:00:15. > :00:18.The British press is in a state of convulsion. A huge Government-
:00:18. > :00:22.commissioned inquiry into newspaper standards is underway. The reason?
:00:22. > :00:25.Allegations about phone-hacking, and one of those, at the centre of
:00:25. > :00:28.the maelstrom is Mark Lewis, the lawyer for many of those who say
:00:28. > :00:32.they are victims of phone-hacking, including the family of a murdered
:00:32. > :00:36.schoolgirl. Mark Lewis says that he, too, has
:00:36. > :00:46.felt the wrath of the newspapers. But is there a danger that in the
:00:46. > :01:10.
:01:10. > :01:14.end a free and vibrant British Mark Lewis, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:14. > :01:19.Phone-hacking is the listening of other people's voice mail messages
:01:19. > :01:24.on their mobile phones, without their consent. It is illegal in
:01:24. > :01:29.this country. When did you first realise that newspapers might be
:01:29. > :01:33.doing this? It became apparent in - I blocked a story for Gordon Taylor,
:01:33. > :01:40.the chief executive of the Professional Footballers'
:01:40. > :01:48.Association, and Joanne Armstrong, the in-house lawyer.
:01:48. > :01:52.There had been an arrest for a former correspondent of News of the
:01:52. > :01:55.World and Glenn Mulcaire. It seemed to disappear. The two of them
:01:55. > :02:00.pleaded guilty. I would have thought no more of it. But Gordon
:02:00. > :02:06.Taylor's picture was on the news behind the sentencing. And I
:02:06. > :02:11.realised that this story that I had been told as to the investigation
:02:11. > :02:16.months earlier, that this was a proper journalististic inquiry.
:02:16. > :02:21.Because, actually, nothing of the sort, hacking of a phone, set off
:02:21. > :02:25.through legal phones to find out if the voice mails were intercepted.
:02:25. > :02:31.Yes, they were intercepted. You are certain of that? 100%. No doubt
:02:31. > :02:38.about it whatsoever. You then pursued that case and, in
:02:38. > :02:44.the wake of that, you gave evidence to a parliamentary committee of
:02:44. > :02:48.inquiry. I think it was in 2009. You said that you felt that the
:02:49. > :02:55.practice was so widespread that as many as 6,000 people had had their
:02:55. > :02:57.phones hacked into. How did you get from just one case, Gordon Taylor -
:02:57. > :03:02.the boss of the Professional Footballers' Association - to
:03:02. > :03:05.6,000? Well, as it happened, I recounted a conversation that I say
:03:05. > :03:09.took place. The Metropolitan Police still deny it took place. It was
:03:09. > :03:15.between me and a police officer. He told me that there had been 6,000
:03:15. > :03:19.victims. I made it clear to the parliamentary inquiry that it
:03:19. > :03:23.wasn't necessarily 6,000 phones that had been hacked. It could have
:03:23. > :03:30.been 6,000 including the people who had left messages. And what you
:03:30. > :03:37.have to be aware of is at that time it thought that there was just a
:03:37. > :03:42.handful of victims of phone-hacking. Eight or nine people who'd been in
:03:42. > :03:46.the initial Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman investigation. No-one
:03:46. > :03:50.knew it was much more widespread. Of course, it has now transpired
:03:50. > :03:55.that the police have indicated that there was something in the region -
:03:55. > :04:01.I think 5,795 name, of which 803 are people who are victims, which I
:04:01. > :04:04.take to mean as people who have had their voice mails hacked. An
:04:04. > :04:08.uncanny coincidence with the numbers that I put forward.
:04:08. > :04:15.there was widespread disbelief at the time, wasn't there, that that
:04:15. > :04:21.amount of phone-hacking could have gone on? I mean, you were told,
:04:21. > :04:26.essentially, that you were - misleading members of parliament.
