:00:13. > :00:16.A Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, the News of the World scandal lands
:00:16. > :00:19.with a resounding thud in the midst of Scotland's justice system. The
:00:19. > :00:21.Crown Office orders a review into the Tommy Sheridan trial. But in
:00:22. > :00:30.the light of some of the allegations made today, should it
:00:30. > :00:32.order a much wider investigation? And what effect will the demise of
:00:33. > :00:37.the New Of The World have on Scotland's already troubles
:00:37. > :00:40.newspaper market? And days before the Philips Review
:00:40. > :00:50.is published into the fatal Chinook Helicopter crash, we have an
:00:50. > :00:52.
:00:52. > :00:54.exclusive film about the Good evening. Prosecutors have
:00:54. > :00:57.asked Strathclyde police to investigate witness statements from
:00:57. > :00:59.the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial, after fresh allegations in the News
:00:59. > :01:02.Of The World hacking scandal. Three journalists associated with the
:01:02. > :01:05.paper gave evidence at the trial, including its former editor Andy
:01:05. > :01:08.Coulson. Mr Sheridan's lawyer and a senior MP have presented a list of
:01:08. > :01:10.names to police of people they claim had their phones hacked. Our
:01:10. > :01:19.political correspondent Raymond Buchanan has been following the
:01:19. > :01:26.story. Please be aware, this report contains some flash photography.
:01:26. > :01:29.Remember this? Tommy Sheridan framed in a perjury trial. I have
:01:29. > :01:35.fought the power of News International all my political life
:01:35. > :01:39.and I make no apologies for taking on the might of Rupert Murdoch.
:01:39. > :01:43.Amongst those questioned by Tommy Sheridan in the witness box was the
:01:43. > :01:49.former editor of the UK edition of the News Of The World. Andy Coulson
:01:49. > :01:52.was asked five the former MSP, did the news of the world pay corrupt
:01:52. > :01:56.police officers? But to my knowledge, was the answer. It is
:01:56. > :01:59.now being suggested that he did authorise payments. The editor of
:01:59. > :02:03.the Scottish edition claimed in court in else about the case had
:02:03. > :02:07.been lost. It is now being reported that they could have been made
:02:07. > :02:12.available after all. The former Scottish news editor Douglas Whyte
:02:12. > :02:17.also told the court he was and a practitioner of the so-called dark
:02:17. > :02:21.arts. Telephone-tapping. Today, prosecutors asked detectives a
:02:21. > :02:24.Strathclyde to examine the evidence given by a certain witnesses in
:02:24. > :02:28.this perjury trial. It follows the scandal surrounding the News Of The
:02:28. > :02:32.World in recent days. Police have been asked to come up with a
:02:32. > :02:36.preliminary assessment but this is not a criminal inquiry. That
:02:37. > :02:40.decision was taken before the News Of The World was axed. It was after
:02:41. > :02:44.the latest damning allegation. It suggested the tabloid had hacked
:02:44. > :02:50.into the voice mails of relatives of dead servicemen. A it is
:02:50. > :02:55.disgraceful, shocking. How low can someone actually go to do that to a
:02:55. > :03:01.family member who has lost someone? It and think they could scoop any
:03:01. > :03:06.lower. They are the lowest of the lowest. You have five new
:03:06. > :03:08.messages... The phone hacking scandal has been dominated by
:03:08. > :03:14.revelations from south of the border but today another question
:03:14. > :03:19.may have found an answer. A dossier prepared by Tommy Sheridan's lawyer
:03:19. > :03:23.was handed to police. It contained evidence given by their editors and
:03:23. > :03:28.also a list of scores of potential Scottish hacking victims. Nine
:03:28. > :03:32.months ago, we were provided with an and redacted dossier of private
:03:32. > :03:36.information access by News Of The World, of individuals such as
:03:37. > :03:41.football players, heart surgeons, so stars, athletes, TV stars, TV
:03:41. > :03:46.chefs, Olympic athletes, their spouses, the Lord Mayor's and even
:03:46. > :03:51.a murder victim. We will reveal more of this trade in the week...
