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Mr Neil Hamilton; Mr Rupert Grey (Continued)
Mr Pleming
1874. Two points arise from that, if you do not mind
me asking. The first one is - again, not wishing to doubt, in
any way, what Mr Grey has said - that to have that confirmed by
counsel then acting for you would, of course, complete the picture
and no doubt we can now arrange for that to be made.
(Mr Grey) May I mention that I spoke to Mr Ferguson
last night and I warned him that it may be possible that you will
want some confirmation in the light of some comments made by previous
witness. That appeared to pose no difficulty whatever. He was
very adamant about the information he gave you which I have incorporated.
.
(Mr Hamilton) I am very happy, by the way, to
waive any legal professional privilege that attaches to that case.
(Mr Grey) I likewise would have no objection to
that.
1875. The other point is that the conflict of interest
is clearly explained. The question of adjournment, rather than
withdrawal in some form, would compromise proceedings. I just
wanted to be sure that the two elements upon which The Guardian
places emphasis were not factors. Funding has been explained.
Other points you have mentioned, but an adjournment of more than
a month, a lengthy adjournment because of your financial position,
may well have been considered favourably by a judge or not, but
at least there could not be an application for an adjournment
without a full explanation being given. But before the trial was
finally aborted, two things had happened according to The Guardian.
One is that they had obtained the witness statements from Ms Bozek
and Ms Bond. That has been agreed. Also, there is the Heseltine/Robin
Butler memorandum. Could we look at that one first. It is the
second one. You should have somewhere - maybe not in front of
you - but in the core bundle, as it has become called, the second
volume at page 494. This is the redacted version of a memo dated
21 October 1994. This is the memorandum which, as you know, was
disclosed by the Cabinet Office to The Guardian's lawyers
very late in the day. It is paragraph 4: "There is one other
development to report." Then there is a reference to the
President of the Board of Trade, the memo with which you are now,
I am sure, very familiar. We pick it up next to the top, "...I
encouraged the President to put this point to Mr Hamilton himself",
that is excluding having some other form of financial relationship
with Mr Greer, "The President has now done so and Mr Hamilton
has given him an absolute assurance that he had no financial relationship
with Mr Greer, and the President has accepted this." Two
matters arise. That, on its face, in the light of the information
we have received, looks to be incorrect, that you did have a financial
relationship, and that is obvious to any observer of the papers.
Was that a factor in not merely dealing with the conflict of interest,
but in pulling the plug completely?.
(Mr Hamilton) This document is a note by Sir Robin
Butler of a conversation that I had on the telephone with Michael
Heseltine, so Sir Robin Butler was not a party to that conversation.
The conversation lasted for about ten minutes and it took place
in (as I am sure you will appreciate, the morning after The
Guardian's article was published) fraught circumstances, as
I have described it elsewhere. I was at that time opening an extension
to a school in my constituency and outside the locked school gates
were the massed ranks of the world's media (probably 50 or 60
journalists, television cameras, sound booms and so on) who had
followed me from my home where they had been laying siege to us
all day and were to follow me around for the whole of the weekend.
The circumstances in which I had existed for 36 hours were, of
course, ones of extreme stress which I do not think anybody, unless
they had endured the full treatment of the world's tabloid press,
could even begin to comprehend. For a week we could not even open
the shutters in our house because of the telephoto lenses that
were thrust through the hedge and the wall by which we are surrounded.
So the circumstances in which this conversation with Mr Heseltine
took place were not, how shall we say, ideal. These two lines
which purport to be a record of this ten-minute conversation do
not give the full picture. What Mr Heseltine was keen to establish
was to what extent the note that I had written, the manuscript
note that I had written at the invitation of the Chief Whip for
the Prime Minister the previous day in case, as was inevitable,
he was asked at Prime Minister's Questions about the circumstances
of Mr Smith's resignation from the Government and my staying on,
which was based closely on the allegations that The Guardian
printed, which went something along the lines of, "I deny
the allegations that Mr Fayed has made that I received payment
either from him directly or through Ian Greer", what Michael
Heseltine was seeking to establish, as I understood it from that
conversation, was this: that Mr Fayed had a financial relationship
with Ian Greer of a general nature, he generally retained Ian
Greer to represent his interests, so he put money into the Greer
pot, so did I have a financial relationship, as it is described
in this note, which could be misrepresented as a means by which
Fayed money got into my pocket? That would have been possible,
it would have been possible to say that at any rate, if I had
had some sort of general retainer relationship with Ian Greer.