:04:26. > :04:29.The accusation was that I was misleading. I was almost the lone
:04:29. > :04:34.voice crying in the wilderness saying, "No, believe me, this is
:04:34. > :04:39.much bigger than people are saying." But there was a propaganda,
:04:39. > :04:43.almost, put out by a wall of silence, by newspapers - not just
:04:43. > :04:46.News International but others - suggesting a lining plot between
:04:46. > :04:49.the Guardian, maybe the Independent, and something that I was doing,
:04:49. > :04:54.saying it was bigger. There wasn't just a sense of opposition from
:04:54. > :04:58.other newspapers. I mean, your own law firm told you, from what I
:04:58. > :05:03.understand, not to take up other phone-hacking casing. Is that
:05:03. > :05:08.correct? Well, what has happened is that they gave me an ultimatum. In
:05:08. > :05:13.2009, July, the Guardian had run a story. I was about to be instructed
:05:13. > :05:17.to - have been instructed to pursue a case of someone else. My old law
:05:17. > :05:24.firm gave me an ultimatum that within an hour I had to decide
:05:24. > :05:27.whether I would - the choice they gave me was not to act on any other
:05:27. > :05:30.victims of phone-hackinging or leave...
:05:30. > :05:35.Why? That was their decision. You would have to ask them why they
:05:35. > :05:42.reached that decision. What do you take from that? That they thought
:05:42. > :05:48.there was not going to be under any money in it. They thought they
:05:48. > :05:53.would be under pressure? I got the message on my BlackBerry at 10
:05:53. > :05:58.o'clock on Monday morning, saying, "Here is an ultimatum. You have to
:05:58. > :06:03.undertake that you will not take on other victims of phone-hacking."
:06:03. > :06:06.I said that I was going to be on Newsnight. In fact, what happened
:06:06. > :06:12.was that by the time I said, "Well, can I have a look at the
:06:13. > :06:19.partnership agreement" I was told that I had been expelled as a good-
:06:19. > :06:27.leaver. You left the law firm and you then began a descent into
:06:27. > :06:31.difficult personal circumstances? Well, I 'd -- I'd always had a job,
:06:31. > :06:40.been working. And after 20 years of working for a living as a lawyer, I
:06:40. > :06:45.was suddenly without a job. I had been told that I was 79 out on my
:06:45. > :06:50.own. I said that I wanted to do this for me and the partners of the
:06:50. > :06:53.law firm, but selaufld I was left without a - all of a sudden I was
:06:53. > :06:57.left without a law firm. It was a difficult, emotional time, going
:06:57. > :07:01.through all sorts of matters dealing with that, but without a
:07:01. > :07:05.firm behind me for a very short period of time. How did you deal
:07:05. > :07:09.with it? Well, in a way, it dealt with me, rather than me dealing
:07:09. > :07:12.with it. When I thought things could not go any further wrong, I
:07:12. > :07:16.then got a letter from News of the World's lawyers saying that they
:07:16. > :07:23.were going to - they were threatening to sue me. They told me
:07:23. > :07:28.that it was rare that we have to admonish that a fellow professional,
:07:28. > :07:35.but there is time for me to do the right thing. So I not only had lost
:07:35. > :07:38.my job oryx was without a job, but I -- job, or was without a job, but
:07:38. > :07:41.I had the weight of News International and threatening to
:07:41. > :07:45.sue me. It was those circumstances that led me to give evidence to
:07:45. > :07:51.parliament, to say, "Look, somebody has to hear about this?" I know it
:07:51. > :07:55.didn't come on at the same time, but you were dealing with a
:07:55. > :07:59.debilitating medical condition - multiple sclerosis. Yes, I have MS.
:07:59. > :08:05.I didn't choose to have it, or go public about it. But it became more
:08:05. > :08:09.and more obvious. I was under a lot of physical pressure. I mean, you
:08:09. > :08:13.are not not Ghent to be under stress when you have MS. I had the
:08:13. > :08:17.stress of losing my job and take everyone on. It was - really,
:08:17. > :08:21.everybody seemed to be coming at me. The one thing I don't have in my
:08:21. > :08:25.character is an ability to say, "Alright, I will go away and I will
:08:25. > :08:31.just take it." You have had specific advice from your doctor,
:08:31. > :08:35.from what I understand, not to pursue this matter. They said, "For
:08:35. > :08:39.heavens sake, don't put yourself through it. Because of the MS."