:03:51. > :03:57.Yesterday, Tom Watson suggested Tommy Sheridan's perjury conviction
:03:57. > :04:00.was unsound. The jury were not in full possession of the facts of the
:04:00. > :04:07.case and therefore, I believe that the decision they made his unsound
:04:07. > :04:11.and Tommy Sheridan may be an innocent man. During the course of
:04:11. > :04:15.a long a three-month trial, dozens of witnesses were summoned to the
:04:15. > :04:21.High Court in Glasgow. Not all of them worked for the News Of The
:04:21. > :04:27.World. Tommy Sheridan's defence was there is a grand conspiracy against
:04:27. > :04:31.him. All of them, he insisted, were out to do him in. But there were
:04:31. > :04:35.other witnesses who were independent had told the jury they
:04:35. > :04:39.believed Tommy Sheridan was a liar. Something, in their verdict, the
:04:39. > :04:44.jury agreed with when he was convicted of perjury in December of
:04:44. > :04:51.last year. But his team were celebrating the demise of the News
:04:51. > :04:56.Of The World, a pig which pursued the former MSP relentlessly. -- the
:04:56. > :05:00.newspaper pursued. A what I want to see is a root-and-branch
:05:00. > :05:02.investigation into every journalist that worked on that paper. A the
:05:02. > :05:05.Guardian are reporting that Andy Coulson will be arrested tomorrow.
:05:05. > :05:15.If that happens, it will be by officers from the Metropolitan
:05:15. > :05:17.
:05:17. > :05:20.Police. Any Scottish investigation is still in its infancy. I'm joined
:05:20. > :05:22.in our Edinburgh studio by Ken Macdonald, the man in Scotland in
:05:22. > :05:25.charge of The Information Commissioner's Office which
:05:25. > :05:31.oversees data protection. Some of the allegations being made
:05:31. > :05:34.today, it is not your concern, the allegations about perjury in the
:05:34. > :05:40.Tommy Sheridan trial, but these allegations that scores of people
:05:40. > :05:50.in Scotland were targeted by phone hacking practices, that is in your
:05:50. > :05:55.
:05:55. > :06:05.I am sorry, we seem to not be able to hear you. Try again. We'll come
:06:05. > :06:09.
:06:09. > :06:12.back to you. I am joined now by Steven Raeburn,
:06:12. > :06:14.the Editor of the Legal Magazine The Firm and the former managing
:06:14. > :06:19.director of news international for Scotland and Ireland, Colin
:06:19. > :06:23.McClatchie. What are you tried it out of this? What they were looking
:06:23. > :06:29.for is to have a successful appeal of his conviction for perjury. The
:06:29. > :06:34.chances of getting a successful appeal statistically are about 20-1.
:06:34. > :06:38.Only about 5% of those cases are actually successful. What they will
:06:38. > :06:44.be tried wanted to the Appeal Court is that the information which has
:06:45. > :06:48.come out since, beginning with the Milly Dowler case, and the light
:06:48. > :06:51.that that may cast on the perjury trial, they will try as one do that
:06:51. > :06:55.that may have influenced the ultimate verdict of the jury. If
:06:55. > :07:01.that was the case, could the jury have perhaps reached a different
:07:01. > :07:09.decision? That being the case, an appeal could be granted. Sheridan
:07:09. > :07:14.could be released. The other side of this is should there be... Well,
:07:14. > :07:18.there are allegations of perjury against Andy Coulson. That would
:07:18. > :07:23.not necessarily mean that the Sheridan conviction was unsafe,
:07:23. > :07:33.would it? Absolutely. The testimony of course and was only one aspect
:07:33. > :07:37.
