Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[Douglas Caddy]

Leveson inquiry unveils new set of villains

Photographers, who it seems at one time or another besieged almost everybody giving evidence, come under fierce criticism

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Thursday 24 November 2011 16.23 EST

The Leveson inquiry heard Sheryl Gascogine describe how she had to crawl on her 'hands and knees' to avoid snappers.

It has been easy to be distracted as witnesses have paraded through Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry. Hugh Grant denied that anything had happened when he rode in the back of the car with a 21-year-old woman in Germany. Max Mosley raised questions about Paul Dacre's sex life, in a bizarre exchange about personal carnal morality. And Elle Macpherson's adviser told us she was ordered to go to rehab so she could keep her job. But then, nothing was ever going to be normal when victims of press intrusion came to turn the tables in court 73.

Yet, for those who have sat through it all, there are clear patterns emerging. There are repeated targets of criticism. JK Rowling picked out the newspaper industry's supposed regulator, describing it, damningly, as "toothless". She had discovered that a Press Complaints Commission (PCC) judgment – aimed at protecting her children's privacy after a photograph of her daughter in a swimsuit appeared in OK! in 2001 – seemed to have little or no effect on the paparazzi that regularly swarmed around her. Gerry McCann, who, with his wife, were traduced by the media, admitted that he had little idea what the PCC was, preferring, reluctantly, to go to law to get redress.

The PCC, though, was already in the dock for its inadequate response to the phone-hacking crisis. But the Leveson inquiry is straying far wider than that. A new set of villains have emerged: the photographers who at one time or another have besieged almost everybody else giving evidence. Sienna Miller thought about moving to Paris to get away from the mob that followed her around. Sheryl Gascoigne had to crawl on her "hands and knees" around her new home in Gleneagles to avoid the snappers because she hadn't yet bought any curtains. Grant complained he had to seek an injunction to get the paparazzi away from Ting Lan Hong's home this year because a complaint to the PCC had failed to stop them lying in wait for the mother of his newborn child. And in a neat little twist, the photographers showed how little they cared by chasing Rowling's car as it left the precincts of the high court.

Some celebrities wanted to protect their privacy; more, though, cared about accuracy. It was Leveson who asked Gascoigne, who appeared on I'm a Celebrity, wrote a biography, and whose wedding pictures were sold to Hello!, which mattered to her more. On privacy, she admitted she had put herself in the public eye – "asking for it" were her words – but she didn't care for all the inaccurate information circulating about her. Rowling brought up a piece written by Carole Malone in the Sunday Mirror years ago that wrongly suggested her husband had quit his job as an anaesthetist when he hadn't.

Mistakes, of course, are a staple of journalism, as any honest reporter will admit. But what really upsets subjects is the failure to correct promptly and with a similar prominence. Grant remembered a long battle with the Mirror in 1996, after news that he had visited Charing Cross hospital had leaked to the paper; a battle only resolved with an apology "deep in the paper". The parents of the murdered 16-year-old girl Diane Watson recalled vividly their battles to be heard by the Glasgow Herald and Marie Claire after both titles published items that contained inaccuracies about the circumstances surrounding her death. And as Rowling reminded us, once an intrusive picture is published it can "spread around the world like a virus". That, on its own, is hardly an easy problem for Leveson to tackle: but it is only a small part of the prosecution case that has built up, public figure by public figure, over this remarkable week.

[Douglas Caddy]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/8915364/Phone-hacked-celebrity-broke-off-relationship-with-boyfriend-after-journalists-found-out-about-it.html

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch and BSkyB face shareholder protest vote

US-based investors vote against BSkyB's chairman, James Murdoch, remaining in his role ahead of annual meeting

By Jill Treanor

guardian.co.uk,

Friday 25 November 2011 15.12 EST

Protest votes against James Murdoch remaining as chairman of BSkyB have been cast by three US-based investors ahead of next week's annual meeting of the satellite broadcaster.

The California State Teachers' Retirement System (Calstrs), the Florida State Board of Administration, and the Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS) have lodged votes against Murdoch remaining on the board. Calstrs, the largest teachers' retirement service in the US, with $146bn (£94bn) of assets, has voted against all the directors on the board ahead of the annual meeting on 29 November.

Calstrs was among the investors to vote against the re-election of Murdoch to the board of News Corporation at last month's annual meeting, while the CBIS led an unsuccessful campaign for Rupert Murdoch to be stripped of his roles as chairman and chief executive of News Corp, which owns almost 40% of BSkyB.

Even before the opposition of the three US funds was disclosed, James Murdoch was under pressure about his role as chairman of BSkyB, following the phone-hacking scandal. The Labour MP Chris Bryant intends to attend next week's annual meeting to express his concerns about the corporate governance at the company after he wrote to 40 major shareholders urging them to vote against James Murdoch's re-election to the board.

Shareholder advisory groups are concerned at the prospect of Murdoch's re-election to the board as chairman as some of them believe an independent director should hold the crucial role at the boardroom table following the phone-hacking scandal, which has raised concerns about the management of the company. Among the investor bodies to have expressed concern are UK-based Pirc, the US corporate governance expert Glass Lewis and the Association of British Insurers.

BSkyB has mounted a robust defence of its chairman, saying he has "always acted with integrity" during his time at the company. Murdoch was chief executive for four years before moving to the role of chairman in 2007, and has also won the endorsement from other investors, such as Odey Asset Management,

In a letter to shareholders this month, Nicholas Ferguson, who is the deputy chairman and main contact point for shareholders, said: "We have known James for some eight years, and during that time he has always acted with integrity in the eyes of both the board and the senior management. If this was to change, clearly the independent directors would re-evaluate the position."

News Corp had mounted an £8bn bid for the stake it did not own in BSkyB but was forced to abandon its offer after the Guardian published stories showing that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked by an investigator working for the News of the World while her disappearance was being investigated by police

[Douglas Caddy]

Legal and General set to vote against James Murdoch

Top 10 investor Legal and General is to vote against James Murdoch remaining as chairman of BSkyB after the multi-billion pound fund raised concerns over his independence from News Corporation.

Daily Telegraph

8:45PM GMT 26 Nov 2011

A vote of between 10pc and 20pc against James Murdoch is expected on Tuesday.

