Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
2000-2019)
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
JOHN YATES
AND DETECTIVE
CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT
PHILIP WILLIAMS
2 SEPTEMBER 2009
Q2000 Mr Watson: Yes.
Mr Williams: Are you alluding
to the fact that Mulcaire—
Mr Yates: I am not sure that we
should comment on this.
Mr Williams: I suppose the short
answer is no.
Mr Yates: And we would not know
anyway.
Mr Williams: And I would not know
anyway.
Q2001 Mr Watson: Mulcaire and Goodman
got a payoff from News International.
Mr Williams: Did they?
Q2002 Mr Watson: Yes. News International
will not disclose to us what they—
Mr Yates: It is not part of our
business.
Q2003 Mr Watson: They say it is personal.
Do you not think they have been bought off?
Mr Yates: It is not part of our
business.
Q2004 Mr Watson: But is it not your
business to investigate whether they have had their silence bought?
Mr Yates: Our business is to follow
the evidence and put before the court the best evidence we can
in terms of proving a case that we are investigating.
Q2005 Mr Watson: Does it not look
suspicious that Mulcaire and Goodman, there they go, they have
been hacking the royal family's phones, they are guilty of a serious
criminal offence, they have undermined their own reputations and
that of their employers. Their employers then give them an undisclosed
payoff. Their employers are not prepared to publicly admit how
much that payoff was for and no-one has gone back to them and
asked them what that financial arrangement was about?
Mr Yates: It is just not our business,
Mr Watson. It is just not our business.
Q2006 Mr Watson: It must concern
you though.
Mr Yates: I am pretty certain
the lawyers of News International have been careful about how
they have phrased or shaped that contract, whatever it was, but
it is not our business. I am sure you have asked them as well.
Mr Watson: Okay. Those are all my questions,
thanks.
Q2007 Janet Anderson: I wonder if
I could take you back to the various counts in the court case,
which were 1-20. In 1-15 it was clear that Goodman and Mulcaire
had acted together and charges 16-20, and the judge made a point
of differentiating between the two groups, where only Mulcaire
was charged, but the judge did say, "As to counts 16 to 20,
you had not dealt with Goodman but with others at News International.
You had not been paid anything because no stories had resulted".
When you have been questioned by other members of the Committee
about why no-one else was charged in relation to counts 16-20,
I think you said there was no evidence, you had no further evidence
about who Mulcaire was working for, who he was working to, but
there was actually a contract which you will be aware of, signed
by Greg Miskiw. He is the former news editor. He is the one who
is quoted in his book as saying, "That is what we do; we
go out and destroy other people's lives", and he had a contract
offering Paul Williams, which is a known pseudonym of Glenn Mulcaire,
£7,000 for delivery of a Gordon Taylor story. That contract
was dated 4 February 2005. Despite that you did not feel the need
to question Mr Miskiw. Is that because once the decision had been
taken to truncate the period during which the offences were going
to be considered that particular contract fell out of that period?
It was dated 4 February 2005 and the prosecution's original ambit
was from 1 January 2005, so it would have fallen within that ambit,
but once it was decided, by agreement with the prosecution and
the defence, to shorten that period, it then fell outside. Is
that one of the reasons why you did not feel able to question
Greg Miskiw?
Mr Williams: I think the only
reason the ambit of the prosecution fell into the January/February
of 2005 was because of the phone data on Helen Asprey's phone.
That is what showed us potentially how far back this activity
might have been going on. The only reason it was not included
was because we needed to show a conspiracy, i.e., the two men
working jointly together, and the only evidence we had from that
was from when those victims first alerted us in November/December
and we began the process of looking at it. In fact, we had a proactive
phase around those particular victims where we were attempting
with them to monitor what was going on, and through the work that
we did we were able to show, as Mr Perry showed in his statement,
the behaviour, the interaction, between Mulcaire and Goodman in
the way that one would ring the other and one would ring one of
our victims, then another would ring a customer service, then
they would text, so that interaction was the strength of our case.
It was our evidence to prove the conspiracy. Anything before November
going back to January did not show that conspiracy, so it is merely,
I would say, Mr Perry being neat and tidy and saying, "Well,
strictly speaking, the best evidence and all we can prove in terms
of a conspiracy is from November on".
Q2008 Janet Anderson: Even though
there was this contract offering £7,000 for delivery of a
Gordon Taylor story, the prosecution apparently in the trial did
not for some reason link that to instances of phone tapping. How
did they think Mulcaire was going to get information to provide
£7,000 of story?