:07:37. > :07:43.of the entire case. -- Andy Coulson. There was more to the case than
:07:43. > :07:47.that. Perjury charges do not often follow either civil cases, what
:07:47. > :07:53.happened in the case of Tommy Sheridan, who had successfully sued
:07:53. > :07:57.for defamation and was arising from that, perjury trials are not common
:07:57. > :08:02.in Scotland at all. You would need to have a justifiable public
:08:02. > :08:08.interest to bring one. Although, as we have seen this week, the level
:08:08. > :08:17.of public interest in this case over all and all of its ever-
:08:17. > :08:25.expanding testicles, -- tentacles,... I've got to speak to
:08:25. > :08:34.you in a minute. I can get Ken McDonald back. We are doing better
:08:34. > :08:38.now. Scores of people is God and they have been subjected to a legal
:08:38. > :08:42.phone hacking and this takes things into your court, doesn't it? That
:08:42. > :08:48.is right. We are interested in how the numbers are so many people were
:08:48. > :08:53.given to the journalists who were hacking into the phones. This
:08:53. > :08:58.reflects a research project we did in 2005 which we have presented to
:08:58. > :09:03.the Westminster Parliament, what price privacy, what we exposed the
:09:03. > :09:09.trade in personal information and put pressure on Parliament to
:09:09. > :09:16.increase the penalties available to the courts in any prosecutions.
:09:16. > :09:21.Presumably, from what you are saying, which you agree that
:09:21. > :09:25.someone, whether it be Strathclyde police or another agency, ought to
:09:25. > :09:29.be able to have a wider investigation than the narrow remit
:09:29. > :09:33.the Crown Office has asked Strathclyde police to let out
:09:33. > :09:36.today? Evenley been asked to wit -- review witness statements in
:09:36. > :09:42.Sheridan trial, which does not get us to the things we are talking
:09:42. > :09:46.about. There may well be some fall- out from the investigations
:09:46. > :09:51.Strathclyde's pleads -- Strathclyde police are doing. Clearly, there is
:09:51. > :09:56.a master of public interest in the story and the effect that it is
:09:56. > :10:02.haven't on the society as a whole. We have seen these stories today
:10:03. > :10:08.about the relatives of soldiers killed in war, murder victims at a
:10:08. > :10:12.tree. The distress it is causing them. There are various aspects to
:10:12. > :10:15.this which we have serious concerns about Foster was a not clear about
:10:15. > :10:19.is if it turns out to be the case that there are people in Scotland
:10:20. > :10:22.to have been the victims of this, they are not going to be
:10:22. > :10:25.investigated by Strathclyde police reviewing the evidence and the
:10:25. > :10:29.Tommy Sheridan trial. That's a different issue. You think not only
:10:29. > :10:35.that these things should be investigated but that actually
:10:35. > :10:39.there should be some exemplary jail sentences for people responsible
:10:39. > :10:45.for this. But presumably the London police investigation does not cover
:10:45. > :10:47.people in Scotland were the victims of this. What I want to know from
:10:47. > :10:50.you have the information commissioner here is whether you
:10:51. > :10:54.believe that these potential victims, their cases are being
:10:54. > :10:58.investigated and if not who she you think should be investigating them?
:10:58. > :11:03.In cases such as this were there is an overlap between our investigator
:11:03. > :11:07.its powers and the Crown Office in Scotland, we would normally revert
:11:07. > :11:11.to the Crown Office and the Scottish authorities to take
:11:11. > :11:16.forward any investigation and prosecution. There have been, in
:11:16. > :11:20.the recent past, a number of what we call section 55 offences that
:11:20. > :11:25.have been prosecuted in the Scottish court. There was one India
:11:25. > :11:29.this year in Tayside were a police officer and had passed on
:11:29. > :11:35.information she had obtained from the police national computer. She
:11:35. > :11:38.was tried and found guilty but was actually sentenced to it here of
:11:38. > :11:41.imprisonment because she was found guilty of attempting to pervert the
:11:41. > :11:44.course of justice. It is the small corner consequences we have to
:11:45. > :11:48.consider. So you would agree that there should be some sort of
:11:48. > :11:52.investigation into some of these claims? I think we will have to
:11:52. > :12:00.wait and see what the outcome of the Strathclyde investigation is.