The move will stoke fears at the top of the broadcaster that there could be a significant revolt against Mr Murdoch at the company’s annual general meeting on Tuesday. It is believed that a vote against the chairman of under 20pc would be survivable for Mr Murdoch, but a vote above that would “unsettle the board”, according to one person with knowledge of the situation.

A vote of between 10pc and 20pc against is thought to be most likely, with Mr Murdoch remaining as chairman.

Including abstentions, Tuesday’s vote could reveal a significant lack of backing for the BSkyB chairman who is also deputy chief operating officer at News Corporation and chairman of News International Newspapers.

Those close to Mr Murdoch say that he is determined to stay on as chairman and will remind investors of his record at BSkyB as chief executive and chairman on Tuesday. BSkyB has out-performed the FTSE 100 and investors say that Mr Murdoch has been integral to its success.

Leading investors such as Scottish Widows and Capital Research Global are thought to back Mr Murdoch. He also retains the full backing of the board, which wrote to investors earlier in the month.

Other investors who are against Mr Murdoch remaining as chairman are believed to include Franklin Templeton.

Legal and General is not thought to be against Mr Murdoch because of any issues around his handling of the News of the World phone hacking inquiry and have raised no ethical issues about the way he has operated.

It is believed that the concerns relate to Mr Murdoch’s ability to retain independence following the collapse of News Corporation’s attempt to buy the 60pc of the broadcaster it does not already own.

The investors body, the Association of British Insurers, has put an “amber top” warning on the vote, suggesting that institutional investors have legitimate questions to ask.

Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of BSkyB, is upbeat about the potential left to exploit for the broadcaster.

“[While] 55pc of people pay for TV in the UK, 45pc don’t, so the envelope for growth is considerable,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. BSkyB’s broadband and telephony services also present major potential, he said. “We have more levers than we’ve ever had to grow through a tough environment – 70pc of our cus­tomers don’t take all three services.”

Mr Darroch is also keen to keep increasing investment in content, commissioning more comedy and drama made in the UK, and launching dedicated channels for Formula 1 and programming targeted at women. “If content is the tennis ball, innovation is the top spin,” he said

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch faces his moment of truth

Daily Telegraph

By Katherine Rushton

8:57PM GMT 26 Nov 2011

When BSkyB gets involved with drama, it likes to be wrestling for the rights to Glee or launching its channel of US imports, Sky Atlantic.

But on Tuesday the pay-TV giant will be involved in some theatrics of its own – and they promise to be every bit as compelling.

The company’s annual general meeting at Queen Elizabeth II conference centre may sound like an unlikely setting for a tense corporate battle, but it is on this stage that investors’ worries over the future of BSkyB’s chairman, James Murdoch, will be played out.

Murdoch, whose name has become synonymous with the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, will face a fight to convince shareholders in the broadcaster that his position at News Corporation and at the very heart of the hacking row doesn’t compromise their investment.

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry has already exposed what some say are serious holes in Mr Murdoch’s tenure as chairman of News International. Under questioning by MPs, Mr Murdoch was cool, but his argument – that he didn’t know the extent of what was going on – could be seen by some as raising questions about his ability as chairman.

“He never bothered to ask the questions that a 12 year-old would have asked,” Chris Bryant, the Labour MP, said after Mr Murdoch gave evidence for the second time. Mr Bryant has since taken it upon himself to write to 40 major investors in BSkyB, urging them to vote Mr Murdoch out because he stands to “do serious damage to the overall reputation of the UK’s standards of corporate governance”.

Reputation and probity are not the only matters in question, of course. There is also the long-standing issue of how Murdoch manages to balance the interests of BSkyB with those of News Corp, the company of which he is deputy chief operating officer and which holds a 39pc stake in the broadcaster.

The conflict has been a matter of investor concern for years – Pirc, the shareholder group, lobbied against Murdoch’s 2007 election as BSkyB chairman for that reason – but News Corp’s attempted £8bn takeover of BSkyB earlier this year turned the dial up. While the bid was on, investors were worried it would be pushed through for the wrong reasons. When News Corp pulled it in July under enormous political pressure, they watched their shares crash and took a £16m hit on the balance sheet.

Crispin Odey, a 2.7pc shareholder in BSkyB and one of Mr Murdoch’s most staunch supporters, has also raised concerns that shareholder anger and Mr Murdoch’s long- awaited move to New York after Christmas will make him too “hands off”. “If he’s a bit too non-executive, we’ll see about that,” he told The Sunday Telegraph last month.

Pirc has reiterated its view that he should go before then, while another powerful shareholder group, the Association of British Insurers, has issued an “amber” alert to highlight potentially serious failures of corporate governance. Any disgruntled shareholders will this weekend be sharpening their tongues ahead of one of the rare occasions when Mr Murdoch is forced to answer to them.

It is likely he will survive the vote. News Corp controls 39pc of the vote, and BSkyB’s non-executive directors have been doing an effective job of lobbying shareholders – although close observers of the company speculate that he will step down of his own accord within the next year.

Earlier this month, BSkyB’s deputy chairman, Nicholas Ferguson, took the unusual step of writing to shareholders to remind them of the board’s backing for Mr Murdoch: “We have seen no effect on sales, customers or suppliers over the past five months. The recent results substantiate that,” he wrote, in an apparent effort to refocus attention on the bottom line.

It was a shrewd move. BSkyB’s impressive financial performance is the greatest weapon in Mr Murdoch’s artillery. Under nearly a decade of his stewardship, as chief executive then chairman, the business has gone from having 7m customers paying an average of £366 a year to 10.4m paying an average of £535. “If you leave morality out of it and look at BSkyB through the lens of hard numbers, where is the justification for James Murdoch leaving his position?” says Alex De Groote, an analyst at Panmure.

“The fever-pitch concerns of the summer have dissipated and the balance sheet and risks are as good as they have ever been.”

At its last full-year results, BSkyB revealed it had £921m of cash and notched up more than £1bn in profits on £6.6bn of revenues. What’s more, it appears to be weathering the recession. Revenue for the three months to September 30 grew 9pc, while churn – the percentage of customers who left BSkyB – was flat at 11.1pc, despite fears it would rise as customers cut luxuries.

