Episode 7 The Phone Hacking Inquiry

Now on BBC News, it's time for the Phone Hacking Inquiry.

Id you have any particular or any regard to issues such as privacy?

Not really, no. I can't remember what the word

means, no. I believe the Sun can be a real powerful force for good.

Ugly spin being put on a lot of this stuff because it sells papers

better. I felt such a sense of invasion. I desperately wanted to

shout out "it's not true "requests but when it's your voice against

the powerful media. This hasn't been a trial, but for those accused

by the Leveson witnesses, it might have felt like one and, for all the

influence, for all the readers, the newspapers haven't had much of a

chance to answer back until this week. Until this man got a say. 13

years the Editor of the Sun, sister paper to the News of the World and

never one to mince his words. If we manage to give a black eye to

our rival, we'd be delighted with that. Talking on day 22 at the

inquiry about how he did business. Did you have any particular regard

to issues such as privacy? really, no. You say in your seminar

that I should make it clear this is in the context of a particular

story, the Elton John story which culminated in, as we know,

litigation and compensation paid to Mr Elton John. My view is that if

it sounded right, it was probably right and therefore we should lob

it in - do you stand by that? I do. Sometimes the things that got

lobbed in weren't true, like the story about Elton John. In that

case, Rupert Murdoch wasn't happy. The phone then rang at 1.0 1 and 7

seconds and I then received something like 40 minutes of non-

stop abuse for the issue. It wasn't so much the money, of course, it

was the fact that the shadow which it cast over the paper. So the idea

that Rupert Murdoch simply took these things on the chin as part of

the commercial battering of life was wholly ridiculous. Then he said

tabloids always had been harshly judged. If you had Tony Blair's

mobile number and hacked into it and found he was circumventing the

Cabinet in order to go to war, as has now emerged in the Iraq inquiry,

and you published that, if you publish it in the Sun you get six

months jail, or the Guardian, you get a Pulitzer prise. Take the

Milly Dowler deletions of the calls. Had that been the Sun, it would

have been coming very close to being shut down. Ie had they got

that story wrong. The Forwardian sticks it away on page 10 and hopes

to get away with it. There was a photo from the funeral of Anne

Diamond's baby boy. 13 years of working with Rupert Murdoch, you

never said go get anybody. The second one the following day, they

were so upset, they sat down with Sun executives and sat down with a

charity campaign which raised �250,000 and lasted five to seven

years, so why would this conversation be any truer than the

two points. She's a devalued witness. Lord Justice Leveson said

he shouldn't have made the comments. His most colourful story dated from

1992 when Britain fell out of the exchange rate mechanism, the

Chancellor tried to explain in public and the Prime Minister of

the day, John Major, got in touch for a quiet chat. He called me up,

why he'd call up the Editor of the Sun when involved in this I've no

idea, he said "just culling you up to find out how the story is going

to play in the paper tomorrow?" -- calling you up. On that basis I

said, I've got a (BLEEP) list on my desk and I'm going to pour it all

over you. He looked happy with his evidence, but he hasn't edited a

paper for almost 20 years, the Current Sun staff said things

changed since his day. The showbiz editor said journalists took time

to think about ethics, even though the pressure remained. Playing

senator for forward for Manchester United, if you don't score, you get

the hair trier treatment or get dropped and I have to deliver

exclusives. That's my job. Pressure that meant some stories got

published without phoning anyone to check the facts. I'll write ten

stories a day on average, so over a week, 60 stories, 3,000 a year. A

lot ot material goes through. -- lot of material. The more trivial

stories, the Shorts, as we call them, we might not call in them.

Decisions about what got printed were carefully considered, said the

Sun's Royal editor, more so perhaps than in Elvin McKenzie's view.

adopted the view on many occasions to lob the story in, I would be

lucky if I was even working in Tesco's myself. It doesn't work

like that on Royal stories and frankly not on Fleet Street any

more. Royals had particular influence, only rarely did the

paper ignore a request from Clarence House not to publish.

Prince Harry was in Las Vegas recently and we ended up pulling a

front-page at 7.20 on a Monday night because there were pictures

of him taken inside a club with 300 people in there. The Palace said to

me, he was sitting there like anyone his age having a beer and

the Palace's argument was, that's a reasonable expectation of privacy

and we'd rather you didn't use the pictures. As the news changed, so

did the rules. While they printed a picture of the Duchess of Cambridge

shopping after her wedding, they turned down a similar photo later

on. The man in the Editor's chair at the biggest selling newspaper in

the country. There were no stories of abusing a Prime Minister from

him. Instead, like his staff, he emphasised caution and a

willingness to listen and to learn. During the riots, I prepared a

front-page which had a list of individuals who'd been arrested in

the riots because the variety of their professions was quite

fascinating, I felt, because there was a lifeguard and another was a

teaching Assistant who I described as a teacher in the headline. I

received a number of complaints the following day from readers who felt

it was unfair to describe a teaching assistant as a teacher for

the purposes of a headline, so I noted that and won't do it again.