:12:00. > :12:07.Hang on, and sorry to repeat myself but, the allegations include scores
:12:08. > :12:11.of people in Scotland may be being victims of for an Hacking's. But as
:12:11. > :12:15.it is do with a Tommy Sheridan case and there for a review of witness
:12:15. > :12:19.statements in the Sheraton case, one that may Melby desirable, is
:12:19. > :12:26.irrelevant to this broader issue. And asking you to tell us that she
:12:26. > :12:30.would like to see these broader allegations investigated. We will
:12:30. > :12:36.work with the of the authorities in Scotland to from it the best
:12:36. > :12:40.solution to this. We have to look at it, whilst you are questioning
:12:40. > :12:50.the Scottish issue, data protection is a UK Reserve matter and I think
:12:50. > :12:51.
:12:51. > :12:56.they will probably have to take it Your offers has the power to
:12:56. > :13:00.initiate prosecutions? We have the power, out with Scotland, in
:13:00. > :13:06.Scotland it is the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal who are the
:13:06. > :13:10.sole public prosecutors. So, your man in London can say, right, does
:13:10. > :13:15.he have to go to the CPS to get them to bring forward a
:13:15. > :13:21.prosecution? We do it in conjunction with the police and we
:13:21. > :13:29.take forward prosecutions ourselves in these jurisdictions. In Scotland,
:13:29. > :13:33.what we tend to do is leave it to local police forces in Scotland to
:13:33. > :13:39.investigate and report to the fiscal, but we have on occasion
:13:39. > :13:44.gone to the procurator fiscal ourselves. So you do not have any
:13:44. > :13:49.active role in Scotland at all? You are not going to initiate any
:13:49. > :13:54.inquiries, you are not calling specifically for the Crown Office
:13:54. > :13:58.to investigate these allegations and you do not have any power to
:13:58. > :14:06.initiate prosecutions? We do not have power to initiate prosecutions
:14:06. > :14:11.in Scotland. But the statements you are making about the number of
:14:11. > :14:18.Scots and others alleged to have had their numbers obtained and
:14:18. > :14:22.phones possibly hat, we should look at this in the wider scope of it
:14:22. > :14:30.being a wider, UK regulatory authority, because this issue is
:14:30. > :14:35.being pursued, UK-white. I don't understand what it means for you to
:14:35. > :14:38.see you looking at it in the UK Wade context. Are you going to ask
:14:38. > :14:42.the Information Commissioner in London to ask that the Crown Office
:14:42. > :14:48.in Scotland investigates these things? We take these things for
:14:48. > :14:53.work as the UK regulatory authority. We will, on occasion, approach the
:14:53. > :14:59.procurator fiscal in Scotland because we do not have powers to
:14:59. > :15:08.prosecute. Thank you very much for joining us. Back on this legal
:15:08. > :15:12.issue, will this go any further? We are still not quite clear if anyone
:15:12. > :15:20.at the moment has any responsibility for investigating
:15:20. > :15:27.these wider allegations from Aamer Anwar, but if there is anything in
:15:27. > :15:31.them...? The role of the Crown Office is crucial. They are the
:15:31. > :15:41.prosecuting authority in Scotland. If anyone discharged it is up to
:15:41. > :15:41.
:15:41. > :15:46.them to initiate that. -- anyone is charged. In relation to this
:15:46. > :15:53.Sheridan case, the role of the Crown Office was questioned by Ian
:15:53. > :15:58.Hamilton QC. Their role today was fascinating because they announced
:15:58. > :16:07.they would ask Strathclyde police to look at some of this, but only
:16:07. > :16:11.one day after Aamer Anwar announced he was having this press conference.
:16:12. > :16:15.What would have to happen is the crown of us would have to identify
:16:15. > :16:22.where these alleged victims are, contact police forces in those
:16:22. > :16:29.areas, and say, we would ask you to investigate this. Or the police can
:16:29. > :16:36.have this done and refer it back to the Crown Office for charges.