Mr Williams: We, the prosecution,
counsel, put in that document as evidence to show that Mulcaire
had been working for News of the world right back there,
but again, and it came up because it was challenged by, I believe,
Mulcaire's counsel, what they were challenging was that there
was no evidence to say what he was being paid for and there could
be no inference that he was being paid for interception, so I
believe it was a matter of fact and record that, yes, at that
moment in time he appeared to have been paid for a story about
Gordon Taylor, but there could be no inference as to how he had
got the information, in particular in terms of interception.
Q2009 Janet Anderson: But it did
show you that there was a relationship between Mulcaire and Miskiw.
Mr Williams: Yes.
Q2010 Janet Anderson: And yet you
still did not feel it might be a good idea to interview Greg Miskiw?
Mr Williams: This comes back to,
yes, it is a piece of paper that shows that, but what was it for?
Was he working for Mr Miskiw? What records are there? In addition
to that, what else of substance is there in the company, because
that was back in 2005, when we know from the technical point of
view that we are simply not going to have the data in our case
to go to prove anything? So it does go into the round, but more
specifically around what our case is for we had this list of questions
for News of the World which we did put in, and indeed,
if there was any information that they did have and they produced
to us, then it would have been considered, but what we came back
with was a flat, "No, there is nothing held in this company
that will answer all your questions".
Q2011 Janet Anderson: Do you think
the News of the World told you the truth?
Mr Williams: I do not know because
what I am being very conscious of is this is a firm of solicitors.
I have absolutely no reason to doubt their reputation, and they
are acting on behalf of the company and I have to take it on face
value because I have got no other evidence to think otherwise;
that is the state of affairs.
Q2012 Janet Anderson: If it turned
out that the News of the World had not told you the truth
would there be a penalty for that?
Mr Yates: It would have enabled
us then to get a production order.
Mr Williams: Because they are
not going to argue to a judge that there was substance to not
believing it, but that would have been a very serious step. I
would have had to have something very substantive to be able to
turn that around when a firm of solicitors had said that.
Mr Yates: Before you go to a production
order you have to demonstrate that you have gone through all the
normal channels of consent and all those other processes first
before a judge will even consider it, and when you have gone through
those and they have said, "Actually, there is nothing there".
You have got to have something very substantive to suggest that
they are behaving in a nefarious way. In terms of they are misleading
us and we have got no evidence of that a production order will
not work.
Q2013 Janet Anderson: But it would
be a reasonable assumption, would it not, if Mr Miskiw had made
this kind of offer to Glenn Mulcaire once, that he had probably
done it more than once?
Mr Yates: I do not know.
Q2014 Alan Keen: We were peacefully finishing
our inquiry before the summer recess until we got an interesting
article published in the Guardian. Since then it has been
so frustrating. We have hardly had an answer and this afternoon,
I am not sure whether you were here when the Information Commissioner—
Mr Yates: The last ten minutes.
Q2015 Alan Keen:— in answering
what some of my colleagues asked, "Why did you not pursue
this issue further", said, "I do not know. We think
the PCC should do it. It is nothing to do with us". You said
a short while ago that in your interrogation of two people who
pleaded guilty they did not say one word to you. We did a bit
better than you when we had the editors and managing editor in
front of us. They looked at each other and said, "I don't
know anything about it". What is missing? Normal companies
have financial records that can be traced. It appears that newspapers
have almost nothing. It is no wonder you cannot go further and
investigate it. Would you give us your idea as to what we could
recommend so that in the future you would have something substantial
to look into, some facts to look at, some records? There appears
to be none.
Mr Yates: The key around all this
would be good, solid self-regulation. With any corrupt administration
I have been involved in it is all about fear of detection and
fear of being caught and having good people on your tail all the
time. There are several models around banks in terms of what records
they must keep, which may be suitable in this area; I do not know.
It is certainly not our area of expertise. All we would like is
the records being kept and being readily retrievable, be it phone
data, be it banking data, be it other data, to make our job easier,
and there is lots of regulation around that.
Q2016 Alan Keen: We learn most of
what we know about the police from watching TV dramas, admittedly.
I used to believe the police had a slush fund out of which you
paid informants. Is that true, and then over the years did you
have to have some proof? Did people have to sign documents to
show where the money was going, or is that all drama and not real?
Mr Yates: Yes, of course there
is an informants' fund, as you have read in the last few months,
and, yes, through mistakes and otherwise we have learned to regulate
ourselves in a slightly more formal way, so there are lots of
pretty strict regulations about how these funds are paid and who
they are paid with.
Q2017 Alan Keen: Do you agree with
me that it appears that within newspaper organisations there are
not the same sorts of strict procedures that you have adopted?
Mr Yates: I have no idea how they
operate.
Q2018 Alan Keen: You have never seen
any evidence of any strict procedures for authorising expenditure?
Mr Yates: No.
Q2019 Alan Keen: We could not find that
out from editors and managing editors.
Mr Yates: Again, it is not our
bailiwick and I have got no idea how they operate.
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