Episode 11 The Phone Hacking Inquiry

eventful week. Several newspaper editors defended the practices of

journalists. It has been a terrible Spear on a

company I love it. I said, there is no way you could know that unless

you have been listening to my messages. There are dozens of

examples of people whose lives have been damaged and destroyed.

For months, this church has scrutinised Britain's papers,

summoning their reporters, demanding explanations, and

weighing heavily on editor's mind. When Day Two P7, thank you

witnesses who wield considerable power outside the inquiry room. The

police officer leading three investigations into the activities

of the press. Their team is ploughing through 300 e-mails from

News International and 11,000 pages of notes from this private

detective, Glenn Mulcaire, jailed for phone hacking alongside a News

of the World reporter. From those notes, they have identified 829

people whom they describe as likely victims. We define a likely victims

as those that have detail around their names that would make it seem

like they had been hacked or had the potential to be hacked.

Information from inside News International was driving her

inquiry into alleged illegal payments to police officers. Where

did the information come from which enabled those arrests to take

place? It came from the Standards Committee as well as our own

analysis of the material. A small operation is examining computer

hacking allegations dating back decades. Some of them are connected

with investigations that go a very long way back, into the late 1980s.

Some are connected with the very historic investigation. That was a

relatively rare update into the work of the police. Perhaps

surprising -- surprising given the nature of their investigation.

Seldom heard in public, the editor of the Daily Mail explained how he

thought journalists should work and what they should be allowed to

print. Celebrities make a lot of money by revealing their lives to

the public. I think is so -- journalist should be allowed to

look into their lives were made her. I do believe there is an

opportunity to build on existing haphazard press card systems. There

are 17 bodies providing these cards. We should transform these into an

essential guideline for ethical journalism. The key would be to

make the cards available only to members of print organisations.

ombudsman figure would have the right to recommend that an

accredited journalist guilty of gross malfeasance have their

Prescott cancelled. -- press card. There was a request for 10

telephone numbers of friends and family at a cost of �10,000.

this in breach of section 55? would say that this information

could all be obtained equally but it would take time. This was a

quick and easy way to obtain that information. -- legally. But that

would suggest that it was illegal. Time is everything in journalist --

journalism. Very often a legal roads are quick and easy and also

expensive. On the face of it, it looks as if you're titles were

seeking to obtain those numbers in order to snoop around the target to

see who might be of interest. was to check facts. You do not have

the first clue in this particular example? I do not know what you're

talking about. He robustly defended his paper and its staff, like a

journalist who wrote a column about a singer who died on holiday. So

many people wrote complaints about it that the website crashed. Can I

put this in context? On previous days, these were the headlines that

appeared in popular news. "My Heart romp with Stephen and his hobby" "I

did have sex with Stephen on the night he died" "And Stephen has

smoked cannabis" I would suggest that this article was not of the

same tone as the other material and other people had said far more

offensive things. You realise that these are all on wine complaints.

It is an example of how twittering can create a firestorm. One man who

admitted he had not read the article said it was unpleasant.

That built into a viral storm. Most people had not read the piece.

for its coverage of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann...

I believe that our coverage of that story was much more responsible

than that of most papers. accepted they were at fault,

although far from the worst behaved and their treatment of Christopher

Jeffries, the innocent landlord of John -- murder victim to one a

Yeates. -- Jo Yeates. We learnt from experience. There was no

apology for Hugh Grant who suggested to this inquiry that the

Mail on Sunday had hacked his phone messages, something the paper has

always denied. It is a terrible smear on the company I love. I

discussed with the editor and we were deeply aware that I had to

report such a damaging allegation. We agreed it was a mendacious

besmear. -- mendacious sneer. A witness statements have made clear

that we deny phone hacking. It is my view that Hugh Grant made that

statement, attempting to hijack your enquiry with a highly

calculated attempt to ruin my company. The discussion around to

grant was to drag the inquiry into extra-time. Ed sat an extra hour,

allowing the barristers to probe further. I'm putting to you that

this latest statement put together for you with examples provided by

people within your organisation is just another shooting from the hip

attack on Hugh Grant, instead of simply responding to correct record

if there is an inaccuracy. I deny that. It is not shot from the hip,

it is very careful -- very carefully considered. The following

morning, it was clear that the issue was far from resolved. I want

to say that I'm extremely unhappy about the way in which yesterday

afternoon did damage to what I consider to be the appropriate flow

of this inquiry. The Mail claimed that you Grant was guilty of lying.

It was a statement attacking one of the witnesses who gave evidence to

this inquiry by in -- accusing him of perjury. The Mail's lawyer

objected. There were tough questions for the woman who was

chair of the Press Complaints Commission in 2009 when it

published a report concluding that the Guardian's phone hacking

stories did not live up to their original billing. I put my name to

it. But I was never comfortable with it. We did not have the powers

and structure and processes in order to seriously consider this

whole issue. If you were not comfortable with it, why was this

included? I meant the whole report in the sense that one has to think

about this in context. This is a report which I regret with

hindsight, but I think that I regret this in the way I was misled

with -- by News International. I felt like my hands were tied

through the process. One or two editors did not even bother to

reply to my letters. She said that because editors hated ruling

against their papers... I would do love you to have been at the end of

the phone and when we had issued critical adjudication. The end of

the phone from some of the editors and their fury that we had issued a

critical adjudication. Don't you think the anger might be that the

PCC have had the nerve to criticise their judgement? That's it exactly.

