Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
1940-1959)
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
JOHN YATES
AND DETECTIVE
CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT
PHILIP WILLIAMS
2 SEPTEMBER 2009
Q1940 Paul Farrelly: And, of course,
it all comes down to what the inquiry was seeking to achieve,
of course.
Mr Williams: Exactly.
Mr Yates: In 2006.
Q1941 Paul Farrelly: And that prefaces
everything, but I can imagine that you would certainly want to
be tenacious, given replies like that from News International's
lawyers, particularly with respect to the existence of documentary
evidence that now seems, after the fact, to be untruthful, quite
plainly.
Mr Williams: I cannot say whether
that is—their replies are official replies from the solicitors.
I am in no way saying they are untruthful.
Q1942 Paul Farrelly: We know, because
you found out from documentary evidence, for instance, that there
are records showing authorisation of expense payments to Clive
Goodman.
Mr Williams: Oh, no, they provided
those. I was obviously interested to know who else was involved
in this, what other records do they hold.
Q1943 Paul Farrelly: And they were
authorised by the managing editor, Stuart Kuttner. Presumably,
if you wanted to examine how far-ranging the conspiracy was, you
would not simply be satisfied with Clive Goodman's or Glenn Mulcaire's
assurances that nobody else knew. You would want perhaps to go
and interview the person who was authorising the payments to get
his version, but that interview never took place.
Mr Williams: No, because we were
going down the line of what the law requires us to do, because
I was considering using the law, production orders, to get this
information. Therefore, again, I admit, I was not deciding this
in isolation. I had legal advice around this and therefore the
process was through this co-operative route, through the lawyers
appointed by News of the World, and therefore I have to
ask for what I want, and they undertook that they were much willing
to support the inquiry, and obviously we know what their replies
are.
Q1944 Paul Farrelly: Can I just ask
you which unit of the Metropolitan Police you were in?
Mr Williams: I was then in what
was the Anti-Terrorist Branch. It is now the Counter Terrorism
Command.
Q1945 Paul Farrelly: Was that the
unit that originally took up these inquiries?
Mr Williams: It is, yes.
Q1946 Paul Farrelly: They were special
operations?
Mr Williams: Yes, specialist operations.
Mr Yates: Do not forget the inquiry
started in terms of the Royal Family.
Q1947 Paul Farrelly: Yes, which is
special operations.
Mr Yates: And my remit is sensitive
inquiries around those sorts of matters. That is why it was in
that unit.
Q1948 Paul Farrelly: And decisions
on the future of case management are not taken in isolation, I
can imagine that, and there is a senior management team that convenes
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I understand.
Mr Williams: I would say there
was extensive oversight on this case, and interest.
Q1949 Paul Farrelly: And I can imagine
your Public Affairs Director—I have been in Italy; forgive
me if I pronounce this wrongly—Dick Fedorcio, may have really
in those meetings counselled against having a wide-ranging war
against such a powerful news organisation rather than just nailing
it down to a specific case involving as few people as possible.
Mr Yates: It is a nice leading
question but no, that would not happen. These types of cases are
not discussed at management board in that level of detail. They
are then managed outside with some senior oversight; it might
be someone like myself, to manage what we call a goal group. It
is the common parlance. They do not get discussed in that level
of detail. I was on the board at that time and I do not recall
it ever being considered at that level.
Q1950 Paul Farrelly: Again to Mr
Williams, can I ask you why you telescoped the period of the charges?
Originally it was from 1 January 2005 to June 2006, and then when
it came to court there was an amendment. You will be aware of
why, even though it was the DPP and the counsel that were leading
the case at that stage. It was telescoped from 1 January 2005,
the period of conspiracy, to 1 November 2005, but that may have
been in case management terms. It would be interesting to have
your comments on why that happened, but clearly that would not
in itself mean that there was no evidence on your part, whether
you pursued it or not, that there was criminal activity before
that time. One charge, count 2, which laid on the file, for instance,
alleged that between 1 February 2005 and 6 April 2005 the phone
of Helen Asprey, one of the royal staff, was accessed. Is that
correct? Is there evidence of criminal activity before 1 November,
and why was the period telescoped?
Mr Yates: I will explain in detail,
and we are grateful that you gave us some foresight of that question
because we can certainly help with a little diagram which I will
pass round. It really says that what we were trying to prove was
that there was a conspiracy between Mulcaire and Goodman and the
period of time that that took place. We have got a little chart—here's
one we made earlier—which will help you, and Phil will take
you through it.
Mr Williams: Can I just check—where
you say it has been telescoped, are you referring to having read—
Q1951 Paul Farrelly: It was amended
in court.
Mr Williams: The indictment?
Q1952 Paul Farrelly: Yes, the indictment
was amended.
Mr Williams: It was amended, yes.
Strictly speaking, the CPS and counsel actually finalised the
indictment. It went through a number of different iterations.
I think the straightforward answer is that it was changed because,
having gone to a guilty plea, Mr Perry was presenting the evidence
that specifically related to two bits—the conspiracy, which
was between Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, which was predominantly
around the royal household members, and, as he said in his opening,
that essentially was over the period November to June. The only
reason that we had evidence relating to Helen Asprey going back
to February is that, when we were doing the initial inquiries,
that was how we first came across that there was someone else
other than Goodman, which led us into Mulcaire. In terms of that
period, if you look on the diagram, and I am just saying this
is the best evidence we presented in court, the period from February
to October is really a period where Mulcaire, using his office
number, was doing potential interception. Our case was first covered
around the conspiracy and working together and the best evidence
of that starts in November. It was purely changed to reflect what
evidence we were presenting to the court.
Q1953 Paul Farrelly: One of the mysteries
of this case is, on counts 16-20 which involved five people who
are not royals and in which Clive Goodman was not involved, to
whom Mulcaire was passing these intercepts. From your inquiries,
given that there were five guilty pleas on these separate offences,
do you have evidence or grounds for suspicion that Mulcaire was
passing these intercepts in those cases to other journalists at
News of the World?
Mr Williams: We have no evidence
as to who he was doing those inquiries for and whether anything
ever came of it. Again, in terms of informing you, all I can point
to is the mitigation factors presented by his own counsel, which
was that he may have been working on those people but there were
no stories forthcoming and he never got anything as a result of
it, which is what was put forward pre-sentencing.
Q1954 Paul Farrelly: So you did not
pursue that any further?
Mr Williams: There was nothing
that we found that presented it, but what I would argue is that
I was pursuing it in the things that I was asking of News of
the World because I was asking, "What do your records
show at the other end? Who is it that Mulcaire is working for?
Which journalist is he working for? Which editors? What stories
have come out of his work?", so I was asking for all of that.
Q1955 Paul Farrelly: In your file
of other evidence, unused evidence, do you have any, for instance,
tape recordings of Glenn Mulcaire talking to other journalists
at News of the World who he refers to by a name but the
identity is not immediately clear?
Mr Williams: I have no evidence
that he is talking to anyone at the News of the World.
Q1956 Paul Farrelly: Do you have
any tape recordings?
Mr Williams: There are tape recordings,
yes.
Q1957 Paul Farrelly: Where he may
have been talking to other journalists at the News of the World?
Mr Williams: I do not know.
Q1958 Paul Farrelly: But there are
tape recordings in the file?
Mr Williams: They are on tape
recordings.
Q1959 Rosemary McKenna: I am sorry
but I have to get a flight soon, so, just very quickly, is it
normal practice to write to organisations with questions?
Mr Williams: It is, yes.
Mr Yates: Certainly when it is
talking about potentially going into confidential journalist material,
yes.
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