cost of running it is much less than using a ward in acute hospital.
But the real key is that this is a nurse and physiotherapy led unit – with a weekly visit from a consultant and a doctor on call. The result is that the driving force behind the care is to find the most suitable rehab treatment for the individual patient.
Also if there is an emergency – my wife was discovered to have two new blood clots on her lungs – the patient can be taken for urgent medical care at Watford General Hospital. In her case suspicions by the doctor at Gossoms End led her to being scanned and then treated at Watford and she was able to go back to Gossoms End for rehab after five days.
There are other human qualities. It is small – just 20 beds – some patients like my wife have their own room.The food is home cooked on the premises, there is a cheery dining room overlooking a small park. There is a terrace and gardens outside. It also does out-patient physiotherapy, has a GP surgery attached and is surrounded by sheltered housing. Even two private retirement developments are now located near this hospital. My sister-in-law , who is a community nurse, was so impressed that she thought it might be a private facility. But it is not. Indeed it has just had a £200,000 refurbishment ( see http://www.hertfordshire.nhs.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/2010-press-releases/208-refurbishment-at-gossoms-end-complete.html).
Berkhamsted is extremely lucky to have this facility. From what I can see there are other such places – but no national directory of how many there are. It seems this provision is very hit and miss.
Yet at the same time the coalition and Labour are supposed to be planning major changes to help Britain’s elderly population by concentrating funds to keep them fit and healthy and provide proper support. I challenge Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat minister responsible for social care, and Andy Burnham, Labour ‘s shadow health secretary, to visit Gossoms End and see how the unsung part of the NHS is working. They need to listen, learn and then act. So far the pair of them are ignoring my emails.Perhaps the minister and the opposition health spokesman aren’t bovvered.
My recovering wife, Margaret; my daughter, Anne, and grandchildren Tegan, Leon,Ryan and Daryan on the terrace at Gossoms End
PS Many thanks to all those who sent Margaret get well cards, messages of support and have taken the time to come and visit her. You have all been very kind and caring.
Libel lawyers plan new way to silence the internet trolls
Britain’s libel lawyer community are extremely excited about a radical judgement by a New Zealand judge which effectively has banned a troublesome troll for mentioning again the name of the person she attacked on the internet for the rest of her life.
The decision has been highlighted on the Inforrm blog (see http://inforrm.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/new-zealand-has-the-harassment-act-just-swallowed-the-law-of-defamation-steven-price ) as a radical, cheap way of avoiding expensive libel actions.
As the Wellington barrister Steven Price puts it: “Why sue for defamation when you can get an injunction by showing that a publisher has harassed and distressed you instead? For one thing, you don’t need to worry about all those pesky defences such as truth and honest opinion.”
As the Inforrm blog says: “The case was brought by lawyer Madeleine Flannagan )who was repeatedly savaged online by Jacqui Sperling, a friend she fell out with. Sperling called her a liar, a perjurer, a prescription drug addict, a vexatious litigant, and a fraudster, and labelled her incompetent, abusive and “bonkers”. She also published private financial and medical details about Flannagan.”
Jacqui Sperling
The case was undefended but the judge cited the New Zealand Harassment Act and ordered her to take down over 100 posts to be taken dow “unless and until the court permits reinstatement,”
madeline flannagan
It also forbids her from directly or indirectly mentioning Flannagan or her family online for the rest of her life.
These rather drastic measures do effectively curb her free speech – though they don’t apply to the printed word – she could still distribute leaflets across NZ attacking Ms Flannagan.
British interest is evidently combined by moves recommended by the Law Commission which want new take down orders to be enforced by judges where false allegations cause considerable harm to an individual.
I must say Ms Sperling’s attacks do sound particularly nasty. But one has to ask whether such a harassment ruling could be used say by politicians or people under sustained investigation for more legitimate reasons to get blogs taken down they don’t like. Or will it bring legal harassment tourism to New Zealand – if the blog happens to be read by people in Auckland or Wellington.
And will it be effective? It is almost impossible to remove any copy made of a blog by someone else – so some of the damning blogs may still be there despite Judge David Harvey’s ruling. On the other hand it does serve as a warning to some nasty vicious trolls that they can be stopped without going to the libel courts.
Exclusive: Child sex abuse – Police arrest half brother of prominent Tory MP
The home of the Tory MP’s mum where this morning’s arrest took place. Pic courtesy: Exaro
The Met police this morning arrested Charles Napier, the half brother of a prominent Conservative MP in a substantial stepping of their investigation into historic child sexual abuse.
The full story of the arrest of John Whittingdale ‘s half brother in the Dorset town of Sherborne is on the Exaro News website ( see http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5021/met-s-operation-fairbank-arrests-half-brother-of-top-tory-mp ). The arrest took place at the £500.000 home of the Mp’s 92 year old mother.
The arrest is the first as a result of inquiries by Operation Fairbank set up after Labour MP Tom Watson passed allegations of child sexual abuse dating back to the 1980s to the Met Police.It follows two arrests under Operation Fernbridge, which is looking into child abuse in the London borough of Richmond and at Elm Guest House in Barnes where it is alleged that prominent VIPS abused boys.
However unlike reports today in the Telegraph and Mail on line today the arrest has NOTHING to do with events at the Elm Guest House, please see Exaro for an accurate account.
