CPS on “A Culture of Invading Privacy” – and the Real Police Costs

Posted on by

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.

peterjukes's avatarThe Criminal Media Nexus

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…

View original post 308 more words

Phone Hacking Trial: Prosecutors to announce whether Coulson will face Re-trial – Martin Hickman

Posted on by

The trial today came to an untimely end with the judge criticising the Prime Minister for his comments about Coulson before the jury could decide on a verdict on the last charges against the PM’s former press secretary. Now there could be a retrial.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Phone hacking claimsProsecutors will announce within days whether Andy Coulson will face a re-trial on charges he and former News of the World colleague Clive Goodman paid cash bribes to police officers guarding the Royal Family, the Old Bailey was told today.

View original post 639 more words

Phone Hacking Trial: Andy Coulson guilty of phone hacking charge, Brooks not guilty on all charges – Martin Hickman

Posted on by

How is the mighty press secretary for David Cameron, the love cheat who exposed David Blunkett, fallen! What does this mean for Rupert Murdoch when a right hand man is exposed as a conspiratorial phone hacker! What does it say about Cameron’s judgement when Matthew Ancona’s book reveals that Coulson himself warned Cameron of the problem of the police investigation into the News of the World meant he shouldn’t take the job in the first place.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Andy CoulsonAndy Coulson, the former tabloid guilty who became the Prime Minister’s director of communications, was today found guilty at the Old Bailey of conspiring to hack phones while running the News of the World.

View original post 243 more words

Sex Abuse investigations: Stingemore case delayed again and Napier rebailed

Posted on by

Two developments have put back progress on two of  the Met Police’s investigations – Operation Fernbridge and Operation Cayacos.

Southwark Crown Court earlier this month postponed a hearing to decide whether John Stingemore was fit enough to stand trail. It will now be heard on June 27 – this Friday.

Both Stingemore and Tony McSweeney, a Roman Catholic priest, have pleaded not guilty to all charges against them. No date has been set for a trial until the matter is resolved.

And in Operation Cayacos, the police investigation set up after Tom Watson , raised the issue of new information on a paedophile ring run by the late Peter Righton in the Commons, no decision has been made whether to charge Charles Napier, the half brother of Tory MP John Whittingdale.

Instead he has been rebailed until early August pending further police investigations. Another man, Richard Alston, a former headmaster of a now closed independent boarding school in Gloucestershire has been rebailed as part of the investigation. Police originally arrested Napier in November 2012 and Alston in A\ugust 2013.

Social workers join lobby for MPs to demand child sex inquiry

Posted on by

 

Andrew Lansley: No debate on child sex abuse now

The professional organisation for social workers, the British Association of Social workers, has asked its 15000 members to lobby MPs to press  for a national overarching inquiry into historic child sexual abuse

It comes as the number of MPs  backing the call  launched by seven MPs including former children’s minister, Tim Loughton and Zac Goldsmith has now jumped to over 100.

The full story by my colleagues Mark Conrad and Alex Varley-Winter is published on the Exaro website today.

David Niven,former chairman of the BASW who runs a child protection consultancy, told Exaro that a national inquiry was “long overdue”.

“A national inquiry is much needed, and it is about time it happened. We have campaigned for decades for an inquiry that would be comprehensive, which would ‘clear the air’, reassure the public and co-ordinate the way forward for child protection.”

All this shows is that the government is going to come under growing pressure to act and that David Cameron and Andrew Lansley, the leader of the House of Commons and the man responsible for the  unpopular  NHS  reform and privatisation  programme, are going to find it more difficult to stick to their line in trying to ignore the move.

Mr Lansley at the moment  doesn’t even want Parliament to debate the issue. I bet you he doesn’t.

Now 80 MPs back call for over arching inquiry into historic child sexual abuse

Posted on by

The pressure on the government to launch an over arching inquiry into historic child sexual abuse is growing hourly. The number of Mps supporting such a call has gone from 50 to  80.

Full details are available in two new articles posted today on the Exaro website. The first gives the overall picture as MPs email Tim Loughton, the former children’s minister, in  response to his letter sent to every MP. The second article gives full details of every MP backing the project and their responses – and in some cases caveats.

Andrew Lansley, the leader of the House of Commons, was also questioned by Tim Loughton today at business questions when he sought time for a debate on the issue in the Commons.

Mr Lansley is sticking to the PM’s line in refusing an inquiry but promising to keep it under review. He is not in a hurry to grant a debate either.

How long can the government and the mainstream media ignore this growing pressure driven by people, including victims of sexual abuse, on Twitter? I think it is going to become increasingly difficult for Mr Cameron and Theresa May to refuse to do this.

