19 Mar 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The purpose of the Leveson Inquiry is to examine the British press and its ethics. Given how culturally specific the press tends to be it might appear to be a fruitless exercise comparing different regulatory regimes. Ireland is a possible exception, given that many of the same newspapers are freely available in Ireland and many British newspapers, especially the tabloid have Irish editions, with Irish content mixed with British content.
It might be of interest to look at the reaction of some of those newspapers, which did accept and join up to a very different regime than that operating in the UK.
While most of the Irish media accepted the need for a regulatory system, all be it with reluctance in some cases, many of the British newspapers with a presence in Ireland were strongly opposed. A number of Sunday Times’s Irish columnists, for instance, wrote pieces opposing the Press Council. Others warned of the threat to press freedom.
The Irish Press Council and Press Ombudsman system was launched in January 2008 following years of debate and negotiation concerning the libel and defamation regime, considered even more draconian than the UK’s.
There were three groups involved, successive governments and politicians; journalists and finally, proprietors. Each had their own agendas. Politicians were unwilling to concede anything and could see no reason to relax or reform defamation. Some politicians, far from supporting reform wanted to make things more difficult for the press, by insisting on privacy legislation that would sit alongside defamation laws that were last examined in the 1960s.
Journalists, through NUJ (the NUJ operates in Ireland as well as the UK) wanted to be involved in any regime that would emerge and not be sidelined as had happened in the UK.
Proprietors wanted libel reform first and foremost and were willing to concede regulation to get that. Ranging from News International to owners of small family run local newspapers, the proprietors were often less than united.
The council was launched in Jan 2008, following about five years of organisation and planning. The steering committee drew its membership from newspaper and magazine proprietors and the NUJ and was chaired by a former Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, Dr Tom Mitchell. Some groups, particularly News International in Ireland had, to be, more or less, dragged to the table — it had a particular problem with the NUJ’s presence. At one stage the NI representatives did not even want to be in the same room as a trade union member.
The system that emerged was a hybrid, a mix of Britain’s Press Complaints Commission and the Scandinavian ombudsman. One of the more urgent tasks of the Steering Committee was convincing the Government (and a sometimes sceptical public) that the proposed Press Council was independent and would not be a mouthpiece for the newspaper proprietors who were funding it. It was absolutely necessary to ensure there was a system were members of civic society, whose independence was beyond question, would be in the majority.
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6 Mar 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The former commissioner of the Metropolitan told the Leveson Inquiry today that too much closeness between the police and the media can lead to unethical behaviour, but warned against an “overreaction” to links between the two.
“Hospitality is the start of a grooming process that can lead to inappropriate or unethical behaviour,” Lord Condon said in his witness statement.
Condon said that every meeting with the press that involves hospitality should be able to pass the “blush test”, asking “Does this meeting feel right?” He added that a commissioner’s life would be “made difficult” if professional relationships crossed over into friendships. “It is not intrinsically wrong to be friendly,” Condon said, “but I knew where my comfort zone was.”
Yet Condon urged against turning the media into a “pariah”, warning Lord Justice Leveson of a “massive bureaucratic overreaction” if meetings between the press and police were restricted, or if a police officer who “was within 50 yards” of a journalist had to record it.
The Leveson Inquiry is currently in its second module, examining relations between the press and the police.
Condon, who was commissioner of the Met from 1993-2000, said at times his professional relationship with the media would “completely dominate” his life. He said there would be an “insatiable demand” for the commissioner to be communicating with the public and the media. He added later that the growth of officers blogging and using Twitter meant that the service nationwide needed to “re-calibrate” how it delivers information to the public.
He told the Inquiry he had also turned down offers of writing a newspaper column, stressing that he had spent his career “majoring on integrity, independence [and] being apolitical.”
He told the Inquiry held about eight to 12 meetings a year with editors, stressing that a commissioner should be without favourites in the press, and that he did not think he had invited anyone from the media to his home address.
Condon told Lord Justice Leveson that police discipline goes in a “cyclical” pattern of “scandal, inquiry, remedial action, relaxation, complacency, scandal.” He reiterated that the Inquiry’s challenge is to make changes that are “enduring”.
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1 Mar 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Three former police officers from the Metropolitan Police Service, who were involved in the original phone hacking investigation appeared before Leveson to discuss the relationship between the police and the press today.
In a gruelling three hour testimony, John Yates, former assistant commissioner to the Met Police, was questioned rigorously by both Robert Jay, QC, and Lord Justice Leveson.
Jay explored a catalogue of diary events in which Yates met with a number of journalists, including Neil Wallis, an executive at News International, Colin Myler, former News of the World editor, and Lucy Panton, crime editor of the News of the World.
Jay repeatedly asked Yates if he believed these appointments, at venues such as the Ivy Club, were appropriate. Yates explained “In terms of what we know now, in terms of what has happened, I suppose it is [inappropriate], but it wasn’t at the time.”
He added: “I think it’s hugely important that senior officers of the police have a relationship with the press.”
Yates was asked about an email to Lucy Panton about an Al-Qaeda plot, and story. The email mentioned Yates as “crucial” and added that it was “time to call in all those bottles of champagne. Yates dismissed this as a “turn of phrase” and denied ever being plied with champagne by Panton.
