Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
1460-1479)
MR TOM
CRONE AND
MR COLIN
MYLER
21 JULY 2009
Q1460 Janet Anderson: Telephone conversations?
Mr Crone: I do not think I have
ever listened to a voicemail. In fact, I am sure I have never
listened to a voicemail—unless the person telling us the
story had brought in their voicemail tape and said: "Listen
to it", which happens.
Q1461 Janet Anderson: Did you ever
wonder whether any of that was discovered illegally by subterfuge?
Did that ever cross your mind? Were you ever suspicious?
Mr Crone: Subterfuge? Subterfuge
is not illegal. Subterfuge is not illegal.
Q1462 Janet Anderson: Let us stick
to illegal then. Did you ever wonder or worry that any of this
was obtained illegally?
Mr Crone: You mean all the different
conversations I listened to?
Q1463 Janet Anderson: Yes.
Mr Crone: No, because 99.9% of
the time—possibly all the time—the person on one end
of the conversation has recorded it, and is allowing us to listen
to it in order to prove their story. It is with permission.
Q1464 Janet Anderson: Were you, therefore,
shocked when you discovered that Mulcaire had been engaged in
these illegal activities—
Mr Crone: Yes, absolutely.
Q1465 Janet Anderson:— and
that your newspaper had been paying him for that?
Mr Crone: No, we did not pay him
for that. He was not paid for that. I am sorry, in the Clive Goodman
context, yes, there were payments.
Q1466 Janet Anderson: As a member
of the legal profession, were you not worried about that: that
your newspaper had been paying someone who is engaged in illegal
activities?
Mr Crone: Let me just put this
in absolute clear context: I came back from my holidays on, whenever
it was, back in the office on August 15 2006. The Royal reporter
for the News of the World was under arrest and facing charges
of accessing the Royal household. There was someone called Glenn
Mulcaire who, actually, I had never heard of his name.
Q1467 Janet Anderson: So you had
never met or spoken to Glenn Mulcaire?
Mr Crone: I have never met or
spoken to Glenn Mulcaire and until August 8, when the arrests
were made, I had never heard of him. I have never seen or heard
of any voicemails being accessed until those arrests were made,
and there has never, apart from what came out—the payments
that went from Goodman to Mulcaire—I have never come across
any payments for that sort of illegal activity or, indeed, any
other sort of illegal activity. Criminal illegal activity.
Q1468 Janet Anderson: So when you
are looking into a story and you are being asked to make a judgment—because,
of course, you have to make sure that the newspaper, if it comes
to the worse case scenario, has to defend that story in court—you
categorically tell us that you have never listened to any conversations
which you think were obtained as a result of `phone hacking?
Mr Crone: Yes, I can definitely
say that.
Q1469 Janet Anderson: You never have?
Mr Crone: I never have.
Janet Anderson: Thank you.
Q1470 Mr Hall: Mr Myler, you gave
the PCC an absolute assurance that you had fully investigated
the Goodman case and that this was a one-off. If I have understood
what you have said to the Committee this morning, you actually
did conduct quite as serious an investigation into this affair,
but you also relied very heavily on the police investigation.
Is that correct?
Mr Myler: Well, both, yes. The
police investigation had lasted for nine months and, as we have
explained, it was outside solicitors who came in to co-operate
with them; in other words, it was complete transparency.
Q1471 Mr Hall: It was not a matter
of you just asking other people to do it and you signing your
name off, was it?
Mr Myler: No, because it was the
police asking any enquiry, any question, that they wished to get;
whether it was financial, whether it was emails, whether it was
contracts, it was financial records—whatever the police
asked for it was Burton Copeland that provided it. Obviously,
it would have been very easy for anyone to accuse News International
of saying: "You only got what we gave you".
Q1472 Mr Hall: In your opening statement
to the Committee you mentioned that on your arrival at this newspaper
you imposed very strict protocols on cash payments to any sources
that the newspaper uses, and that you have reduced expenditure
by between 81% and 89%. Did I understand that correctly?
Mr Myler: The cash payments.
Q1473 Mr Hall: Cash payments.
Mr Myler: Between 82% and 89%?
Q1474 Mr Hall: Yes. Could you put
a figure on that for us?
Mr Myler: Gosh. Mr Kuttner might
have a better idea. The point is that those cash payments have
been reduced and that, I think, is the most important part of
it—considerably so. The constraints and restrictions before
anything like that happens are far tighter.
Q1475 Mr Hall: If Mr Kuttner cannot
give us the answer would you be prepared to put that in writing
to the Committee?
Mr Myler: Yes. It is not the greatest
"Crown Jewel" commercial secret, so I am sure we can
look at that.
Q1476 Mr Hall: I am quite intrigued
about the fact that you said that you did a thorough trace through
2,500 emails. It occurred to me that there is a very good saying:
"Don't put anything in an email that you don't want to see
on the front page of the News of the World!" Were
you not surprised that you did not find anything?
Mr Myler: The investigation, actually,
was done by one of our internal lawyers and our IT department,
and they are not affiliated to one title; they work across the
company and they are just told to do the search. As I said, it
was overseen by our Director of Human Resources, who I think is
as impartial, if you like, as most people can be in that situation.
Q1477 Mr Hall: Did you take the same
approach to financial payments? Clearly, if you wanted to know
whether this was a more widespread practice within your newspaper,
the money would actually show you whether it was or it was not—not
emails. How much you actually spent.
Mr Myler: In relation to what?
Q1478 Mr Hall: Cash payments into
sources for stories that appear in your newspaper and stories
that sometimes do not even appear.
Mr Myler: After the Goodman/Mulcaire
affair, I think it is safe to say that everything was pretty transparent.
Q1479 Mr Hall: This is before, is
it not? This is clearly before.
Mr Myler: I think before, there
were stringent restrictions and very clear guidelines about how
payments should be made at any level—whether or not just
cash, but on anything.
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