:16:36. > :16:39.slight change of topic - the demise of the News of the world - what
:16:39. > :16:46.impact will this have in Scotland, because we have a newspaper market
:16:46. > :16:52.that is already a rather troubled? This is a market that has declined
:16:52. > :16:58.25% in the last five years. One title going out of the market, the
:16:58. > :17:02.crucial thing will be, what does News International put in its
:17:02. > :17:08.place? There is speculation that there will be a 7th edition of the
:17:08. > :17:13.Sun, called the Sun on Sunday, they cannot caught the sun the sun
:17:13. > :17:19.because there is already one title called that, in Newcastle. -- the
:17:19. > :17:29.Sunday Sun. This is just to defend people like James Murdoch and
:17:29. > :17:32.
:17:32. > :17:38.Rebekah Wade, then, the News of the World been closed down? The News of
:17:38. > :17:42.the World has huge overheads, it has a quarter of the journalists
:17:42. > :17:46.that the Sun has for one day a week, its sales are declining, so there
:17:46. > :17:51.were big problems with it, so the issue that News International had
:17:51. > :17:56.been looking at is to say, is it a more cost-effective alternative,
:17:56. > :18:04.and that might be to scrap the News of the World, and produce the Sun,
:18:04. > :18:08.seven days. It is a point people have been making about the sun in
:18:08. > :18:13.England that applies to the Scottish Sun, marvellous people
:18:13. > :18:17.though it may be, people are saying that you cannot mistake what is a
:18:17. > :18:22.successful week a newspaper, and give it a Sunday batch, because the
:18:23. > :18:28.history of doing that is not that success will. People who bought the
:18:28. > :18:37.News of the World would not necessarily by up the sun on Sunday.
:18:37. > :18:42.The Sunday Herald, neither of those titles emulated the levels of sales
:18:42. > :18:49.of the daily papers. But in it a declining market with an
:18:49. > :18:52.unprofitable newspaper, the second thing that happened this week was
:18:52. > :19:00.the News of the World's reputation which has been shredded in a very
:19:00. > :19:04.short period of time. I have no doubt that the background of its
:19:04. > :19:14.lack of profitability would have been a factor in deciding to close
:19:14. > :19:14.
:19:14. > :19:23.it. Isn't that bigger factor ultimately that, newspapers,
:19:23. > :19:29.including in America, the Wall Street Journal, it is less than 15%
:19:29. > :19:36.of NewsCorp. The bigger picture, is there much, much bigger holdings in
:19:36. > :19:40.television, including Sky, from the Murdoch empire point of view,
:19:40. > :19:43.perhaps sacrificing the News of the world, sad though it is for the
:19:43. > :19:47.people working there who did not have anything to do with this, but
:19:47. > :19:52.from that point of view of the Murdoch family is it really that
:19:52. > :19:57.important? It is an issue for them in this country right now. I would
:19:57. > :20:02.guess that the course of action they have taken, not the most
:20:03. > :20:10.popular course of action, but nevertheless, the background of a
:20:10. > :20:17.lack of profitability, there is an inevitability to it. We have to
:20:17. > :20:21.leave it there. Thank you both very much indeed. There's an expectation
:20:21. > :20:27.that next week will bring the Lord Philip review of the fatal Chinook
:20:27. > :20:30.helicopter crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994. It's thought it
:20:30. > :20:33.may contradict earlier inquiries which blamed the pilots for the
:20:33. > :20:36.accident, which killed 29 people. At the same time campaigners are
:20:36. > :20:39.still pursuing the case of the Nimrod which came down in
:20:39. > :20:42.Afghanistan in 2006, although the fleet has been grounded. They are
:20:42. > :20:50.the latest examples of bereaved families taking on the MoD. Derek
:20:50. > :20:55.Bateman reports. They were two of the worst fatal accidents in modern
:20:55. > :20:58.military history. A Chinook helicopter carrying 29 senior
:20:58. > :21:03.intelligence personnel struck ahead land in the Mull of Kintyre and
:21:03. > :21:08.pledged to the ground. It was 1994. And a number a reconnaissance
:21:08. > :21:12.flight crashed in flames in Afghanistan into doesn't done six,
:21:12. > :21:19.whilst refuelling, killing 14 people. The Chinook inquiry blamed
:21:19. > :21:23.the dead pilots for gross negligence as controversy raged
:21:23. > :21:28.amongst their families and the campaigners who pointed to dubious
:21:28. > :21:35.safety records and controls and electronic maintenance. We do, a
:21:35. > :21:40.failure of leadership and parodies in the UK in mode de were blame for
:21:40. > :21:45.the number of catastrophe and the Government apologised. In pursuit
:21:45. > :21:51.of financial savings, the MoD and the RAF allowed their focus on
:21:51. > :21:55.safety to suffer. The result was that no Nimrod aircraft is flying,
:21:55. > :22:05.and Kinloss year base has been closed with the loss of 2,000 jobs.