The former Met officer was also asked about an occasion when he had drinks with James Hanning of the Independent. Yates described him as an “interesting interrogator” and added “he challenged some of my preconceptions on phone hacking. It was interesting to talk to him because he was giving a completely different view on what happened. He saw a “grander conspiracy”.
When asked if Hanning had shared with him his belief that knowledge of phone hacking went right to the top of News International, Yates denied this.
Yates accepted making a “fundamental misjudgement” in his definition of phone hacking victims, but also explained that at the time it was not considered a particularly serious matter.
In relation to revelations earlier in the week that Lord Prescott was not made aware of the extent of the information which had been gathered about him, Lord Justice Leveson voiced his concern that “persistent requirements” made by Yates, did not reveal the answer.
Yates replied: “It is deeply regrettable, and I can’t account for it, I’m afraid.”
Peter Clarke, former Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations appeared before the court first, and described the “complicated relationship between the police and the press. Clarke explained that at different levels within the police, there were different levels of relationships with the media.
He said: “I felt that that it was useful to have more informal meetings with groups of journalists from across media outlets at lunches to discuss broad issues of strategy”
When asked by Jay if there was favouritism towards a particular news agency, Clarke said; “I was totally disinterested between them. If my memory serves me, it tended to be on one occasion we would have broadsheets, another red-tops, another broadcasters. We had representation from across the media groups.
During his time as the head of the anti terrorist branch SO13 9between 2002 and 2008), Clarke said that any relationship with the press was to promote the public interest.
Clarke explained that “public interest is paramount” with regards to relations between the press and the police. He added: “any engagement with the media was to try and help protect the public, and to keep them safe.”
He said: “I was not interested in trying to make the police look good, that was not my agenda, it was to try and support the counter terrorist operation at that time.
In relation to the expansion of the inquiry which Clarke admitted he never wanted to happen, he described the pressure put on the SO13 unit, during the time of the original phone hacking investigation, telling the court that at the same time, there were 70 separate terrorism inquiries underway.
He explained that he could not have justified releasing officers to work on the phone-hacking investigation, because of the terrorist threat.
Putting it bluntly, Clarke told the court that phone hackers “don’t kill you, terrorists do.”
Clarke told the court that the 11,000 pages of Mulcaire’s notebooks which were seized were not analysed at the time because the investigation would have been an “enormous undertaking” and would have involved “dozens of officers over weeks if not years.”
He added: “The fear was what that resource commitment would lead us…it was disproportionate to other competing demands at the time.”
Clarke also discussed the obstruction from News International following the arrest of Glenn Mulcaire on the 8 August 2006. He said: “In terms of the investigation, it became immediately apparent that we weren’t going to get any co-operation from News International. Usually, companies bend over backwards to try and preserve their reputation and assist in inquiries. This was a closing of the ranks from very early on.”
Throughout his testimony, Clarke remained firm that all those involved in the case were not affected by News International, “those officers conducted an honest inquiry, they were uninfluenced, as was I by News International.”
Andy Hayman, former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner also appeared at the hearing.
He told the court that he entered his role with a “reserved” approach to the media. He said “I didn’t feel I needed to engage because I felt that sometimes that kind of relationship was difficult.”
But Jay’s questioning led to the discussion of several meetings between Hayman and Lucy Panton and Neil Wallis. Discussing a “working lunch” in March 2007, Hayman said; “I can’t remember the purpose, I can remember the lunch, but it would not be anything different to anything other than what I’ve already explained, the support that newspaper was trying to give the ongoing terrorist inquiry.” Jay revealed that this lunch was paid for with a Metropolitan Police Service American Express card.
Hayman supported earlier comments from Clarke, that resources were struggling to balance between the phone hacking investigation and on-going terrorist inquiries.
Hayman said: “Without wishing to sound alarmist, the pot was actually running dry, so we had nowhere really to go. Within the Met that was exactly the same … that would have a massive attack on the counter-terrorism.”
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29 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
A police officer today told how there had been fears of violence during a search of the News of the World premises during an investigation into phone hacking.
In written evidence referred to today in court, DCS Keith Surtees described how one officer “was concerned at the time that NOTW staff may offer some form of violence against the small police team in the building”. Surtees also said that officers had been surrounded and photographed by photographers from several News International publications, and that some had been refused entry to the building. The search took place in 8 August 2006, as part of of Operation Caryatid, the investigation which led to the jailing of Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman. Surtees was the Investigating Officer of the operation.
News International rejects any allegation that there could have been an air of violence during the search.
The Inquiry also heard from DI Mark Maberly, who confirmed that information belong to people on Witness Protection programmes had been found in Glenn Mulcaire’s notes. Lord Justice Leveson expressed alarm at that fact, describing such information as “Not just sensitive – horribly sensitive”.
The hearing resumes tomorrow with video evidence from former Met Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who is currently working with the regime in Bahrain.
In seperate developments, it was announced that James Murdoch had resigned as Executive Chair of News International.
Meanwhile, at Westminster, Tom Watson MP called for an inquiry into the death of priavte investigator Daniel Morgan, amid speculation that News International resources may have been used to undermine a 2002 investigation.
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