It’s grim down under: Australia, Murdoch and political control – Granville Williams

Posted on by

While the jury is out on the phone hacking trial, this rather damning article reveals that Murdoch never sleeps and is already planning to consolidate his overwhelming power in Australia with the help of Australia’s new Murdoch friendly PM,Tony Abbott. Granville Williams rightly says the issue of media ownership is a major political issue and should be raised in the run up to the general election in the UK.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

AbbottMurdochA report in the Brisbane Times, 12 June 2014, revealed Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his chief-of-staff, Peta Credlin, spent more than 2½ hours at Mr Murdoch’s apartment near Central Park in New York on Tuesday evening, 10 June.

View original post 808 more words

Now all MPs asked by their colleagues to back child sex abuse inquiry

Posted on by
Tim Loughton MP

Tim Loughton MP

Every MP in Parliament is to be asked by former Conservative children’s minister, Tim Loughton, and  Zac Goldsmith, Tory MP for Richmond, to sign up to the original call by seven MPs of all parties for an independent panel  to be set up by Theresa May, the home secretary.

The latest move revealed today by Exaro news is a further acceleration of a campaign  which has now attracted support – at the latest count of 53 MPs.

A groundswell of support in Parliament for such an inquiry quickly grew thanks to a crowd-sourcing campaign by Exaro’s Twitter followers (@ExaroNews), and David Cameron was challenged about it at prime minister’s questions last week.

The original seven – as well as Loughton and Goldsmith – are Tom Watson. the Labour MP who raised the Peter Righton scandal in Parliament; Simon Danczuk, who has written a book and raised the scandal about serial paedophile Sir Cyril Smith;Liberal Democrats Tessa Munt and John Hemming and Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP.

Full details of the letter sent to Theresa May and a full list of the 53 MPs backing the inquiry are on the Exaro website.

No Corruption Please – We’re British: Cameron and the Westland Choppergate scandal

Posted on by
David Cameron meeting the Indian PM on his " successful" business trip

David Cameron meeting the Indian PM on his ” successful” business trip

My ex Guardian and Exaro colleague David Pallister has been assiduously  following the latest  Agusta Westland scandal which led the Indian government to cancel an order  for 12 helicopters to ferry Indian VIPs after allegations of corruption.

His latest article on the Exaro website reveals that proceedings investigating alleged corruption involving a middleman and another British businessman  and Indian  officials are continuing in both India and Italy.

My grouse is not with the pace of investigations in India or Italy into what the Indian press have dubbed the ” choppergate scandal” but the British government’s attitude to what is going on.

David Cameron in 2013 visited India with 100 business people to pledge that he wanted India to be a “partner of choice”  with Britain. As you can hear here Mr Cameron praised Westland to the skies and said any  corruption problems about the order were of course a matter for the Indians and the Italians. Nudge, nudge, it’s those bloody foreigners you know.

.To quote: “AgustaWestland is an excellent company, with highly skilled workers who make brilliant helicopters. Britain has … some of the toughest laws in the world, so people know if they do business with British companies, they have protections.”

How odd it must have seemed to the Indians that one of the people under investigation in the corruption scandal was British.

Now the Indians have requested more information from the British for a criminal investigation. We know this because the Indian Parliament has recorded this in a written answer to MPs.

“MEA (ministry of external affairs ) has also been requested to take up the matter with the government of the UK, as well as requesting its co-operation in verifying the allegations, and helping us by providing relevant information relating to the alleged involvement of a middleman and/or of any Indian individual/entity.”

Roll on this year and nothing much has happened. So I chose the appearance of  Guardian despising Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, at a press gallery lunch in Parliament to ask  him what was happening.

His reply was that he was ” unaware of any request” and repeated the Cameron line.

“I am not aware of any request from the Indian Ministry of Defence for help about this, but I will check to see whether this is correct.”

He added: “As I understand, the court case ( In Italy – at the Agusta end) is about recovering money [by AgustaWestland] after the contract was cancelled by the Indian government.”

Bloody foreigners again. His ” check ” meant according to his top special adviser that he was still sticking to the story. But he helpfully added that Vince Cable’s Business, Innovation and Skills department may know more. Guess what they parroted the same line that it was a problem between the company and the Indians. Yes those bloody foreigners  are at it again. It was becoming obvious we were not helping the Indians get to the bottom of it  at all.

This rather arrogant and even Imperial attitude towards corruption as a problem for others might be rather comic if it  did not have serious repercussions for British workers and jobs. The cancelled helicopters were being assembled in Yeovil at the time.

The latest news as reported by the Times of India is that the Indian government has won its case to get most of its money back and the Indians are considering whether to put the British company on a blacklist for future orders.

So what Cameron hailed as a wonderful business trip to boost British jobs and exports could end up with one of the Britain’s  more successful exporters being blacklisted by one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Well done, Dave!

Phone Hacking Trial: Jury retire to consider their verdicts – Martin Hickman

Posted on by

Soon ( even if it days or weeks) the jury’s verdict on this amazing trial.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Old-Bailey1080Day 119: After eight months sitting silently in a court at the Old Bailey the jury at the phone hacking trial retired this afternoon to consider their verdicts.

View original post 319 more words