23 Apr 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Sky news’s John Ryley today apologised to the Leveson Inquiry for mistakenly claiming the station had never intercepted communications.
At the end of a one-and-a-half hour questioning by junior counsel David Barr, Ryley, head of news at the station, said that a letter submitted to the Inquiry by Sky News denying intercepts had solely been concerned with phone-hacking. Last month, the station admitted to hacking emails in two investigations relating to “canoe man” John Darwin and fugitive couple Martin and Lianne Smith.
Separately today, broadcasting regulator Ofcom announced it would be investigating Sky News’s email hacking.
Ryley said Sky News would in future “pretty much rule out” unlawful behaviour by journalists, but added that any requests to carry out subterfuge would be recorded in writing.
Lord Justice Leveson had earlier reminded Ryley that while communications interception may have been carried out in the name of public interest, no prima facie public interest defence existed in the Computer Misuse Act.
The hearings continue this afternoon, with media owners represented by Evgeny Lebedev for Independent newspapers and Aidan Barclay for the Telegraph group.
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19 Apr 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Rupert and James Murdoch are set to give evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards next week.
Two days have been set aside for Rupert Murdoch’s long-awaited appearance, as the Inquiry moves into its third module, looking at the relationship between press and politicians.
The media mogul is likely to be quizzed about his closeness to the British political establishment when he appears on Wednesday and Thursday.
Rupert Murdoch closed News International title the News of the World last July in the wake of the phone hacking scandal that engulfed the tabloid.
His son James, set to appear on Tuesday, resigned as chairman of BSkyB, whose parent company News Corporation was founded by his father. He also stood down as chairman of the newspaper publisher, News International, earlier this year.
Evgeny Lebedev of the Independent and Evening Standard, and Telegraph Media Group chairman Aidan Barclay, will both appear on Monday.
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3 Apr 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The former crime editor of the News of the World says she believes a “distorted picture” has been presented of how journalists work.
“We do not live a champagne lifestyle and the reality of the day to day grind of journalism is far from glamorous,” Lucy Panton wrote in her witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry.
Panton, who has been arrested and bailed as part of Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan police’s investigation into payments to police officers, wrote that she found it “bizarre that there seems to be such interest in what champagne I did or did not drink.”
Discussing her contact with police officers, Panton wrote that her objective was to “have a long term relationship with the police, which meant an open and honest relationship with the people I met.”
She added: “I am a journalist and therefore my objective is to seek information but not to the detriment of a police operation. I have never met a senior officer who is so ill-informed and naive that he or she gives out information that they were not authorised to divulge.”
She told the Inquiry that former assistant commissioner John Yates had attended her wedding, “along with many other police officers”, some of whom were “friends”. Panton added that her contact with former Met commissioner Lord Blair was “minimal”, she had not had drinks with fellow ex-commissioner Lord Stevens in a pub or restaurant setting, and had drank champagne with police officers when others were present, namely at the Crime Reporters’ Association (CRA) Christmas parties.
She also described an October 2010 email sent to her by her then news editor James Mellor, in which Panton was asked if she had spoken to Yates about an aviation bomb plot story, as “banter”.
Mellor’s email, read to the Inquiry during Yates’ evidence on 1 March, read: “Think John Yates could be crucial here, have you spoken to him, really need an exclusive splash line, time to call in all those bottles of champagne.”
“It’s the way people spoke to each other in our office,” Panton told the Inquiry. “I would read that at that time as banter mixed with a bit of pressure”, she said, describing the message in her written statement as similar to “many I received at work that contained an element of banter with a serious note of expectation that they were relying on me for a big story”. She later added that she did not feel there was a bullying culture at the now defunct tabloid, and that pressure was “part of the job.”
Panton also said she was “sad” to hear from colleagues that lines of communication between police officers and the press “seem to have stopped”.
“I would hate to see crime reporting over and police feeling they can’t have professional relationships with journalists,” she added.
Also giving evidence today was Chief Superintendent Derek Barnett of the Police Superintendents’ Association, University of Leicester criminology lecturer Dr Rob Mawby and Ed Stearns, head of media at the Met’s renamed Directorate of Media & Communications (formerly known as Directorate of Public Affairs).
A directions hearing for the third module of the Inquiry, which will examine the relationship between the press and politicians, will take place this afternoon.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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2 Apr 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
A former senior executive of the News of the World who was contracted to provide PR advice to the Scotland Yard has defended his police contacts.
Recalled to the Leveson Inquiry today, Neil Wallis brushed off the suggestion by Robert Jay QC that dining with officers might lead to a perception of “over-cosiness”, rejecting the notion that experienced officers such as Lord Stevens were “going to be seduced by me taking him out for steak & chips”.
He said his going out for dinner with a police officer was no different from a civil servant doing so with a businessman. “Have you ever had a working lunch with somebody more than once?” he asked the Inquiry. “It is the way of the world.”
Defending his trade, Wallis said: “Journalists live and die by their contacts. I nurtured these contacts because that’s what journalists do. ”
“I’ve built relationships with the police, politicians,” he said, “I haven’t put an arm lock on these people.”
He emphasised what he saw as a greater need for public officials to talk to journalists. “We need more talking, rather than less,” Wallis said, arguing it was healthier for democracy and a free press.
The Metropolitan police has faced criticism for awarding Wallis’s company, Chamy Media, a £24,000-a year contract to provide communications advice to the Met on a part-time basis from October 2009 to September 2010. Giving evidence at the Inquiry last month, former commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said that it was with hindsight that he regretted the force entering into a contract with Wallis. Last week, the Met’s communications chief, Dick Fedorcio, resigned after disciplinary proceedings were launched against him, with an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) into Wallis’ contract finding that Fedorcio had a case to answer for gross misconduct.
Discussing the arrangement, Wallis said his value was providing “crisis management” to the force.
He also described his working relationship with senior officers at the Met prior to his departure from journalism in 2009. Wallis dated this back to the the tenure of Lord Condon (1993-2000) and stressed the setup was “corporate, strategic” and not about “a quick hit for a story”.
“One benefit of my relationship with senior offices was, if I rang and said ‘we have situation Met needs to get involved with’, they’d take it seriously because they’d know I’m a guy who wouldn’t mess them about,” Wallis told the Inquiry.
He added that he advised Lord Stevens on his application as Met commissioner, advising him to emphasise he was a “coppers copper”. Wallis stressed he himself had “strong views” on what was happening at the Met at the time in light of the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and that whoever succeeded Lord Condon was an “important appointment” for the force.
In his witness statement Wallis wrote: “It should not come across that my involvement in advising the senior police officers from Scotland Yard was entirely altruistic. There was something in it for me and my newspaper.”
He added that when the paper was running a highly public campaign, senior officers would write exclusive articles of give quotes in support which would go into the tabloid.
Wallis was arrested in July 2011 as part of Operation Weeting, the Met’s investigation into phone hacking. He was bailed and has not been charged.
Also giving evidence this morning were Stewart Gull of Jersey States Police, Paul McKeever of the Police Federation, and Mark Burns-Williamson and Nathan Oley, both of the Association of Police Authorities. Oley, the APA’s head of press and public affairs, said guidelines for press-police contact as suggested in the Filkin report would be “helpful” for the future.
“We’re entering unchartered territory,” Oley said, citing greater media interest in policing. He said the Inquiry’s outcomes were crucial to ensure a “free flow of information” by both parties.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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