Even though I might not have done anything for Fayed to advance
his interests at any stage, it could, nevertheless, be said that
that was a covert means of putting money in my pocket which ultimately
derived from Fayed. Now, I was satisfied in my own mind that that
was not so, that the receipt on two occasions many years ago of
two commission payments from Ian Greer for the introduction of
two companies that had no connection whatever with Al Fayed or
the House of Fraser or Lonrho could not be described as a financial
relationship.
1876. But did you deliberately exclude reference to
those payments when you spoke to Mr Heseltine?.
(Mr Hamilton) I did not mention the commission
payments when I spoke to Mr Heseltine.
1877. But did you think of them at the time and put them
out of your mind, saying, "I don't have to mention these"?.
(Mr Hamilton) I did put them out of my mind in
the sense that I did not mention them and the reason is a simple
one, let us be frank about it. The circumstances in which this
conversation took place, as I have described earlier on, were
fraught. Politics is a rough game. I knew that I had not taken
money from Fayed. I had been told that Tim Smith had done so and
that is what prompted his resignation. I did not want to resign
from the Government in circumstances where it could be represented
by the press that I had done the same as him. There is a point,
as we know, we are no doubt going to explore it later on, on the
registration of interests whether those commission payments should
have been registered or not. I knew that if there were to be another
cause for adverse media comment against me (even though in other
circumstances it perhaps would not be regarded as the most heinous
crime), it could be used as a very big stick with which to beat
me and to cause my resignation to take place. It was a matter
of timing when to reveal this ultimately - - - .
1878. Mr Hamilton, this is not you talking to the press;
this is you talking to the President of the Board of Trade, and
what you are saying to me is that you deliberately decided to
keep back that which you had remembered. It was not a question
of having forgotten all about the commission payments. You knew
that that could be damaging in opening up another front, I think
is a fair way of putting it, because it had not been registered.
It had been the subject of some discussion at the time in relation
to Michael Grylls, but here you were, from what you have said
to me, deliberately misleading the President of the Board of Trade.
You explained why you did it; that there was the risk of further
damage to you. Just going through this brief conversation, this
would be a very damaging document to you in the libel proceedings.
Would you accept that?.
(Mr Hamilton) It would certainly have been a damaging
document. It would have been a hurdle which we would have had
to jump, certainly.
1879. What I want to explore with you, and it is useful
to have your solicitor here at the same time, is whether the decision
not merely to seek a long adjournment, but some other way of keeping
the battle alive was influenced by the fact that you had this
one coming. This would have meant that Michael Heseltine would
have been called to give evidence, you would have no doubt answered
the way you have been answering my questions, and that would have
put you in a pretty difficult light before a jury in a libel action.
(Mr Hamilton) Yes, it certainly would have been
a difficulty. There is no disguising that.
1880. Was that a factor in the decision not to take another
course, which is a lengthy adjournment, which could well have
been granted by a sympathetic judge, if they exist still, even
beyond May of 1997?.
(Mr Hamilton) I think I can categorically exclude
this as a deciding factor.
1881. No, not a deciding factor; a factor.
(Mr Hamilton) Well, obviously.
1882. Because what Mr Grey has said effectively because
of the timing of the documentation is that this was entirely irrelevant.
I want to be sure so Sir Gordon is sure that that is correct.
(Mr Hamilton) Yes, but obviously we had to consider
the document because the document had appeared and we did not
ultimately settle with The Guardian until after the weekend.
We spent the whole weekend closeted in Mr Grey's offices obviously
coping with the consequences of what had developed some days before,
but no, I think I can say that this document, although it created
a difficulty, would not have prevented us going on with the case
were it not for the intended discontinuance by Ian Greer and the
circumstances which brought that decision about.
1883. So would it be a fair way of summarising that,
the Ian Greer betrayal, as you saw it, because of the inadequacies
of his financial records, that that would have provided the background
to the main problem of conflict that was there created, but this
was a factor in the decision to settle with The Guardian?
Would that be a fair way of summarising it?.
(Mr Hamilton) Yes, but can I just clarify this
point about Ian Greer and the betrayal as well?.