:08:39. > :08:43.What was said, to be fair, look, you are meant to have a review
:08:43. > :08:47.every year to see how you are doing. I don't look after myself as I
:08:47. > :08:52.suppose I should do. But the last time I went to my consultant,
:08:52. > :08:56.probably four or five years ago, the consultant had said to me, "Are
:08:56. > :09:02.you still working?" There was a presumption that I might not be
:09:02. > :09:06.working at all. I said, "Well, yes, I am." He said, "Look, as long as
:09:06. > :09:09.you don't do anything stressful, you will be OK." The reality of my
:09:09. > :09:15.life, what I'm doing, is probably the most stressful thing you could
:09:15. > :09:18.be doing. It was about to get more stressful, because the parents of
:09:18. > :09:23.the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler got in touch with you?
:09:23. > :09:29.I mean, that happened probably - I ended up - I suppose to put the
:09:29. > :09:35.story into perspective, I moved from Manchester to London to move
:09:35. > :09:40.job, to move cities at an age when most don't - probably 45, 46 years
:09:40. > :09:46.old, got MS, moving city to do those things, and having to deal
:09:46. > :09:51.with it. Then I get a phone call from Sally Dowler and have a
:09:51. > :09:56.meeting, and pursue the case for Milly Dowler. Sally Dowler being
:09:56. > :10:02.the mother of Milly Dowler, murdered back in 2002. She was
:10:02. > :10:05.concerned that Milly, her murdered daughteress's phone, may have been
:10:05. > :10:11.hacked? The Dowler family were going through the trial at the time
:10:11. > :10:13.of the person who'd murdered their daughter. They were notified by
:10:13. > :10:20.their family liaison officer at Surrey Police that the Metropolitan
:10:20. > :10:23.Police wanted to talk to them because Milly Dowler herself, the
:10:23. > :10:29.murdered schoolgirl, her phone had been hacked. There were other
:10:29. > :10:34.suggestions that their phones might have been hacked and their landline.
:10:34. > :10:37.There is no doubt whatsoever that Milly Dowler's phone was hacked,
:10:37. > :10:41.the voice mail was listened to. The News of the World have accepted
:10:41. > :10:46.they did that. A key part of the story, though, is that when the
:10:46. > :10:50.news broke, when the Guardian newspaper broke the news back in
:10:50. > :10:56.July, that Milly Dowler's voice mail had been listened to. They
:10:56. > :10:59.also said that her voice mail had been deleted, her messages had been
:10:59. > :11:03.deleted, by a News of the World investigator.
:11:03. > :11:11.That now turns out probably not to have been the case. There seems to
:11:11. > :11:18.be something of a backlash in the media against those who put it
:11:18. > :11:24.about that her voice mail messages were deleted by a News of the World
:11:24. > :11:27.investigator. Do you understand that there is concern that the
:11:27. > :11:32.totally understandable outrange about her voice mail being listened
:11:32. > :11:37.to as now reached a level where perhaps there's been too much of a
:11:37. > :11:41.reaction? It's not quite right. I mean, look, one, her voice mails
:11:41. > :11:45.were linded to by the News of the World. -- were listened to by News
:11:45. > :11:49.of the World. There is no doubt about that. There is nobody from
:11:49. > :11:51.News International that suggests that anything other than that
:11:51. > :11:55.happened. Nobody from the police suggest that that didn't happen.
