Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 158)
TUESDAY 6 MARCH 2007
MR ROBIN
ESSER AND
MR EUGENE
DUFFY
Q140 Janet Anderson: I wonder if
I can take you back? I think that you both said earlier that none
of your journalists or reporters has pots of cash with which they
could pay people. The reporters who were identified by the Information
Commissioner as having been in touch with this agency—how
would the agency have been paid?
Mr Esser: The agency would have
presented an invoice, which are the invoices that the Information
Commissioner has.
Q141 Janet Anderson: That would have
been paid by your newspapers?
Mr Duffy: Yes.
Q142 Janet Anderson: But at no time
when paying those invoices would you have checked at the time
whether this was an above-board enquiry by your reporter—whether
it was within the Code?
Mr Esser: When the invoice comes
in, obviously the detail is on the invoice. It is unlikely in
any circumstance that it would say, "For blagging".
However, I think the Information Commissioner did suggest that
one or two of them did.
Q143 Janet Anderson: What would it
say? If it does not say "For blagging", what would it
say?
Mr Esser: It would say, "Enquiries",
"Electoral roll", "Birth certificates"—things
of that nature—and a name.
Q144 Janet Anderson: And cheques
would just be issued without any further checks being made?
Mr Esser: If the agency had been
employed to find out this information, we would pay for that service.
Many of these agencies, I might point out to you, are registered
with the Information Commissioner and only those registered with
the Information Commissioner are used by us. They have registration
fees which they pay to the Information Commissioner's Office.
I assume that the Information Commissioner therefore is satisfied
that they are conducting a proper business.
Q145 Janet Anderson: What happens
at Trinity Mirror?
Mr Duffy: The invoices are challenged;
they do not just get paid blindly, with nobody asking what are
they for. The invoice will come straight to my department and,
as Robin said, most of them are fairly self-explanatory. If I
see a bill that looks unusual, I will challenge the head of department
and get an explanation why that invoice has been incurred.
Q146 Janet Anderson: What sorts of
sums would these invoices be for?
Mr Duffy: Broadly in line with
the figures given in Mr Thomas's report.
Q147 Alan Keen: I think that one
of you said a short while ago that you reported everything to
the Inland Revenue. Is that right?
Mr Esser: Yes.
Mr Duffy: Yes.
Q148 Alan Keen: So if you pay an
individual, you disclose that amount of money and who the person
is to the Inland Revenue?
Mr Esser: Yes.
Mr Duffy: Yes.
Q149 Alan Keen: I think I recall
from the last inquiry we did that a well-known editor said that
her paper paid the police for information. Do you ever do that?
Mr Duffy: I have been at Trinity
Mirror—the Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and the
People—for 21 years, and there is no instance when
I can remember any of those titles paying a policeman.
Mr Esser: Nor can I recall any
payments.
Q150 Alan Keen: You have never paid
the police?
Mr Esser: No.
Q151 Alan Keen: And if you did, you
would report it to the Inland Revenue that "PC Smith [...]"?
Mr Esser: Unlikely, I would say;
but, as it has not happened, we have not had to report it.
Q152 Alan Keen: Were you surprised
when that well-known editor admitted that her paper paid the police
for information? Do you not recall it at all?
Mr Esser: I do recall that.
Q153 Alan Keen: Were you surprised?
Mr Esser: I think the suggestion
was that it had happened in the past but it certainly has not
happened in my experience in Fleet Street. Of course, there are
friendships between policemen and reporters but famous crime reporters
like Percy Hoskins in the past, of the Daily Express, was
extremely close to many leading people in the police but there
was a friendship and I am sure it was of mutual benefit.
Q154 Alan Keen: You both said you
definitely do not do it now.
Mr Duffy: We do not do it now.
Q155 Alan Keen: If you were suspicious
that it was going on, you would stamp it out.
Mr Duffy: Long, long before Mr
Thomas was on the scene you knew you did not pay policemen for
stories or any information or try and access the PNC or the DVLC,
it was not tolerated.
Q156 Chairman: Finally, can I come
back to Motorman. My colleague Paul Farrelly, who has now left
us, was full of praise, for instance, for The Sunday
Times as an investigative newspaper. The Sunday
Times has only one journalist who employed the services of
the agency on four occasions whereas the Daily Mail have
58 who employed the services on 952 occasions. Were you shocked
by that figure?
Mr Esser: No, I expect The
Sunday Times had many, many more invoices to separate agencies.
There are at least 10 or 12 agencies which are used by the newspapers
in Fleet Street and the picture of one agency does not tell us
the full picture and the full story, but we certainly have moved
vigorously since the Information Commissioner's report came out
to restrict our business to agencies which do and have given us
written assurances to obey the law and not that agency concerned.
Q157 Chairman: Essentially, it was
bad luck that the agency used by the Daily Mail happened
to be the one that was regularly breaking the law.
Mr Esser: I do not know if it
was bad luck, but it is a fact.
Q158 Chairman: That was something that
you and your paper were completely unaware of.
Mr Esser: We were unaware of it
until this happened and we have not continued to use that agency.
Chairman: I think that is all we have.
Thank you.
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