Evidence: News International denies involvement
Read the key sections from News International’s denials about widespread knowledge of illegal practices within News of the World.
Evidence given to the culture, media and sport committee on March 6th 2007 has been flatly contradicted by the Guardian today.
Its reports have brought David Cameron’s director of communications – Andy Coulson, the editor of the News of the World at the time – into question.
News International’s executive chairman, Les Hinton, set out clearly his side of the case relating to the arrest and jailing of Clive Goodman, who was jailed in January of that year for phone-hacking three royal staff.
Did Mr Coulson, who has denied all knowledge of the allegations, know about Goodman’s phone-hacking, or was he a rogue one-off journalist?
Twenty-eight months after Mr Hinton gave evidence to MPs making clear the latter was his employers’ view, the claims have been challenged and are under scrutiny yet again.
Mr Hinton explains the blurred moral lines about justifying phone hacking:
“If Andy Coulson, when he was editor of the News of the World, had called up the Metropolitan police commissioner and said, ‘I have to tell you, Mr Blair, that one of my reporters was accessing a phone message, a voicemail, and we have reason to believe that, two days from now, bombs will go off on the London Underground’, I doubt that Mr Blair’s first words would have been, ‘Mr Coulson, you’re under arrest’. We operate in this area all the time. It is not to say that we do not make mistakes or that we will continue to, but placing too great an inhibition on people who are setting out to explore what they consider to be genuine issues of public concern is a dangerous thing to do.”
Mr Hinton denies Mr Coulson’s knowledge of the Goodman case and explains why Mr Coulson quit:
“Clive went to prison; the News of the World paid a substantial amount to charities nominated by Prince Harry, Prince William and the editor, who told me he had no knowledge of this activity but felt that, since it had happened on his watch, he should take his share of the responsibility, and he resigned.”
Mr Hinton on News of the World’s reforming ways after Goodman:
“The new editor has been given a very clear remit to make certain that everything is done in the form of seminars and meetings. We were already doing this kind of thing in the past with all our newspapers. It has been reemphasised. They are all attending. There is mandatory attendance at seminars, understanding the law and understanding the limits; understanding that, in the event that there is a judgment that the public interest might warrant some stepping over the line, it has to be authorised by the editor at the very least. That is all being done now. I believe absolutely that Andy did not have knowledge of what was going on.”
Mr Hinton pledges that Clive Goodman was the only person who knew about his phone-hacking practices
“Chairman (John Whittingdale): You can assure us, therefore, that in future there will be checks in place that senior reporters, however experienced, who suddenly produce stories, will be required to give undertakings that there have been no breaches of the Code?
Hinton: Anything that can make the new regime more rigorous, we will do; but we are running aggressive newspapers. Their job most of the time, as I said earlier, is to find out information that other people do not want them to find out.
Chairman: You carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry, and you are absolutely convinced that Clive Goodman was the only person who knew what was going on?
Hinton: Yes, we have and I believe he was the only person, but that investigation, under the new editor, continues.”
What the committee concluded (from its report)
“We note the assurances of the chairman of News International that Mr Goodman was acting wholly without authorisation and that Mr Coulson had no knowledge of what was going on.
“We find it extraordinary, however, that the News of the World was prepared to apply one standard of accountability to the £105,000 retainer paid to Mr Mulcaire and another, far weaker, standard to the substantial cash payments paid to Mr Mulcaire by Mr Goodman.
“The existence of a ‘slush fund’ effectively can only further the belief that editors condone such payments-on a ‘no need to know’ basis-as long as they provide good copy.
“Self-regulation must require vigilance by editors, otherwise the impression may be given that editors will turn a blind eye as long as good stories are the result, a practice of which at least some editors are guilty, according to the general secretary of the NUJ.”
Read the select committee’s report in full here.