:22:05. > :22:07.
:22:07. > :22:11.The board of inquiry into the MoD was followed by an inquiry. That it
:22:12. > :22:18.was lost was because of a systemic breach of the military covenant
:22:18. > :22:28.brought about by significant failings on the part of the MoD,
:22:28. > :22:29.
:22:29. > :22:32.British Aerospace Systems and Qinetiq. Was there a systematic --
:22:32. > :22:37.was there a systematic failure to take heed of safety problems you
:22:37. > :22:43.before the catastrophe? Former aircraft engineer who worked on the
:22:43. > :22:49.Nimrod and who advises the breed families, thinks so. The problem I
:22:49. > :22:57.have is that this only goes back as far as 1998 when this report was
:22:57. > :23:03.published on the Nimrod and that is like a starting point, and the
:23:03. > :23:08.report writer says that air worthiness deteriorated from that
:23:08. > :23:12.point onwards. Now that is not true when you compare what he said that
:23:12. > :23:16.with it the number report and the tunic report, these are very
:23:16. > :23:20.similar, there are calls are the same. And yet it appears that no
:23:20. > :23:26.one took action. He is convinced that the danger signs lie in the
:23:26. > :23:32.official reports on board aircraft. Although they are two separate
:23:32. > :23:37.accidents, the root cause is the same, and that is what I am saying
:23:37. > :23:43.is this systemic failings of the air worthiness added is revealing
:23:43. > :23:49.of the culture in the mid- 90s. That is not just his expertise as
:23:49. > :23:53.an engineer but Mr Jones will lies on. He is basing his concerns on
:23:53. > :24:00.the limited known context of the Nimrod air worthiness report.
:24:00. > :24:02.have asked for a copy of this Nimrod air worthiness report
:24:02. > :24:08.through freedom of information it. The MoD has come back and said that
:24:08. > :24:11.we cannot find it. I have asked for an internal review and they might
:24:11. > :24:16.have done that and still cannot find it, which I find incredible.
:24:16. > :24:24.Here is the report that was used as the starting-point back for the
:24:24. > :24:29.declining airworthiness, and we cannot find this report. Next week
:24:29. > :24:34.we expect a new inquiry, chaired by Lord Taylor, to be published,
:24:34. > :24:37.possibly to vindicate the Chinook pilots, leading to the
:24:37. > :24:44.airworthiness of the helicopter again being questioned. That would
:24:44. > :24:49.turn attention on this safety regime surrounding done and rot. As
:24:49. > :24:54.a streamlined management system is introduced into their ministry it
:24:54. > :24:59.should herald a more open approach. These latest doubts about safety
:24:59. > :25:08.and cover ups will be a reminder to many that the old civil service
:25:09. > :25:13.culture is still alive in Whitehall. Tomorrow's front pages, all talking
:25:13. > :25:21.about a News of the World. The paper that died of shame, says the
:25:21. > :25:25.Daily Record. The Times says hacked to death. After one and a than 60
:25:25. > :25:34.years, the News of the world shut down. The Daily Telegraph, another
:25:34. > :25:41.good one, goodbye cruel World. Britain's biggest newspaper is
:25:41. > :25:46.closed down. And it says that Andy Coulson will be arrested today. The