They didn't hire private investigators either, he said.

have been used in the past without the permission of the Chief

Executive officer, but now there are new controls in place. Have you,

in your career, of the Sun, ever used private investigators? Not to

my knowledge, no. Even to discover ex-directry numbers, for example?

I've used search agents in the past, but I wouldn't describe them as

private detectives. And can these search agents be used at News

International even now with or without the express permission of

the Chief Executive officer? Yes, search agents can. There is a

distinction. Those search agents cost the paper �165,000 last year.

But the inquiry heard for the first time a lengthy defence of a current

tabloids work. Yes, I think it's important to emphasise that I do

believe the Sun can be a real powerful force for good and these

campaigns are an example of that. Help for Heroes has raised �120

million which is the latest figure for injured servicemen and it's

raised the profile of our brave injured soldier who is were, it

must be said, perhaps a little neglected before that campaign.

I think it's extremely important to emphasise the positive, as well as

be aware of the negative and nobody should think that because

inevitably this inquiry is focusing on concerns which represent the

negative, it's not a very important part of the job to balance that

with the positives, the examples of which you have just provided.

But the views of the judge weren't the press's only problem. Why, for

example, should anyone spend money buying one of those when they can

read on one of those for nothing? Facts the press aren't even allowed

to print. When we were in a position to print the name of the

footballer, obviously there had been huge speculation on the social

media about his identity, and I sat and wrote the front-page and the

headline was "it's Giggs gig". I wrote it and my heart sank because

I realised there were several million people out there who

already knew that because they weren't sub stkwroct the same

restrictions that we'd been under - - Seb ject to. On day 23, the

inquiry focused on newspapers that sold less. -- subject. You had this

idea of a wonderful scoop the next morning, but then looked down on

the other side of the mown tear, that's the risk. So you need to go

for a second story -- side of the mountain. No story is going to

enter the pages or the online section of the Financial Times. You

need to have two sources. Even if the Prime Minister were to speak

off-the-record to a journalist and give that journalist at the FT a

big story, we would still check it, we'd still talk to other people to

verify, to also put the story in its broader context. The broad

sheets have their own woes. The editor of the Independent was asked

about one of his journalist who is used old quotes in interviews

passings them off as his own but who wasn't sacked, a cover-up

suggested the inquiry lawyer. surprised you say that there was a

cover-up in the sense that we'd had inklings before, because that is

genuinely news to me. We had no inclinks of the plagiarism at all.

-- inklings. One of the problems with the Johan agair was that

nobody had ever complained -- affair. No journalist that he

plagiarised, no person that he'd interviewed, no member of the

public, no reader and no colleague, nobody had alerted us to the fact

that he had drawn this information from somewhere else. If they had,

it might have been nipped in the bud as a much earlier stage. The

fact was, it continued. For the newspapers that used to inhabit

Fleet Street, the rules on what happens when their journalists

misbehave could be about to change radically. Horde justice leave sown

hasn't made up his mind yet, but we are getting more of an idea about

his current thinking. I could visualise a system that has three

limbs, the complaint, mediation services, presently what everybody

says the PCC does so well, a regulatory mechanism which I don't

think the PCC now claims to have done. And an arbitrary mechanism.

Not statutory in the sense that it is defined by statute, but

statutory in the sense that that provides the compulsory background

to appointment of independent people to do all these things.

change like that does tend to follow a big scandal. Just ask

Members of Parliament. It was the Daily Telegraph that broke that

story, paying this inquiry heard, around �150,000 for a computer disc

containing the MP receipts and I was concerned it was a hoax. I

worked at the Sunday Times were the Hitler diaries hoax took place and

the ghosts of that particular situation still roams around the

Sunday Times newsroom. I was particularly aware of the

possibility of someone trying to stitch me up by providing a hoax

material. He was rather less forthcoming

about recording Vince Cable by a undercover reporters, saying the

minister had declared war on Rupert Murdoch. A story that was first

reported on the BBC. He wouldn't say whether he had leaked it to

Robert Peston. I can't assist you with that. As

you know, call to any journalist is the protection of journalistic

sources, whether they are my sources or somebody else's. The

only way I answer that question, helpful as I would like to be,

would endanger that principle. One venue for the off the record

conversation is the political dinner. The current Telegraph

editor gave a peek into that world. I've seen the prime minister three

times in 2011. Price for dinner. George Osborne a similar number of

times. Ed Miliband a similar number of times. With my team, we have had

lunch or dinner with three-quarters of the Cabinet and about 50% of the

Shadow Cabinet over the previous 18 months.

Do you think it gives you influence?

Absolutely not. The only reason they have dinner with me is that I

run the Daily Telegraph but if I fell under a bus receiving, they

would want dinner with the next editor.

On day 24, the Daily Mail's picture editor of revealing just how many

photos of Philippa Middleton get taken.

We have a situation where there must be nine or 10 agencies outside

her door every day. She goes to get a coffee. She goes back into her

house and you get about 400 pictures of that a day. There is no

need, there is no justification to use them.