Jeremy Darroch, chief executive, is upbeat about the potential left to exploit. “[While] 55pc of people pay for TV in the UK, 45pc don’t, so the envelope for growth is considerable,” he said. BSkyB’s broadband and telephony services also present major potential. “We have more levers than we’ve ever had to grow through a tough environment – 70pc of our cus­tomers don’t take all three services.”

BSkyB’s evolution from broadcaster to something akin to services company is significant and builds on a history of technology investments which Murdoch has been central to delivering. Investments in a mobile version of Sky four years ago led to the launch of Sky Go this year, allowing users to watch content on their mobiles and tablets.

Mr Darroch is also keen to keep increasing investment in content, commissioning more comedy and drama made in the UK, and launching dedicated channels for Formula One and programming targeted at women.

“If content is the tennis ball, innovation is the top spin. It brings it all to life and is a great way of saying to customers that we will keep putting more value in their subscriptions,” he said.

The task for Mr Darroch is to keep his eyes on that ball while so much drama is spinning around him. Even Murdoch’s most loyal supporters will want to know that he can do the same

[Douglas Caddy]

Charlotte Church claims Murdoch offered 'good press' to sing at wedding

Singer tells Leveson inquiry she was advised to waive £100,000 fee to perform at Rupert Murdoch's wedding to Wendi Deng

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 28 November 2011 10.28 EST

Charlotte Church, the singer and songwriter, has told the Leveson inquiry that she was advised to waive a £100,000 fee to perform at Rupert Murdoch's wedding to Wendi Deng, because she would get "good press" from the media mogul's newspapers.

Speaking to the Leveson inquiry on Monday, Church said she agreed to appear at the 1999 event – she was 13 at the time – because she was advised by her management and record company that it was a good idea given Murdoch's power and influence.

"I remember being told that Murdoch had asked me to perform at his wedding to Wendi Deng in New York on his yacht," she told Lord Justice Leveson.

"I remember being told of the offer of the favour – to get good press – and I also remember being 13 and thinking why would anyone take a favour of £100,000?

"But I was being advised by my management and a certain member of the record company that he was a very, very powerful man and could certainly do with a favour of this magnitude."

Murdoch married Deng, his third wife, in June 1999, in a private service on board his yacht Morning Glory in New York harbour, with 82 guests attending. Church performed three songs at the event, according to press reports at the time.

News Corporation, Murdoch's company, denied the allegations and said that Church's performance was a surprise to him. Church said that she received a specific request to perform Pie Jesu – and that she was flown on Murdoch's private jet from Los Angeles to New York for the event.

[Douglas Caddy]

Hacking Scandal Widens to Government Secrets, Report Says

The New York Times

By ALAN COWELL

November 29, 2011

LONDON — Britain’s hacking scandal was reported on Tuesday to have broadened significantly into areas of national security, with the police investigating whether private detectives working for the Murdoch media empire hacked into the computer of a cabinet minister responsible for Northern Ireland.

Scotland Yard declined to comment on the report in The Guardian newspaper, saying it would not be “providing a running commentary on this investigation.”

The report said the police had warned Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary from 2005 to 2007, that his computer and those of senior civil servants and intelligence agents responsible for the British province may have been hacked by private detectives working for News International.

News International — whose chairman is James Murdoch, the 38-year-old son of the octogenarian mogul Rupert Murdoch — is a British subsidiary of News Corp., the Murdoch-owned global media empire.

The British outpost has been at the center of a controversy convulsing public life here over the use of private detectives to hack into the voice mail of celebrities and less well-known people thrust into the spotlight of the news by personal tragedy.

But the latest reports suggest that the scandal may be widening if it is established that classified material was also hacked from computers. British news reports on Tuesday said that Mr. Hain’s computer may have contained information about informers within Northern Ireland’s factions. Mr. Hain oversaw delicate negotiations that led to the restoration of local government for the province and the creation of a joint administration grouping its historic adversaries.

The report added weight to previous hints that the intelligence community may have been targeted. A former British Army intelligence officer, Ian Hurst, had previously accused The News of the World, the weekly tabloid that the Murdochs closed as the scandal broke, of hacking into his e-mail account in search of information on confidential informants within the Irish Republican Army.

Mr. Hurst had worked in Northern Ireland, running undercover operations. The BBC reported this year that his computer had been hacked and sensitive e-mails had been provided to The News of the World.

Last month, The New York Times reported that at least one of the scores of lawsuits that allege phone hacking mentions classified information from Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5.

A spokesman for Mr. Hain withheld comment, saying: “These are matters of national security and are subject to a police investigation so it would be inappropriate to comment.” Neither the spokesman nor the police explicitly denied the report.

News International said it was “cooperating fully with the police” on all investigations, The Press Association news agency said.

The hacking scandal has spurred Prime Minister David Cameron to set up a full-blown inquiry into the practices and ethics of the British news media and its relationship with the police and politicians.

In recent days, the inquiry has heard testimony from a procession of celebrities ranging from the actor Hugh Grant to J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, chronicling episodes of intrusion into their private lives by reporters. While the scandal revolved initially around phone hacking, it has since broadened into the realm of interference with computers by people using so-called Trojan Horse viruses for remote access to their target’s computers.

The police inquiry into alleged computer hacking is one of three police investigations affecting the Murdoch media holdings in Britain. Two of them relate to claims of phone hacking and bribery of police officers. In July, Scotland Yard added computer hacking to the list after receiving what the police called “a number of allegations regarding breach of privacy” since January when previous inquiries were reopened.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: 'NoW journalists deleted Milly Dowler voicemails'

The Guardian's Nick Davies tells Leveson inquiry that private eye was 'brilliant blagger' but he only 'facilitated' paper's actions

By Josh Halliday and Lisa O'Carroll

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 29 November 2011 09.34 EST

The Guardian journalist who revealed the scale of the phone-hacking saga has told the UK inquiry into press standards that it was News of the World journalists who listened to and deleted Milly Dowler's voicemail messages, not the private investigator who worked for the paper.

Nick Davies told the Leveson inquiry on Tuesday that Glenn Mulcaire was a "brilliant blagger" but was not responsible for deleting the phone messages of the murdered schoolgirl.

Mulcaire last week denied involvement in deleting messages from the 13-year-old's phone while she was missing in 2002.

"The facilitator was Glenn Mulcaire," Davies told Lord Justice Leveson at the Royal courts of Justice in London. "There is a misunderstanding, I think, around the way that he operates.