:11:55. > :12:02.There has been a suggestion that the theory that the deletions of
:12:02. > :12:07.messages - see, what had come, Sally Dowler, as a mother, on 24
:12:07. > :12:11.March 2002, suddenly was able to get through to Milly Dowler's voice
:12:11. > :12:18.mail. Previously she had not been able to get through to it, because
:12:18. > :12:24.there had been automatic messages. She had false hope. She had false
:12:24. > :12:29.hope. But what we know, following the dates, 21 March 2002, Milly
:12:29. > :12:35.Dowler went missing. But we know that from the telephone records,
:12:35. > :12:40.that she had not listened to her phone since 20 March. On 24 March,
:12:40. > :12:46.every single voice mail message was deleted. So any theory that there
:12:46. > :12:53.was a 72-hour automatic deletion does not work. But the reason it is
:12:53. > :12:58.important is that until there is firm evidence that somebody - a
:12:58. > :13:03.newspaper, journalist or investigator - deleted her voice
:13:03. > :13:10.mail deliberately - let me put it to you what Stephen Glover, a
:13:10. > :13:14.columnist wrote, "If the Guardian had not published its inaccurate
:13:14. > :13:19.accusation that the voice mails had been deleted, events could have
:13:19. > :13:22.gone differently. The Sunday red- top might not have been closed by a
:13:22. > :13:27.panic-stricken Rupert Murdoch. And the Leveson inquiry might not have
:13:27. > :13:32.been set up by an equally panic- stricken David Cameron." Do you see
:13:32. > :13:37.any truth in that? It is far- fetched. Lord Justice Leveson had
:13:37. > :13:40.said that the inquiry was not just looking into Milly Dowler's voice
:13:40. > :13:44.mail deletions. We just don't know what happened with the deletions.
:13:44. > :13:48.We do know messages were deleted, we do know that it wasn't automatic.
:13:48. > :13:51.We do know that the News of the World hacked her phone, listened to
:13:51. > :13:55.her voice mail messages. We know that the family were given false
:13:55. > :14:01.hope, anyway, that there were activities by News of the World
:14:01. > :14:06.reporters who published a story based on voice mail messages. That
:14:06. > :14:10.is without a doubt. They pursued that. There is no evidence, as far
:14:10. > :14:13.as the police are concerned, that anybody connected with the News of
:14:13. > :14:16.the World deleted with these voice messages. That might be - might be
:14:16. > :14:23.- the case. But there is no evidence that they didn't either.
:14:23. > :14:27.But, as a result of that, this whole fur erroree, News of the
:14:27. > :14:32.World and Rupert Murdoch, paid a large sum of money, millions, to
:14:32. > :14:35.the dowelers. That was for compensation. One
:14:35. > :14:39.daily newspaper has asked whether any of the money will be paid back.
:14:39. > :14:43.Will it? No, one, it will not be paid back. It is preposterous. We
:14:43. > :14:47.know that the News of the World - and the News of the World accepts
:14:47. > :14:51.this - that they had information that they thought they had
:14:51. > :14:56.information for a story that they were running that Milly Dowler was
:14:56. > :14:59.still alive. Over a week before, they notified the police that they
:14:59. > :15:05.had this information. They withheld information. Cruelly, they didn't
:15:05. > :15:08.tell the parents that their daughter might still be alive. I
:15:08. > :15:12.mean, that was evil, evil, coming from News of the World. And why
:15:12. > :15:19.that is being defended by the Mail, why they bothered to ask the
:15:19. > :15:23.question, why they bothered to make such preposterous allegations to me,
:15:23. > :15:27.asking questions - really, what needs to happen is an intecial
:15:28. > :15:31.inquiry at the Mail, from the Mail's editor, as to why the
:15:31. > :15:37.journalists phoned up to ask that question. They ought to be ashamed
:15:37. > :15:41.of themselves. You didn't just take a telephone call from the Mail. You
:15:41. > :15:47.were put under surveillance by newspaper, secret surveillance, as
:15:47. > :15:51.were your family. How did you become aware of that?. Well, that
:15:51. > :15:56.was almost a circumstance and coincidence. I was aware that there
:15:56. > :15:59.had been a report. I was told that a report had been prepared on me.
:15:59. > :16:04.The News International deny that they did. Although the information
:16:04. > :16:07.in the report is not true, there is enough truth about it that involves
:16:07. > :16:11.some surveillance. It was - or some inquiries about my background. It
:16:11. > :16:16.talks about my education, about my health. There would have been some
:16:16. > :16:20.information that they would have had - whoever prepared that report.
:16:20. > :16:23.There would have been nobody else interested in that report other
:16:23. > :16:28.than a journalist at News International.
