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Phone hacking: now judge tells police to stop protecting names
Cahal Milmo and Martin Hickman: The Independent
DATELINE: 25/2/11
The likelihood of further News of the World (NotW) journalists being dragged into the phone-hacking scandal increased yesterday when a judge ruled that names believed to belong to the paper's employees should no longer be blanked out on key documents.
In a ruling designed to streamline the snowballing number of legal claims being brought against Rupert Murdoch's top-selling title, the High Court said that notes written by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire which it is claimed show who at the NotW commissioned him to hack phone messages must be disclosed to his alleged victims.
Until now, the Metropolitan Police, which holds thousands of pages of documents seized from Mulcaire's home, has blacked out names written in the top left-hand corner of the private detective's notebooks when handing over documents to celebrities suing the NotW. Lawyers believe Mulcaire habitually wrote the name of the reporter or executive on the Sunday paper who instructed him to access voicemails in the corner of his notes.
The word "Clive" appeared on records relating to members of the royal household. The name was a reference to royal editor Clive Goodman, who was jailed along with Mulcaire in 2007 for listening to the messages of aides to Prince William and Prince Harry. Other names which have appeared in his notes include "Greg", thought to be a reference to Greg Miskiw, former head of news at the NotW.
Mr Justice Vos, sitting in the High Court in London, ordered Scotland Yard to disclose the information it holds on the latest public figures to bring claims for breach of privacy against the NotW – the former MP George Galloway, former football star Paul Gascoigne, and Mick McGuire, former deputy head of the Professional Footballers' Association.
Voicing concern that there was likely to be a steep increase in the 14 phone-hacking claims already before the courts, the judge said more needed to be done to prevent multiple court hearings on often identical issues and said "names of people who may be employees of the News of the World ... or associated with the News of the World" should no longer be removed when Scotland Yard hands over Mulcaire's documents to his claimed victims. Jeremy Reed, the barrister acting for Mr Galloway and Mr Gascoigne, said it was "ridiculous" that such information was being routinely redacted by the Yard.
News Group Newspapers, holding company for the NotW, said it was requesting the information held by police on Mr Gascoigne and Mr McGuire to see if it offered evidence that Mulcaire was acting without the paper's knowledge.
The identity of which NotW staff members beyond Goodman, if any, were commissioning the private detective to hack phones has become a crucial issue since the unravelling of the paper's previous defence that the activity was restricted to a single "rogue" reporter. In a statement to lawyers acting for the football agent Sky Andrew, Mulcaire last week stated that he passed phone-hacking intercepts to the news desk of the NotW.
Last month the paper sacked its head of news, Ian Edmondson, and passed "significant new information" to the Yard, which has now launched a new investigation into the hacking saga. Mr Edmondson denies any wrongdoing.
The High Court heard that Mr Gascoigne was taking legal action against the Sunday tabloid after being told by police that information about medical treatment he was receiving in 2005 and 2006 had been intercepted from the voicemail of Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the PFA, whose legal claim against the NotW was the subject of a £700,000 out-of-court settlement.
In a separate development, the Metropolitan Police yesterday undertook to publish a full list of meetings between senior officers and managers at News International, such as the chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, during the time that detectives were investigating the phone-hacking allegations. The Yard this week published a list of private dinners with executives at the NotW between 2006 and 2010.
Last modified: Friday, February 25, 2011
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World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
Journalism Ethics
News of the World executive suspended over alleged phone hacking
Censored? Media silence over latest Coulson claims
Nick Clegg's rise could lock Murdoch and the media elite out of UK politics
The return of buggingate
Leaking in the public interest
Judge puts reporting ban on Alfie Patten 'dad at 13' story
Privacy and the Press
Painful lessons (but 60,000 smackers won't even make NoW wince)
The future of spin: Conservatives would perpetuate New Labour control freakery
Enoch Powell: how the 'Rivers of Blood Speech' was spun in advance
What lies behind the front page apology
Media intrusion: sharing the blame
Ken's Islam study
War spin fall-out 'will be traumatic'
Sound Advice
The History of Spin
Can we trust the broadcasting media?
US journalist freed after record-breaking jail term
Media regulation - battle lines drawn?
New enquiry into press self-regulation
Independent journalist facing jail
Jail for journalists
Landmark Lords Libel Ruling
MEPs campaign to protect sources
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