"He does not actually, on the whole, do the listening to the messages himself. Most of that is done by the journalists themselves. Mulcaire's job was to enable them to do that where there's some problem because he's a brilliant blagger, so he could gather information, data from the mobile phone company."

He added: "If you asked who hacked Milly's voicemail, the answer is that Mulcaire facilitated … but one or more News of the World journalists deleted the voicemail messages."

Over 90 minutes of evidence, Davies said he had spoken to between 15 and 20 former News of the World journalists who had been "a tremendously important engine in driving the story forward", but that there were "about half a dozen" others in the industry who had helped expose the phone-hacking scandal.

He told how the Guardian sent a detailed note to the parents of Milly Dowler two days before the story about the hacking of their late daughter's mobile phone was published, explaining what had been uncovered.

"What we were disclosing was so important we needed to find some way of getting it in to the public domain. On the other hand, the family had been through hell … We did what we could to soften the impact by sending that detailed warning," Davies told the inquiry.

The Guardian's senior investigations correspondent also revealed that he had recently – and reluctantly – given up on self-regulation of the press, saying: "I don't think this is an industry that is interested in or capable of self-regulation."

He added: "The history of the [Press Complaints Commission's] performance undermines the whole concept of self-regulation, and re-reading this evidence I realise I was sticking up for self-regulation but I wouldn't any

[Douglas Caddy]

Leveson inquiry takes lessons in the dark arts of journalism

The Guardian's Nick Davies and other journalists offer insights into how the press works and the pressures within newspapers

By Roy Greenslade

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 29 November 2011 14.41 EST

In their different ways, three witnesses – Nick Davies, Richard Peppiatt and Paul McMullan – treated Lord Justice Leveson and his team to a series of hard-nosed lessons in how journalism works.

One of the features of the inquiry, in what should be called the prosecution stage of its proceedings, is its need to grasp the culture of Britain's national newspapers.

If there is a measure of naivety, it is relieved by a genuine and endearing desire to understand. Davies helped by giving what amounted to a beginners' guide to the uniquely competitive state of the press.

He began with geography and history. From as long ago as the creation of a national rail system and the development of suitable printing technology, a national press was able to send issues of morning papers around the UK in a single night.

Next came a swift economics lesson about the London-based press, with its 11 daily and nine Sunday titles vying for audiences. Davies pointed out that the editors of the most popular papers, which rely on attracting as many readers as possible to secure advertising, were vulnerable to "a commercial imperative" in order to maximise sales.

By contrast, the serious papers were under lesser pressure to ramp sales with what Davies called quickly produced, cheap content.

Peppiatt gave a graphic account of what that process involved – the publishing in the Daily Star, where he was formerly a reporter, of stories that were often inaccurate, sensationalist and plagiarised.

He painted a picture that many a tabloid hack, if able to tell the truth, would colour in. Reporters were required to "stand up" tips, rumours and even prejudices dictated by editors. He had done it, he said, and asked for forgiveness from his "victims" for having done so. With commendable understatement, Peppiatt said: "The Star is not a truth-seeking enterprise."

So why had he and his former colleagues complied? Because, he said, a person's job depended on it. And it was a regime reinforced by bullying.

Davies also spoke of an internal bullying culture, revealing that he had left the People in the 1980s because his boss at the paper "couldn't tell the difference between leadership and spite".

I found myself nodding at this evidence from both men. It is undeniable that it has always been the way of things in tabloid newsrooms. Editors will, of course, deny it, even under oath.

If a single lesson is learned by the Leveson inquiry from the day's proceedings, it should be this one. Tabloids are not democracies. They are dictatorships. Usually, it is proprietors who exercise control, though there are cases where editors are allowed to rule.

Even when owners do hold sway, it does not necessarily mean they directly interfere in content. Much more crucial is their power over budgets, expecting editors to maintain sales while constraining their resources.

That only serves to increase the ceaseless pressure on reporters to obtain crowd-pleasing, saleable stories. Peppiatt and McMullan recounted several examples of their own efforts.

Davies, drawing on research for his book Flat Earth News, spoke of the dark arts employed by desperate reporters. His tutorial on ethics was excellent in its analysis of the sins of the past, and arguably the present. He was less sure-footed when it came to providing a way of preserving press freedom.

He argued for the creation of a body to advise journalists before publication on whether their stories pass a public interest test and then a post-publication arbitration body to deal with complaints.

Strangely, neither the inquiry's counsel, Robert Jay QC, nor Leveson thought to ask him what happens should the complainant be unsatisfied. Do people go then to the courts for compensation? And will that not lead to papers fighting legal cases, just as they do now?

The evidence of misbehaviour mounts by the day at the inquiry. But finding a fix remains as elusive as ever.

[Douglas Caddy]

British Inquiry Is Told Hacking Is Worthy Tool

The New York Times

By SARAH LYALL

November 29, 2011

LONDON — He admitted that he and his colleagues hacked into people’s phones and paid police officers for tips. He confessed to lurking in unmarked vans outside people’s houses, stealing confidential documents, rifling through celebrity garbage cans and pretending that he was not a journalist pursuing a story but “Brad the teenage rent boy,” propositioning a priest.

After Paul McMullan, a former deputy features editor at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid, had finished his jaw-droppingly brazen remarks at a judicial inquiry on Tuesday, it was hard to think of any dubious news-gathering technique he had not confessed to, short of pistol-whipping sources for information.

Nor were the practices he described limited to a select few, Mr. McMullan said in an afternoon of testimony at the Leveson Inquiry, which is investigating media ethics in Britain the wake of the summer’s phone hacking scandal. On the contrary, he said, The News of the World’s underlings were encouraged by their circulation-obsessed bosses to use any means necessary to get material.

“We did all these things for our editors, for Rebekah Brooks and for Andy Coulson,” Mr. McMullan said, referring to two former News of the World editors who, he said, “should have had the strength of conviction to say, ‘Yes, sometimes you have to stray into black or gray illegal areas.’ ”

He added: “They should have been the heroes of journalism, but they aren’t. They are the scum of journalism for trying to drop me and my colleagues in it.”