The rules about what the Daily Mail wouldn't print are rather less

clear. They said with children bait pixilated their faces, cropped them

out entirely or asked agents representing their parents whether

they were happy for them to appear. There were exceptions, such as the

children of Kate and Gerry McCann. This was a unique situation, a

unique story where we were allowed to stand there with the family. We

were allowed to photograph the children with the parents' approval

in Portugal. Up to that point, I don't remember any objection about

using pictures of the other two children.

I appreciate on one level this was a uniquely interesting story but on

the other level, it engaged the general principles you told us

about earlier. It could be said, could it not, but photographs of

the parents, in particular out with the children, those photographs

should immediately have entered the bone.

-- the rubbish bin? Do you agree with that or not?

In hindsight, possibly. At the time, as it was at a time, we had

photographed the family with the children and there was no objection

raised at the time. Hugh Grant suggested the Mail on

Sunday had hacked his phone. The paper said this was a mendacious

sneer and then pulled that allegation from his website after

objections at the inquiry. Giving evidence, its top lawyer said it

would stand by those words. Was Hugh Grant not entitled to his view,

the inquiry asked. If he was putting this forward as

hard fact, he would be going too far. As a piece of speculation, but

wasn't unreasonable, was it? But he has used that to accuse our

group of phone hacking. I'm sorry, but it is a very serious thing to

So you respond by accusing him of perjury?

We respond by defending ourselves. On day 25 was the turn of the

Express and the start to defend themselves to justify a their

coverage of the disappearance of Madeline McCann, coverage that saw

the paper was wrongly accused her parents of being responsible, only

to say sorry on the front page and pay over half-a-million pounds in

damages. The man who edited the Express at the time was there to

answer questions about what happened.

We published many, many, many stories of all kinds about the

McCann family. Many stories were deeply sympathetic, some stories

that were not. The stories that were not wear a

little bit more than unsympathetic. Some went so far as to accuse them

of killing their child, didn't they?

This is what the Portuguese police were telling us.

Regardless of that, people had already covered that issue. Just

wait, Mr Hill. Do you accept that some of your stories went so far as

to accuse them of killing their child?

I did not accuse them of killing their child. The stories that I

around -- that I run were from those who did accuse them and they

were the Portuguese police. As executives gave their evidence,

it emerged that even in 2010, the firm was still using a company run

by the private detective Steve Whitton more who had been convicted

for data protection offences five years earlier. The owners of the

papers, his movie empire includes adult TV channels, made his

entrance, ready to stand up for his staff.

Ethical, I don't quite know what the name means. Perhaps you would

like to explain what ethical means. We don't talk about ethics or

morals because there is a fine line. He said he was sorry about the

stories about the McCann family but insisted his titles had been honest

and didn't accept the papers made it more difficult to find Madeleine.

If people thought that Madeleine had been killed, particularly by

her parents but it doesn't matter who, there would be less incentive

to try and find her, would you agree with that or not?

No. If you take Diana, as an example. These situations where no

one actually knows the answer, as it turned out, it just carries on.

Mr Desmond, I'm beginning to sound irritated but I am, there is no

comparison between these two cases because to be stark about it, in

the case of Princess Diana, we have a dead body. What has that to do

with the McCann case? There has been speculation that

Diana was killed by the Royal Family. You know, the speculation

has gone on and on and there has been all sorts of speculation about

Diana. And you know what, I don't know the answer. If you go into a

bar or a coffee shop or whatever, and you start talking about Diana,

you will get a view on Diana and you will get a view, and once again

I do apologise to the McCann's, but there are views on the family on

what happened. As he backed the then editor of the

Daily Express, he questioned the McCann's conduct.

We did do everything reasonable, or Mr Hill did do everything

reasonable, to make sure he was getting the fact and story across.

At the end of the day, the McCann's, as I understood it, although I

never met then, were perfectly, if we run it for four months, it took

a long time to get involved in a legal dispute with us, they were

quite happy, as I understand, in articles being run about their poor

daughter. It kept them on the front page. It was only when new lawyers

came along who I think were working on contingency, that is a fact.

Mr Desmond, I'm going to interrupt you. That is a grotesque

characterisation. Your paper was accusing the McCann's at the time

of having killed their daughter. Are you seriously saying they were

sitting there quite happy rather than entirely anguished by your

paper? The editor of the Daily Mail was a

fat butcher, he said, and his competitors were idiots.

At the end of the day, all the newspapers were doing the same,

plus or minus, if there was a major story, and basically, I saw it that

we were the only honest ones and straightforward ones. We said, we

got it wrong. There is the money for the McCann fund. Let's try and

find McCann, the poor little girl. But get rid of it and put it on the

front page, up apologise properly, which is what we did.

As for the PCC, from which the Express had withdrawn?

I thought it was a useless organisation from people who wanted

tea and biscuits and phone hackers and it was run by the people who

hated our guts, wanted us out of business and trade daily to put us

out of business. And yet they would smile matters.

When the papers did get to speak, they didn't exactly do so with one