:16:28. > :16:32.But that is how you found out about it. How did you - No, I found out
:16:32. > :16:37.about that report, and then I found out that it was suggested by a
:16:37. > :16:40.television company, who contacted me to say they had been given
:16:40. > :16:44.information by a former News of the World employee that my voice mails
:16:44. > :16:48.had been hacked. I said, "Well, there is always apparently a
:16:48. > :16:52.report", which was pursued. What happened was that I made a
:16:52. > :16:55.complaint to the police about the surveillance, who eventually
:16:55. > :16:58.obtained information from News International, which included a
:16:58. > :17:02.video-recording of my ex-wife and my daughter, who was 14 years old
:17:02. > :17:07.at the time. Did you not think at that point
:17:07. > :17:10.perhaps it is time to back off, because other people are at risk
:17:10. > :17:15.here? Not at all. I mean, it is just not
:17:15. > :17:17.in my character. It is not how it is. Well, yes, you say it is not in
:17:18. > :17:21.your character. But there are other people who are being put on the
:17:21. > :17:27.line here. The only way that you can protect other people, whatever
:17:27. > :17:31.you do, is to fight back. You always have to - you always have to
:17:31. > :17:35.fight back. Otherwise - that is what is wrong with the whole system.
:17:35. > :17:39.People are too scared to stand up. It is interesting that you use
:17:39. > :17:44.language like "fight back". Sometimes you talk less as a lawyer
:17:44. > :17:48.and almost more as a campaigner. Do you feel that this is personal now?
:17:48. > :17:56.It is not personal. It is not a crusade. I'm a lawyer. I pursue
:17:56. > :17:58.cases for clients. I will represent clients. Oddly enough, I would have
:17:58. > :18:04.hacked into News International if they instructed me first, and
:18:04. > :18:08.perhaps I might have done a better job than it was. You talk in
:18:08. > :18:12.personal terms, pugnacious terms. This is a quote from a profile of
:18:12. > :18:17.you recently. You have so many of the big law firms on this. And on
:18:18. > :18:25.the other side, you have got me, "I don't have a secretary, I have one
:18:25. > :18:31.hand" because of your multiple sclerosis. "I I had two hands, I
:18:31. > :18:35.would tie one behind my back because they need a head start."
:18:35. > :18:41.That is pugnacious, being a lawyer. It involves my personality, I will
:18:41. > :18:44.fight back for someone. Look, what I say to any client, not just in
:18:45. > :18:49.terms of the phone-hacking cases, but historically I've always said
:18:49. > :18:54.to a client that this is - anything is about bullying. If on the first
:18:54. > :18:57.day of school, if the school bully says, "Give me your dinner money",
:18:57. > :19:01.if you do, you will be doing it every diof your school life.
:19:01. > :19:04.Actually, what you have to do is turn around and give the bully a
:19:04. > :19:08.punch on the nose, and he will run off. If you cannot do that, you
:19:08. > :19:12.need the big person, a big person to stand next to you to do that. I
:19:12. > :19:17.always tell clients, I will be the big person who will stand next to
:19:17. > :19:20.you. How widespread do you think the culture of phone-hacking has
:19:20. > :19:25.been in newspapers? It is incredible to suggest that - I
:19:25. > :19:28.34507, I almost feel sorry for News of the World. It wasn't, obviously,
:19:28. > :19:35.just News of the World. What is your evidence of that? Right. Well,
:19:35. > :19:40.for all sorts of reasons the police said, this was 2004/06, of the News
:19:40. > :19:48.of the World and one inquiry agent, Glenn Mulcaire. The police now say
:19:48. > :19:52.it is probably a lot - 2001 - 06 period. It is unrealistic to think
:19:52. > :19:56.that if a journalist was doing it at News of the World and moved on,
:19:56. > :20:01.that he would be... It is supposition rather than hard
:20:01. > :20:08.evidence. It is suppositions about information that appeared about
:20:08. > :20:13.them in other newspapers that could only appear if they hacked into the
:20:13. > :20:17.phone. There is a difference between - look, there could be no
:20:17. > :20:21.justification for hacking into the phone, listening to the voice mail
:20:21. > :20:26.of a dead 13-year-old. I don't think that anybody would disagree
:20:26. > :20:34.with you on that. The reason I asked the question is that we have
:20:34. > :20:39.this inquiry, principally as a function of the actions with Milly
:20:39. > :20:43.Dowler's voice, into press ethics and where you draw the line. How
:20:43. > :20:49.difficult is it to draw that line? Well, I don't think it is that
:20:49. > :20:52.difficult. I think people can... How do you define public interest?