Mr. Coulson, who resigned from his job as chief spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron in January, and Mrs. Brooks, who resigned in July from her job as chief executive of News International, the British newspaper arm of the Murdoch empire, have both been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking, or illegally intercepting voice mail messages. Mrs. Brooks, whom Mr. McMullan called “the archcriminal,” is also suspected of making illegal payments to police.

Both have repeatedly denied the allegations, and neither has yet been charged.

Nothing that Mr. McMullan said was particularly surprising; anyone following the phone hacking scandal that engulfed News International and its parent, News Corporation, over the summer is now more than familiar with outrageous tales of tabloid malfeasance. What was startling was that Mr. McMullan, who left his job in 2001, eagerly confessed to so much and on such a scale — no one else has done it quite this way — and that he maintained that none of it was wrong.

Most people from the tabloid world have reacted to the revelations in the manner of Renault when discussing gambling in “Casablanca,” saying they are “shocked, shocked.” But Mr. McMullan veered so far in the other direction that at times he sounded like a satirist’s rendition of an amoral tabloid hack.

Underhanded reporting techniques are not shocking at all, he said, particularly in light of how often he and his colleagues risked their lives in search of the truth.

As examples of the dangers of his job, he described having cocaine-laced marijuana forced on him by knife-wielding drug dealers in a sting operation; being attacked by a crowd of murderous asylum seekers; and, in his “Brad the teenage rent boy” guise, sprinting through a convent dressed only in underpants to escape the pedophile priest he had successfully entrapped.

“Phone hacking is a perfectly acceptable tool, given the sacrifices we make, if all we’re trying to do is get to the truth,” Mr. McMullan said, asking whether “we really want to live in a world where the only people who can do the hacking are MI5 and MI6.”

No, he said, we do not.

“For a brief period of about 20 years, we have actually lived in a free society where we can hack back,” he said.

Journalists in Britain have traditionally justified shady practices by arguing that they are in “the public interest.” Asked by an inquiry lawyer how he would define that, Mr. McMullan said that the public interest is what the public is interested in.

“I think the public is clever enough to decide the ethics of what it wants in its own newspapers,” he said. Referring to articles about Charlotte Church, a singer who told the inquiry earlier this week of her distress at her family’s treatment by the tabloids, he said: “If they don’t like what you have written about Charlotte Church’s father having a three-in-a-bed with cocaine, then they won’t read it.”

For all that, Mr. McMullan said that The News of the World had come to rely too much on outsiders to do work that could easily have been done by reporters, like conducting surveillance on potentially adulterous athletes. Also, he said, some of the investigators were incompetent.

The year he became deputy features editor, he said, the department had a budget of £ 3.1 million — more than $4.5 million to pay sources, buy stories and hire outsiders to find addresses, medical records and other information. “That was the joy of working for Murdoch,” he said. “They had that big pot of money.”

Mr. McMullan, who now owns a pub and does occasional freelance work, spoke nostalgically of his tabloid career, seven years of it spent at The News of the World. He loved spiriting exclusive sources away “and hiding them from other journalists,” he said, as when he “spent two weeks locked in a hotel room with Princess Diana’s gym instructor in Amsterdam.”

He also liked jumping in one of The News of the World’s stable of 12 cars and speeding away in pursuit of famous targets.

“I absolutely loved giving chase to celebrities,” he said. “How many jobs can you have car chases in? Before Diana died, it was such good fun.” (Some celebrities liked it, too, he said. Brad Pitt “had a very positive attitude” about being pursued by crazed journalists in cars.)

Mr. McMullan had brought along some illustrative materials, including a photograph of his surveillance van. He also briefly displayed a topless photograph of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in The News of the World, apparently as a way to show how easy it is to obtain racy photographs.

“That’s the president of France’s wife,” he said.

“It’s a little early in the day for that, Mr. McMullan,” the inquiry lawyer said.

Many witnesses at the Leveson Inquiry, especially victims of the tabloids, have called for a law to protect citizens from news media intrusion. Mr. McMullan said he thought that privacy was “evil,” in that it helps criminals cover up their misdeeds.

Using a Britishism for “pedophile,” he said, “Privacy is for pedos.”

[Douglas Caddy]

Alastair Campbell 'threatened by NI executives over phone hacking'

Former No 10 spin chief claims in Leveson inquiry statement he came under pressure after speaking out in TV interviews

By Josh Halliday and Lisa O'Carroll

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 30 November 2011 09.10 EST

Senior executives and journalists from News International sent aggressive messages to Alastair Campbell in 2009 after the former Downing Street spin chief spoke out about phone hacking at the News of the World.

Campbell alleged in a written statement to the Leveson inquiry published on Monday that he received a series of "mildly threatening text and phone messages" from unnamed executives after he gave TV interviews about the Guardian's initial story on phone hacking at the News International title.

"In July 2009, when the Guardian published a story indicating phone hacking was even more widespread than had been thought, I did a number of TV interviews saying this was a story that was not going away, that News International and the police had to grip it and come clean, that David Cameron should reconsider his appointment of Andy Coulson, and that what appeared to be emerging was evidence of systematic criminal activity on a near industrial basis at the News of the World," Campbell wrote.

The "mildly threatening" messages followed immediately after that. Campbell, gave evidence at the inquiry on Wednesday, claimed that a "bullying culture" in the British press threatens anyone who dares speak out about malpractice or intimidation.

"There is an element within this of a bullying culture, which states that anyone who stands up to prevailing media wisdom or refuses to accept its 'power' has to be attacked and undermined," he said.

He added: "I know that Tom Watson [the MP who has pursued phone hacking] was on the receiving end of a similar and more robust approach."

[Douglas Caddy]

British Inquiry Is Told Hacking Is Worthy Tool

The New York Times

By SARAH LYALL

November 30, 2011

LONDON — He admitted that he and his colleagues hacked into people’s phones and paid police officers for tips. He confessed to lurking in unmarked vans outside people’s houses, stealing confidential documents, rifling through celebrity garbage cans and pretending that he was not a journalist pursuing a story but “Brad the teenage rent boy,” propositioning a priest.

After Paul McMullan, a former deputy features editor at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid, had finished his jaw-droppingly brazen remarks at a judicial inquiry on Tuesday, it was hard to think of any dubious news-gathering technique he had not confessed to, short of pistol-whipping sources for information.