We have had the audacity to... I remember one editor who rang me up

and was barely abusive because we had the audacity to name his

newspaper on our website. All we were doing was saying that a

complaint has been resolved between the Financial Times and the

complainers. Then the editor of the Times recalled to explain and

apologise for the hacking of an e- mail account by a former Times

reported. He had done so to discover the identity of an

As editor, I am responsible for the journalists. I it sorely regret the

intrusion into Richard Dawkins's e- mail account. I am sure that he and

many other people expect better of the Times. So do I. On paper, I

apologise. He sought an injunction to protect his privacy. The heir to

said he did not even know about the hearing until after it had taken

place. -- the editor said. It is very unusual. I have never heard of

a case where the legal manager takes the case to the High Court

without informing the editor or the managing editor. That caused my

surprise. Is that systemic? It needs to be addressed. You can

imagine the surprise it caused me. I do not believe it is systemic.

was put to James Harding that what the court was told was not correct.

I am not a lawyer. I was responsible for what happened in

the newsroom of the Times. But I do feel that while the company handles

legal affairs, somebody owes Mr Justice e deep an apology. I have

written to him to apologise for the fact that this was not disclosed to

the court. The newspaper editor was asked about a series of stories.

lot of information is obtained in a wall around knowing what is

happening in telephone calls. a bit of colour to illustrate a

story about a relationship for a split. Might the stories that were

obtained by hacking into voice mails? I cannot say 100%. There is

an internal investigation being carried out at the moment. But you

have picked a number of stories over more than three years and I am

sure if you took a sample from any number of newspapers are a very

three-year period, there would be numerous references to phone calls.

On day 39, Paul Staines, in other Mahmoud Ali -- another blogger,

explained his take on the view. was outlined how one publication

may cost the taxpayer �50 billion. The Financial Times published its

online and immediately was hit with injunctions. I also got a copy of

the memo. I wrote a story and took the precaution of uploading the

memo. I put it on a foreign website and link it to that. Of orphans

were chasing hosting agencies around the world and when that

became boring, I gave it to Wikileaks. -- law firms. And it was

said it would be clarified in the guts to journalists. It will be

prudent to have a policy that sets out in one place the factors that

prosecutors will take into account when you consider whether or not

the prosecutor is acting because of their work as journalists. My

intention is that we will consult on that in to run policy for a

period of 12 months... 12 weeks, which is a usual consultation

period. At the end of which we will take into account the responses and

adjust the policy. And the final day in the first part of this

inquiry. It was a day packed with high-profile witnesses and some

answers to questions raised in the early appearances. In November,

powerful testimony from Kate McCann was heard. She described feeling

violated after her private diaries were published in the News of the

World without her permission. In December, the inquiry heard the

then editor argued he would never have published them had -- had he

known that she had not given permission. He said he was misled.

He decided to ask me to make the call and not make it clear what we

had, tell will in general terms. The preferred outcome to the

conversation would be what? Do keeping the impression that we were

running a story but not help specifically what story. Certainly

do not say we were in possession of the complete diaries, as we

understood. They have been extracts of the diaries in Portuguese papers

which had been translated into English. But certainly not to the

extent that we had. He was frightened that if he knew what we

had, he may take action. presumably were uneasy in carrying

out these instructions? Yes. I had an alternative which I presented.

He was the only one to have during the can's mobile number and until

then had had a good relationship with him. I thought he could argue

that we could work collaboratively. -- Gerry McCann. What was the

reaction? No. He went on to talk about the culture of bullying in

the newsroom. Everything is dictated by the editor. In the past,

we have asked witnesses why they had not done certain things but you

were not doing anything unless you were told to. The next witness was

Heather Mills - the ex-wife of Paul McCartney. She said she was called

by a contact. He said, we have heard you and Paul have had an

argument. I have heard a message of him singing on the phone to you,

asking for forgiveness. I said, there is no way that you could know

that unless you have been listening to my messages. He laughed. I said,

if you report the story, even though it is true, you have

obtained the information illegally and I will do something about it.

He never reported the story. contact was not an employee of

former tabloid editor Piers Morgan but years later, Piers Morgan Road

he had been played a voicemail message from Sir Paul McCartney to

Heather Mills. Did you all the rise Piers Morgan to access your voice

now? Never. The to authorise him to listen to your voicemail? Never.

After lunch, at a celebrity tales had played such a big part, it

seemed only right that a man who built a fortune are -- out of

spreading and preventing them share his take on the modern media.

the years went by, the competition got more fierce and circulation

started to subside. Methods became more and more creative. In my

experience, the vast majority of journalists I have been involved

with for 45 years would not get involved in anything like this. The

tiny minority that do, some of them were forced. Some had no choice. If

you do not, you are sacked. That is my belief. It was a tiny minority.

It is a cancer that has hopefully now been cut out. He said ordinary

members of the public the to be protected. I know of many examples

where people's lives have been destroyed by excessive media

activity. There is no-one there for them. Finally, the return of Paul

Dacre. The accusation printed that the actor Hugh Grant had smeared

the newspaper group earlier in the course of the inquiry by accusing

them of being involved in phone hacking. The QC tried to convince

Paul Dacre to retract the accusation. Will you now withdraw

your allegation of inundation? want him to withdraw his repeated

statements about the Daily Mail. That tells us something about the

culture and ethics. It was up to Lord Levison to end the session on

a more positive note. I would like to recognise the progress we have

made so far. We have actually heard from 184 witnesses. The statements

of 42 other witnesses as well. They have been bred into the record. --

read into be. Under these circumstances, I would like to pay

tribute to all of those who have allowed us to do that. There is a

two-week break and a different focus when they return. The