News International’s top security man was just caught up in the phone hacking scandal, an honest man who knew nothing about it, says his lawyer.
Day 114, Part 2: Mark Hanna, News International’s security chief, did nothing more than pick up some property from Rebekah Brooks’ husband Charlie and arrange its return the following day, his lawyer told the phone hacking trial today.
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Charlie Brooks- just a loving husband not a criminal hiding a phone hacking scandal, his lawyer
Day 114, Part 1: Charlie Brooks is a loving husband who enjoys a few drinks down the pub and makes “stupid” decisions, rather than the mastermind of a criminal conspiracy, his lawyer told London’s Central Criminal Court today.
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Zac Goldsmith MP
An important step was taken today when seven MPs wrote to Theresa May asking for an independent panel inquiry to be launched into repeated failures by police to investigate thoroughly historic cases of child sexual abuse. They want the equivalent of the investigation into the Hillsborough disaster.The initiative came from Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP for Richmond, who has become acutely aware that the Met Police have still not got to the bottom of the historic child sex scandal at Elm Guest House in his constituency despite two people due to stand trial.
He decided that the issue was too important to become a political football and that an all party approach – it involves MPs from four parties- Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green- was the best way forward.
Caroline Lucas MP
The result is revealed on the Exaro website today in two reports by me outlining the letter and the key cases where they have been repeated failures – every time police investigation have come near VIPs. evidence seems to have gone missing, dossiers lost,surveillance material disappearing, seized child porn DVDs lost and even police investigation reports possibly censored.
John Hemming MP
The first report on Exaro details the letter sent to Theresa May and the type of inquiry MPs want. The second report goes into more detail about what MPs want investigated. well as Zac, the other six MPs, are the former coalition children’s minister,Conservative MP Tim Loughton; Labour’s Tom Watson, who raised the question of a paedophile ring run by the late Peter Righton; Labour MP Simon Danczuk, the Rochdale MP who exposed further scandals around the late Sir Cyril Smith; Tess Munt, Liberal Democrat MP for Wells and parliamentary private secretary to Vince Cable, who has concerns about physical and sexual abuse in military schools; John Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham, Yardley, who has raised similar issues of child sexual abuse, and Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, who expresses concern about the issue.
Simon Danczuk MP
These magnificent MPs have put their political differences aside and put their heads above the parapet. They do not mince their words about the unsatisfactory situation that still persists.
Tim Loughton MP
“Documents go missing and investigations are curtailed with a chilling frequency, and that now threatens a serious undermining of the public’s confidence in our current child-protection system despite all the progress that has undoubtedly been made in recent years.”
Tessa Munt MP
It is really time to act. Teflon Theresa May – not known as a shrinking violet in dealing with tough and controversial issues – should very seriously consider what the MPs want and why they feel driven to ask for it.
Tom Watson MP
The innocence of Rebekah Brooks’ pa, Cheryl Carter and her son, by her lawyer Trevor Burke
Day 113: Cheryl Carter, Rebekah Brooks’ PA, would never have involved her own son in a criminal conspiracy to hide evidence of phone hacking from police, her lawyer told the Old Bailey today.
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England’s private ambulance services need some tough discipline as companies – from bus firms like Arriva to parking firms like NSL ( formerly National Car Parks) rush to make profits providing patient transport.
A report I have written for Tribune magazine this week reveals that already 50 per cent of patient journeys to care homes and hospitals are provided by the private sector and they are already eyeing up taking over 999 ambulance services, Such is the pace of privatisation under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
The standards provided by some of the companies – as earlier blogs, including one from personal; experience reveal,- is little short of cruel and appalling. I will be returning in future blogs to expose other bad firms who show little care for elderly and disabled people except to swell their bosses’s salaries.
However there is some good news. The Care Quality Commission – whose job it is to monitor hospitals, care homes and ambulance services – is planning to up its game. It is reviewing its entire inspection system of both private and public ambulance services – for both patient transport and emergency responses.