Nor were the practices he described limited to a select few, Mr. McMullan said in an afternoon of testimony at the Leveson Inquiry, which is investigating media ethics in Britain the wake of the summer’s phone hacking scandal. (Indeed, on Wednesday, the British police said they had arrested a 17th suspect in investigations into the scandal — a 31-year-old woman from northern England, who was not identified by name.)

In fact, Mr. McMullan said, The News of the World’s underlings were encouraged by their circulation-obsessed bosses to use any means necessary to get material.

“We did all these things for our editors, for Rebekah Brooks and for Andy Coulson,” Mr. McMullan said, referring to two former News of the World editors who, he said, “should have had the strength of conviction to say, ‘Yes, sometimes you have to stray into black or gray illegal areas.’ ”

He added: “They should have been the heroes of journalism, but they aren’t. They are the scum of journalism for trying to drop me and my colleagues in it.”

Mr. Coulson, who resigned from his job as chief spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron in January, and Mrs. Brooks, who resigned in July from her job as chief executive of News International, the British newspaper arm of the Murdoch empire, have both been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking, or illegally intercepting voice mail messages. Mrs. Brooks, whom Mr. McMullan called “the archcriminal,” is also suspected of making illegal payments to the police.

Both have repeatedly denied the allegations, and neither has yet been charged.

Nothing that Mr. McMullan said was particularly surprising; anyone following the phone hacking scandal that engulfed News International and its parent, the News Corporation, over the summer is now more than familiar with outrageous tales of tabloid malfeasance. What was startling was that Mr. McMullan, who left his job in 2001, eagerly confessed to so much and on such a scale — no one else has done it quite this way — and that he maintained that none of it was wrong.

Most people from the tabloid world have reacted to the revelations in the manner of Renault when discussing gambling in “Casablanca,” saying they are “shocked, shocked.” But Mr. McMullan veered so far in the other direction that at times he sounded like a satirist’s rendition of an amoral tabloid hack.

Underhanded reporting techniques are not shocking at all, he said, particularly in light of how often he and his colleagues risked their lives in search of the truth.

As examples of the dangers of his job, he described having cocaine-laced marijuana forced on him by knife-wielding drug dealers in a sting operation; being attacked by a crowd of murderous asylum seekers; and, in his “Brad the teenage rent boy” guise, sprinting through a convent dressed only in underpants to escape the pedophile priest he had successfully entrapped.

“Phone hacking is a perfectly acceptable tool, given the sacrifices we make, if all we’re trying to do is get to the truth,” Mr. McMullan said, asking whether “we really want to live in a world where the only people who can do the hacking are MI5 and MI6.”

No, he said, we do not.

“For a brief period of about 20 years, we have actually lived in a free society where we can hack back,” he said.

Journalists in Britain have traditionally justified shady practices by arguing that they are in “the public interest.” Asked by an inquiry lawyer how he would define that, Mr. McMullan said that the public interest is what the public is interested in.

“I think the public is clever enough to decide the ethics of what it wants in its own newspapers,” he said. Referring to articles about Charlotte Church, a singer who told the inquiry this week of her distress at her family’s treatment by the tabloids, he said, “If they don’t like what you have written about Charlotte Church’s father having a three-in-a-bed with cocaine, then they won’t read it.”

For all that, Mr. McMullan said that The News of the World had come to rely too much on outsiders to do work that could have easily been done by reporters, like conducting surveillance on potentially adulterous athletes. Also, he said, some of the investigators were incompetent.

The year he became deputy features editor, he said, the department had a budget of £ 3.1 million — more than $4.5 million — to pay sources, buy stories and hire outsiders to find addresses, medical records and other information. “That was the joy of working for Murdoch,” he said. “They had that big pot of money.”

Mr. McMullan, who now owns a pub and does occasional freelance work, spoke nostalgically of his tabloid career, seven years of it spent at The News of the World. He loved spiriting exclusive sources away “and hiding them from other journalists,” he said, as when he “spent two weeks locked in a hotel room with Princess Diana’s gym instructor in Amsterdam.”

He also liked jumping in one of The News of the World’s stable of 12 cars and speeding away in pursuit of famous targets.

“I absolutely loved giving chase to celebrities,” he said. “How many jobs can you have car chases in? Before Diana died, it was such good fun.” (Some celebrities liked it, too, he said. Brad Pitt “had a very positive attitude” about being pursued by crazed journalists in cars.)

Mr. McMullan had brought along some illustrative materials, including a photograph of his surveillance van. He also briefly displayed a topless photograph of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in The News of the World, apparently as a way to show how easy it is to obtain racy photographs.

“That’s the president of France’s wife,” he said.

“It’s a little early in the day for that, Mr. McMullan,” the inquiry lawyer said.

Many witnesses at the Leveson Inquiry, especially victims of the tabloids, have called for a law to protect citizens from news media intrusion. Mr. McMullan said he thought that privacy was “evil,” in that it helps criminals cover up their misdeeds.

Using a Britishism for “pedophile,” he said, “Privacy is for pedos.”

[Douglas Caddy]

Leveson Inquiry: 'News International tried to destroy my life,' hacking lawyer claims

Daily Telegraph

5:16PM GMT 30 Nov 2011

A lawyer acting for phone hacking victims including the parents of Milly Dowler has accused Rupert Murdoch's News International of trying to "destroy" his life.

Lawyer Mark Lewis was recalled to the Leveson Inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice

Mark Lewis described being shown a "truly horrific" surveillance video of his ex-wife and 14-year-old daughter shot by a private detective commissioned by the company, which published the News of the World until its closure in July.

He told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards: "News International sought to destroy my life, and very nearly succeeded."

Detectives showed Mr Lewis the surveillance video of his ex-wife and teenage daughter at a police station in Putney, west London, on November 4 2011.

The solicitor told the inquiry that his three other daughters asked him whether they too had been watched by the investigator, who was later identified as former policeman Derek Webb.

He said: "That was truly horrific, that my daughter was videoed, was followed by a detective with a camera - I mean, just followed. That shouldn't happen to anybody's child."

Mr Lewis added: "The point is that video, until it was handed to the police, was sat in the offices of News International at Wapping. They should be ashamed of that.

"It was horrific. I didn't expect to see that. They had no right to do that."

Mr Lewis was also shown a report prepared by a private investigator commissioned by Julian Pike, a partner with law firm Farrer and Co, the inquiry heard.

