Press standards, privacy and libel - Culture, Media and Sport Committee Contents


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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