The decision is contained in a report from the CQC which reveals that Sir Michael Richards, chief hospitals inspector, has decided that this rather neglected side of the business deserves revamping. The report also discloses – as the CQC is the main registration for ambulance services that already 50 per cent of patient transport journeys are carried out by private firms.
Sir Michael ought to have done this sooner – he should know from, some of his own CQC inspections that some private firms were failing in the most basic way – like not bothering to check the criminal records of staff carrying vulnerable patients or whether they had proper training.
He is making big promises He says: “Over the next three years we will develop a ratings system for most providers of health and social care.
“Our ratings will develop to become the single, authoritative assessment of the quality and safety provided by an organisation. They will be primarily based on the judgements of our inspectors about whether services are safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led, but will also take into account all the information we hold about a service and the findings of others.”
Fine words, he better keep them. Unions like Unite and Unison are already warning about the deterioration of services and some of the people who have contacted me on this website have related appalling experiences. The only private firm that contacted me wanted the information I reported about a bad inspection of their company by the CGC removed from the internet. It shows you where they are coming from. Vigilance of these firms is going to be essential.
A big defence of Stuart Kuttner by his lawyer Jonathan Caplan who believes he shouldn’t have been prosecuted. Probably his most interesting statement is this : He suggested that the Crown Prosecution Service should have had more important targets to go after. Stressing public money was tight, Mr Caplan said: “The impression in this case has been that no resource has been spared by the Crown Prosecution Service or the police in investigating this case – and propelling it here as a high-profile prosecution.”
Referring to the glass wall of the dock, he added: “In these courts, they’re mostly used to dealing with murder or terrorism or other cases of that kind.”
Day 112: Stuart Kuttner, the News of the World’s managing editor, is an “old school” journalist whose only fault was that he trusted the paper’s staff, his lawyer told the phone hacking trial today.
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You must acquit Andy Coulson now, his lawyer tells jurors – adding that Mr Coulson is not the big ” I am “. He hasn’t committed a single offence!
Day 111, Part 2: Andy Coulson was a “straightforward and upfront witness” who should be acquitted of phone hacking, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.
Timothy Langdale, QC, for Mr Coulson, said the former editor of the News of the World had tackled difficult questions in the witness box “without shilly-shallying or obfuscation.”
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More argument from Andy Coulson’s lawyer that the editor knew nothing about phone hacking or what Glenn Mulcaire did.
Day 111: Andy Coulson’s admission that he knew about the hacking of David Blunkett has been “hung around his neck like an albatross” at the phone hacking trial, his lawyer said today.
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The latest disclosure revealed in Exaro’s investigation into the rape of a young woman by a man who went on to become a Tory Cabinet minister raises even more disturbing questions.
It is now accepted as part of normal police procedures that if a person accuses another person of rape, the allegations are put to the alleged perpetrator.
It is becoming increasingly clear according to the account from the victim ” Jane” that the police have told her that they have not done it in this case.
She told Exaro :“I could not understand why,” she said. “There were only two people present during the incident. But they refused to question the man who I identified.” She believes that this breaches guidance entitled, ‘Investigating and Prosecuting Rape,’ and compiled by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).
This is one of the key points in the letter of complaint sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions by Labour MP Tom Watson on the need for a review of the case.
To me it seems this amounts to double standards. Under Operation Yewtree into the Savile investigations celebs and entertainers are told about the allegations and in many cases charged.
Under Operation Fernbridge politicians are not told about the allegations and so far no one is charged.
This can only add to the public anxiety that Establishment figures with power are above the law and play into the agenda that politicians can often get away with anything.
Savage attack on Clive Goodman by Andy Coulson’s lawyer who accuses the former reporter of telling ” any lie” if it suits him. A tale of vengeance against the embattled ex editor and Cameron’s former press spokesman.
Day 110, Part 2: Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World, has faced two prosecution speeches at the phone hacking trial: one from the prosecution and a second from ex-royal editor Clive Goodman, his lawyer complained today.
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Westminster Confidential 