The media lawyer told the inquiry he was "flabbergasted" by the documents, in which he and fellow lawyer Charlotte Harris were described as "untrustworthy".

"There was no probative value whatsoever in the inquiry that was being made by them," Mr Lewis said. "They were looking into my private life in a way that had no relevance whatsoever.. as to whether or not there had been an exchange of confidential information between Charlotte Harris and me.

"You would have thought that a firm of solicitors, not least Farrer and Co, would turn round to the journalists and say no, don't do that, you're tampering with evidence. You're in very risky territory here.

"Instead, they joined in and wanted to compare notes with the information they'd obtained. Diabolical."

The inquiry heard Mr Pike suggested Mr Lewis had leaked confidential information about Professional Footballers' Association chief executive Gordon Taylor's settlement with News Group Newspapers over the hacking of his phone.

But Mr Lewis told the inquiry: "I was not the source of that story, I never gave information out.

"It was complete arrogance and idiocy by Julian Pike at Farrers and (News International lawyer) Tom Crone.

"They were so busy naval-gazing that they had not realised there were so many possible sources of this story.

"The story was open, the court file was open for anyone to look at and because they were so arrogant and so stupid, they did not bother to look at that."

Mr Lewis said any suggestion he benefited professionally from representing phone hacking victims was untrue.

The inquiry was shown documents revealing that Mr Crone instructed private detectives to investigate Mr Lewis in May 2010.

Another memo recorded the suggestion that Mr Taylor could be persuaded to take action against Mr Lewis, who represented him in his phone hacking claim against the News of the World.

Mr Lewis said: "To suggest that News Group Newspapers wanted to persuade one of my clients, someone I had acted for, someone I had got a lot of money for, to sue me, even though he had not threatened to sue me, had no wish to sue me, as far as I knew, and did not sue me."

He said the only issue between him and Mr Taylor was "nothing to do with professional conduct".

The inquiry also saw a document that recorded the aim to keep Mr Lewis and fellow solicitor Charlotte Harris, who has represented other phone hacking victims, out of the cases "to reduce the negative publicity".

Mr Lewis' evidence to Lord Justice Leveson followed testimonies from Alastair Campbell and Alec Owens, the former Special Branch officer who led the Information Commissioner's Operation Motorman investigation in 2003.

Prime Minister David Cameron set up the Leveson Inquiry in July in response to revelations that the News of the World commissioned private detective Glenn Mulcaire to hack Milly Dowler's phone after she disappeared

[Douglas Caddy]

Investigator: I was barred from taking on the press

The Independent

Thursday, 01 December 2011

The agency responsible for protecting data privacy declined to prosecute journalists despite evidence uncovered by its senior investigator that an archive of illegally-obtained information belonging to a private investigator was used by several national newspapers, the Leveson Inquiry heard yesterday.

Files removed from the Hampshire office of Steve Whittamore during a raid in March 2003 could have led to an early exposé of phone hacking.

The investigator at the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Alec Owens, told Lord Leveson that, although he had gathered enough evidence to prosecute up to 20 journalists, he was told by his superiors to drop it.

Mr Owens said the ICO's deputy, Francis Aldhouse, told him "We can't take them [the newspapers] on, they're too big for us." The ICO's head, Richard Thomas, agreed. Mr Owens told the inquiry Mr Whittamore's files contained 17,500 "jobs" for newspapers to obtain information including ex-directory numbers and vehicle registrations.

The evidence, said Mr Owens, was "strong enough on its own to prosecute journalists some used Whittamore 300 or 400 times".

Alastair Campbell earlier told the inquiry that he had believed Cherie Blair's former style guru Carole Caplin was the source of leaks that revealed some of the secrets of the Blairs' life inside No 10. However, Tony Blair's former spinner-in-chief revealed Ms Caplin was recently told by Scotland Yard that her mobile was targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the jailed private detective commissioned by the News of the World.

In further revelations, Mr Campbell said police had told about invoices that had been found which suggested the newspaper where he had once been the political editor, the Daily Mirror, had paid a private investigator to look at him, his family and the former Labour cabinet minister Peter Mandelson.

Avoiding difficult questioning of his own controversial relationship with the media during the Blair years, he claimed much of the British press were in the "last, last, last chance saloon".

The solicitor behind much of the legal action that helped expose phone hacking at the NOTW told how he believed Rupert Murdoch's UK empire "sought to destroy my life and very nearly did". Mark Lewis described how the Murdoch company had ordered surveillance of him and his family. He said he had recently been shown a video of his 14-year-old daughter who had been followed at the behest of News International. The inquiry was also told of a dossier compiled by Julian Pike, a solicitor from the firm Farrar who then had NI as a client. The 2010 dossier contained information about the relationship between Mr Lewis and another solicitor involved in the Gordon Taylor case, Charlotte Harris. He said Mr Pike, and NI's former legal manager, Tom Crone, "had set out to destroy my life" because of his role in representing clients who challenged the Murdoch-owned papers.

Meanwhile, the prominent Northern Ireland MP Ian Paisley Jr has claimed his mobile telephone was hacked when he was a junior minister in Belfast, calling on the Leveson Inquiry to investigate. The North Antrim Democratic Unionist MP said he was "utterly convinced" that his phone was hacked in 2008 when he was involved in planning-permission controversies which led to his ministerial resignation.

He said: "I was so convinced that I wrote to the Metropolitan Police. I know they've conducted some preliminary investigations but so far have not found anything." He called on the Leveson Inquiry to take evidence in Northern Ireland. His claim follows the revelation that a computer used by the former minister Peter Hain may have been hacked while he was Northern Ireland Secretary.

Under fire: Guido Fawkes

The political blogger Paul Staines, who writes under the name Guido Fawkes, says he has been threatened with jail in a dispute with the Leveson Inquiry over the source of Alastair Campbell's leaked testimony, which he published online last week.

Mr Staines suggested the former spin-doctor was himself ultimately responsible for the leak, after passing a draft to trusted journalists, and that he (Staines) will refuse to name any middleman.

Lecturer given bail following hacking arrest

A university lecturer in journalism who worked for the News of the World has been arrested and questioned over phone hacking.