(Mr Grey) Can I assist in trying to answer that
question? Obviously, as regards this document, or more accurately
The Guardian bundle which you have drawn our attention
to, I cannot now remember when I first looked at it and I suspect
it was in the course of the Saturday, by which date all the developments
about which we have heard and I have read out before had already
taken place and it was quite clear that there were two extremely
fundamental problems which outweighed any other problems. The
first was the need to raise a substantial amount of money to get
the trial up and running, and I had advised that I thought we
would almost certainly get an adjournment for at least a fortnight
and probably a month, so I agree with you on that point, and I
had also considered, insofar as I was able to do so in the relatively
short space of time available, as to the impact of the disclosure
about the Michael Grylls payments which of course is what brought
the pack of cards tumbling down. We were also faced with the fact
that we could not disclose that, which is why The Guardian
and everybody else drew their own interpretations. The Heseltine
memorandum obviously raised a number of questions with me. My
problem about advising on it or at least advising on its potential
fatal consequences was this, and I am looking at this very much
as a lawyer both now and then: that here was a memorandum of a
conversation which took place between two people, drawn up by
a third party who did not participate in the conversation. I did
not know whether he was in the same room at the time the conversation
took place. I do not know when that memorandum was drawn up. I
did not know how long the conversation had taken, save for Neil's
vague recollection in obviously deeply stressed circumstances
as to how long it took and, as a lawyer, I wanted to know a great
deal more before I could attach any weight to this document. I
would obviously have liked to have heard what Michael Heseltine
had to say about the subject, but there are no witness statements
from him. So I was in a difficult position of either giving any
weight or no weight and, for that reason, it did not form a significant
part or indeed any real part at all in the decision, or at least
in the advice that I gave.
1884. Could I turn then to the other point that was mentioned
which is the Bozek and Bond statements. They came into your possession,
I think, over the weekend or maybe by the Monday morning.
(Mr Grey) I did not see them. The problem was
getting documents from Carter Ruck where of course they had been
served because, as far as The Guardian was concerned, I
should perhaps explain this, at the time the conflict arose and
I was instructed which was, as I say, about 3.45 on the Friday,
the next problem we had was whether and how we should disclose
this to The Guardian because the moment they realised this
happened of course, the negotiating position if we did decide
to try and get out of it would be out of the window, so what we
had to do was to try and keep Carter Ruck in the front line as
far as the settlement talks were concerned, even though I would
be going formally on the record on the Monday, and I could have
gone back to court on the Friday, but by the time of that the
court was closed, so effectively as far as The Guardian was
concerned, Carter Ruck was still acting. This got a little fraught
over the weekend with a lot of phone calls between me and Peter
Carter Ruck and conversations with The Guardian and indeed
conversations between counsel, which are referred to in Sleaze,
so there is quite a lot of drama and quite a lot of confusion
at the time.
1885. I think we can take this quite shortly, that the
statements themselves were no more nor less than the documents
we have just been looking at on page 494?.
(Mr Grey) Oh far, far less.
(Mr Hamilton) In fact I did not see Ms Bozek's
statement until after we had discontinued.
(Mr Grey) I think I did not either. .
1886. Well, can we get rid of them and say - - - .
(Mr Grey) They were absolutely nothing whatever.
1887. I will come back to them of course later, but in
terms of the decision to discontinue or however there was to be
a compromise, they were not a factor at all?.
(Mr Grey) Absolutely not any sort of factor.
Sir Gordon Downey
1888. Do you think we could hear that from Mr Hamilton
since the decision was obviously Mr Hamilton's? There is a distinction
between the reasons which might have led you to give advice and
the reasons which Mr Hamilton might have had for deciding ultimately
to withdraw.
(Mr Hamilton) Yes, because we did not actually
know what evidence these new witnesses were going to give. We
did not even know their status. In fact Ms Bozek was steadily
reduced in stature from a partner in a leading firm of solicitors
to a trainee solicitor who was just in articles, so we were in
some confusion as to, first of all, how these individuals had
appeared on the scene two years after the libel action was commenced
and, secondly, who they actually were and, thirdly, what they
were going to say.
1889. So those statements had no - - .
(Mr Hamilton) No bearing whatsoever.
1890. - - no bearing whatever on the decision?.
(Mr Grey) Sir Gordon, can I add something which
I think is possibly relevant? I actually saw them in quite a different
light. To me, they were possibly a very good weapon and reason
for continuing. Why was it necessary, which is the question I
asked, to introduce three new witnesses some two years later?
I speculated that it may well be that they were not going to call
Al Fayed at all and they had to have somebody else to replace
him because he had a reputation for never going to court, so I
regarded the potential existence of those witness statements that
I had not seen as being potentially valuable, not a problem.
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