The Met police said: “This arrest is part of a new strand of Operation Fairbank entitled Operation Cayacos, which has now reached the criminal threshold.”
Tom Watson said :” I am extremely grateful for the dedicated team of officers of the Met Police who are investigating a number of allegations regarding child abuse. I am sure people will appreciate that we should let them continue with their forensic and comprehensive inquiries into this area.”
John Whittingdale said :‘I’m obviously aware that he was convicted of offences some twenty years ago, that is a matter that is in the public domain anyway. But I am not aware that he has committed any offence since that time. But if allegations have been made then I accept that they have to be investigated.”
For those sceptics who have said the Met Police would never dare arrest anybody connected to a prominent person in this investigation – they should think again. To my mind it fits in what I have been assured by the highest levelof the Met’s Paedophile Unit – that the police would follow without fear or favour wherever credible evidence took them.
An unfounded and false allegation
This weekend Exaro News has published a story by me where a prominent figure has been falsely accused of indecently assaulting a teenage boy. Exceptionally in this case I had personal knowledge of the events surrounding the incident and knew enough about them to give a statement to the Met Police Paedophile Unit. As a result of my statement and statements from others the police cleared the person.
The full story is behind the pay wall at Exaro News (http://www.exaronews.com and http://bit.ly/11vfyOn). Like the false accusation against Lord McAlpine, this is another case of mistaken identity.
Work Programme providers’ plea is an insult to everyone they have mishandled
This is not good news for the BBC, the work programme or the government. If you take in context the scandal involving A4e which provided placements under first programme I did an extra investigation on top of the work done by the Public Accounts Committee exposing failings in A4e internal audit. My investigation revealed in one small town Bridlington A4 e had placed people with as firm going into liquidation, one run by people from a a house in Rotherham that never filed accounts, another with a company not registered at Companies House, and two with a cafe and taxi firm that subsequently went bust. In other places it turned out they had sent one person to a lap dancing club in Liverpool and a person with a criminal record to a firm which didn’t want to employ people with criminal records. See my own blog https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/exclusive-how-you-got-state-funded-work-experience-in-a-strip-club-with-a4e/
It isn’t very often one can say a news report was shocking – not because of the subject matter, but because of the way it was reported.
That was the situation tonight with the BBC’s item in which Work Programme providers complained that they need more money to “help” the most challenging jobseekers into work.
This group, of course, being benefit claimants in the work-related activity group of Employment and Support Allowance.
This group being the most consistently abused and neglected element of the new underclass created by the Conservative-led Coalition government, demonised and hated by the right-wing press, often attacked in the street (to judge from first-hand accounts), many of whom have been driven to suicide or death caused by their conditions, which have been worsened by the unacceptable (and to most people reading this, inconceivable) amount of stress the DWP, Atos (the private company assessing their fitness…
View original post 938 more words
Will data journalism save investigative journalism?
The collapse of the print media and the rise of the free internet is threatening to destroy the income that allows traditional journalism to thrive.
As papers and TV cut and cut again staff they have fewer and fewer resources to scrutinise and investigate government, business, crime and the dodgy guys have a much greater chance of getting away with it.
So just like the ancient search for the Holy Grail journalists have been looking for a way to fund their time-consuming and expensive investigative operations. Some have sought world-wide alliances like Alan Rusbridger,editor of The Guardian, to bring an international flavour – like the Prism survellience scandal – to journalism. Others like Rupert Murdoch have thought pay walls and monopoly control will fund journalism.
But they might just be a third way. The government’s decision enthusiastically endorsed by Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, to open up data has provided an amazing opportunity for a new breed of journalists – data journalists – to exercise their amazing mathematical and computer savvy skills- and create new stories. But they have also opened up an extraordinary lucrative way to raise cash from business for a tailor-made service to meet their individual needs.
Exaro, the news organisation, who employ me on a freelance basis, may have just found the answer to marry this. By exploiting government data Exaro’s data journalists have produced a major story on the state of liquidations in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland ( see http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5008/liquidations-are-running-at-four-times-level-before-credit-crunch ). But this journalism led investigation – by Tim Wood, Henry Taylor and George Arnett – also has a very lucrative spin-off that may bring an income worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
As Jasper Jackson ( son of the late Mark Jackson. my friend and one of Fleet Street’s great colourful journalist characters) discloses ( see http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/exclusive-exaro-news-channels-investigative-journalism-into-data-products) the possibilities of a tailor-made service that can change the finances.
As Mark Watts, editor in chief of Exaro, puts it: ”
“There are data journalism teams out there, but they traditionally don’t worry about making things commercial. What we are doing is rather different because it is journalists who are doing it, generating material for editorial purposes, but in the same breath doing it for commercial purposes.
The editorial aspect is important. The data interrogation techniques are very specific and journalists are also able to present things in a meaningful way. There is a sense of having to distil it, and make sense of the data.”
So have we discovered the Holy Grail, the way to break stories, subsidise other important investigations, without compromising editorial integrity? Francis Maude may have to put up with data journalism providing an income stream enabling us to investigate and scrutinise him and Cabinet ministers even more thoroughly. A double-edged sword at times.
Westminster Confidential 