Bethany Usher, 31, who worked at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid and its former rival The People, was arrested at dawn on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages. She was later bailed until March. Ms Usher, who was young journalist of the year in 2003, was arrested, but not charged, in 2006 after trying to obtain a housekeeping job at Buckingham Palace while at the NOTW.

The lecturer at Teesside University became the 17th person questioned as part of Operation Weeting, the Met investigation into phone hacking. Ms Usher has referred several times to the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter. On Tuesday, she wrote: "Am I the only former tabloid reporter who followed the PCC

? Hey kids. They the rules, stick to them."

Edited December 1, 2011 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

Leveson Inquiry: Private eye hired to spy on stars

The Independent

Sam Marsden, Rosa Silverman

Monday, 05 December 2011

Journalists commissioned a private detective to find out personal details about sportsmen and celebrities including Hugh Grant and his former girlfriend Liz Hurley, the Leveson Inquiry heard today.

Records seized from investigator Steve Whittamore in 2003 contained a "veritable treasure trove" of information about how newspapers ordered searches on everything from addresses to criminal records, the hearing was told.

The paperwork includes references to investigations into members of a UK national sports team and a "B&B sex party".

Whittamore was asked to do an address search for Grant and Hurley in south London and a vehicle registration mark (VRM) check relating to the Love Actually star, the press standards inquiry heard.

Alec Owens, senior investigating officer for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) from 1999 until 2005, recalled: "We went to see Mr Grant at his offices because a VRM comes up against his name.

"As it turned out he couldn't recall this and possibly thought he may have been in a friend's car or talking to somebody standing by that car."

One newspaper paid £800 in 2002 for the June 2001 phone bill of an unnamed sports star from a national side, the inquiry was told.

Whittamore's Hampshire home was raided in March 2003 as part of a major ICO investigation into the illegal purchase of confidential information called Operation Motorman.

The private detective was convicted in 2005 of illegally accessing data and passing it to journalists.

Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, said there was a "veritable treasure trove" of information in Whittamore's files.

Inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson added: "Mr Whittamore had collected together a vast amount of personal data.

"The documents identify the names of titles, specify journalists at the titles apparently or inferentially making the requests.

"It identifies the names of people from a wide range of public life and in the public eye, and provides addresses, telephone numbers, mobile telephone numbers and charging details for that information."

The records show that Whittamore charged £17.50 for an "occupancy search" to discover who lived at a particular address, £30 for an "area search" to find out where a person lived, and about £75 for an ex-directory telephone number search.

Newspapers paid £75 for getting the address linked to a mobile number and £150-200 for a vehicle registration search.

Whittamore would write "occupancy" on paperwork that he sent to his accountant for tax purposes when in fact it related to ex-directory phone number searches, while invoices sent to newspapers often just read "confidential inquiries", the hearing was told.

Mr Owens said: "In the main it was just 'confidential inquiries'. He (Whittamore) wouldn't tell us and we never got the opportunity to ask any members of the press what they might have been."

Singer Charlotte Church told the inquiry last week that she was contacted by police when she was 19 over Operation Motorman.

She said in a witness statement: "I was shown an enormous book which included transcripts of telephone calls as well as addresses, car registration details, and information from criminal records.

"There was a huge amount of information, and I am not sure what became of it."

The inquiry has heard that former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas did not pursue investigations against any journalists, despite the wealth of evidence unearthed.

Today it emerged that Mr Thomas had also been warned that even editors could be implicated.

Counsel giving him written advice on whether there were grounds for bringing legal action said: "Having regard to the sustained and serious nature of the journalistic involvement in the overall picture, there could be little doubt that many, perhaps all, of the journalists committed an offence.

"It seems to me that several editors must have been well aware of what their staff were up to and therefore party to it."

But counsel went on to note that this was apparently "the first occasion on which the scale of the problem has come to light".

And they suggested that "it may not be unreasonable to give the Press Complaints Commission the chance to put their house in order".

Mr Owens told the inquiry last week that the former deputy head of the ICO said the media groups were also "too big" for the office to take on.

Told of the paper trail apparently connecting newspapers with the illegal purchase of confidential information, Francis Aldhouse was alleged to have said with a look of horror on his face: "We can't take them on, they're too big for us."

But, giving evidence today, Mr Aldhouse denied he had ever said any such thing.

That was "simply not my view", he said, and "certainly not the sort of language I would use".

And he insisted he did not fear the media.

"Not only do I have no recollection of saying that, it's simply the sort of thing I would not say and does not reflect my views or indeed my previous practice of dealing with the media," he said.

He also claimed he had no recollection of having a meeting with Mr Thomas and Mr Owens at which the latter explained what material he had found.

"I can't recall such a meeting," he said. "If there was a meeting, it would have been a very casual one and a very short one and certainly not a scope for a full briefing."

He also denied seeing the contents of Whittamore's notebooks.

Asked whether he had discussions with Mr Thomas about what policy they would adopt on how the issue should be investigated and pursued, he said: "I do recall that Richard Thomas decided he wanted to pursue the route of going to the Press Complaints Commission and writing to (then chairman) Sir Christopher Meyer.

"I think that was Mr Thomas's decision, rather than the result of some discussion."

He described the Commissioner as a "one-man band", adding: "If the Commissioner decides to take a route, so be it."

Had he seen in 2003 the information laid out as it had been today, his view would have been that "we really ought to find a way of pursuing this", he said.

He was "not quite sure whether we could have put together the resource to handle such an investigation", he said.

But he added: "I do think there was a case for taking the involvement of journalists and newspapers further."

However, there would have been practical difficulties in pursuing newspapers as part of Operation Motorman, Mr Aldhouse went on.

He told the inquiry: "Why should a journalist respond to our request for interview?

"The commissioner has no power of arrest, has no power to compel people to speak to him.

"We would be seeking to interview journalists presumably as prospective defendants to a criminal action.

"They would have to be cautioned. A well-advised journalist would simply say nothing."

Newspapers may also have been able to mount a public interest defence, Mr Aldhouse suggested.

Referring to some of the people whose "friends and family" phone numbers were obtained by Whittamore, Lord Justice Leveson observed: "If you were going to say there's a public interest in looking at those, you might as well then say that data protection doesn't run to journalists."

Mr Aldhouse replied: "There are those who think that the legislation was constructed to achieve just what you are saying."

PA