:20:52. > :20:55.People can see the difference between public interest and what
:20:55. > :21:00.lawyers talk about with the public. With we have a priority interest as
:21:00. > :21:06.to what goes on. If, for example, a politician espouses a hypocritical
:21:06. > :21:11.view of, say, family values, but, at the same time, is having an
:21:11. > :21:16.adulterous affair, then he is right to expose the hypocrisy. Hypocrisy
:21:16. > :21:19.could be enough of a defence? Hypocrisy of a politician, for
:21:19. > :21:23.example is enough of a defence. is illegal - phone-hacking is
:21:23. > :21:26.illegal at the moment. Yes, but I think it probably ought to have,
:21:26. > :21:32.like most thing, ought to have a public interest defence. Which you
:21:32. > :21:37.could see, for example, if the journalist were exposing an act of
:21:37. > :21:41.criminal wrongdoing. But hypocrisy, it is much more of a political
:21:41. > :21:44.hypocrisy... But it is a difficult, again, it is
:21:44. > :21:48.a difficult distinction to draw, and, also, what you are essentially
:21:48. > :21:52.doing is saying is that hypocrisy would allow you to commit an act
:21:52. > :21:58.that is strictly illegal. Strictly illegal. The procedures
:21:58. > :22:01.that ought to be adopted is not a journalist deciding on his own
:22:01. > :22:05.behalf that he should be doing something, but the journalist
:22:05. > :22:10.should be talking to his editor, who should make a decision, ought
:22:10. > :22:19.to be a unanimous decision between the editor, the in-house lawyer who
:22:19. > :22:21.ought to be a responsible and upright person, and perhaps an
:22:21. > :22:27.external adjudicator or representative, a lawyer or
:22:27. > :22:32.something, so that the three of them would have to say, "This is
:22:32. > :22:35.justified, to back-up a story that you have got." The way the press
:22:35. > :22:42.and the media works, you talk to the editor, the in-house lawyer.
:22:42. > :22:45.I'm just wondering, though, where this all ends up. That is quite a
:22:45. > :22:50.liberal suggestion from you in many ways. But there are a lot of people
:22:50. > :22:53.out there who say there is a danger with Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry,
:22:53. > :22:59.at which you have given evidence, that, in the end, in order to draw
:22:59. > :23:05.a line as to where the standard and press ethics will be, he will
:23:05. > :23:10.inevitably be end up muzzling a free press here. It is a joke to
:23:10. > :23:17.suggest that we have a free press at the moment. It is controlled by
:23:18. > :23:23.the proirt proprietarys of the press. It is the interest. If you
:23:23. > :23:26.look at a free press, the perfect example of a free press is the
:23:26. > :23:30.phone-hacking scandal. And the failure to report on it by all the
:23:30. > :23:33.other newspapers. Because a free press would have reported on it. It
:23:34. > :23:40.would have told everybody what was happening. And journalists who
:23:40. > :23:44.worked for newspapers have not been able to write about things because
:23:44. > :23:47.their owners, who it comes down to all sorts of issue of plurality of
:23:47. > :23:52.ownership, their owners have said, "If you do this, there is a
:23:52. > :23:59.problem." So we have got to have firm guidelines for reporters. Look,
:23:59. > :24:04.most journalists are good, honest people who do their job. Look, if
:24:04. > :24:08.you are exposing a Watergate, an MP expenses scandal, and the
:24:08. > :24:12.suggestion is that it was obtained by a breach of the law but it was a
:24:12. > :24:15.good law to be breached because it helped - it is a democratic value