Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
2020-2039)
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
JOHN YATES
AND DETECTIVE
CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT
PHILIP WILLIAMS
2 SEPTEMBER 2009
Q2020 Alan Keen: Listening to you,
it would be hard for you to disagree with me when I say that to
help you in the future we really need to recommend that newspapers
have to keep proper financial records. I have always had the impression
that the owners, the proprietors, distance themselves comfortably
away from what goes on at the dirty end of newspapers. Again,
to help you in the future, what would you like us to recommend
as far as giving you records that you can actually look at?
Mr Yates: I come back to it: good
self-regulation is clearly the starting point, a permanent fear
of being caught, and a fear of detection has to be there all the
time, and sentences that are comparable with the offences committed.
With the Operation Glade I think they got conditional discharges,
did they not? I think all the defendants got conditional discharges
in that case. That is hardly sending out a signal that suggests
that this is serious and important and a serious crime. It is
those issues that are the key ones for us.
Q2021 Adam Price: I think some of
us may still be struggling here a bit. Just briefly touching again
on this issue of those parts of the indictment, counts 16-20,
the hacking of the phones of Max Clifford, Andrew Skylet, Gordon
Taylor, Elle MacPherson, Glenn Mulcaire was found guilty of those
charges and so whether or not a story appeared was immaterial;
a criminal offence had occurred. We have a contract from News
of the World in relation to Gordon Taylor. We have a transcript
in relation to Gordon Taylor, count number 18. The judge in the
trial accepted that Clive Goodman was nothing to do with it because
Glenn Mulcaire dealt with others at News International, so even
the judge at the trial came to the conclusion that others at News
International were involved in relation to, amongst other things,
the Gordon Taylor hacking, and yet you are saying you did not
even have enough evidence to go and interview Greg Miskiw or Neville
Thurlbeck. I find that extraordinary. Maybe it is not your fault.
Maybe it is our fault, as Alan is suggesting, but there is a problem
there surely.
Mr Yates: We can only deal with
the evidence.
Q2022 Adam Price: A contract.
Mr Yates: Mulcaire had a lot of
dealing with lots of journalists. We are not dealing with nefarious
dealings of breaches of privacy and all those issues. We are dealing
with phone hacking. That is what we are looking at and the evidence
around that. It is circular. We have been going round this circle
several times. We cannot go fishing somewhere for offences that
may have been committed on which we have no reasonable grounds
whatsoever. He is a private investigator. He deals with tittle-tattle.
He deals with information about people in public life. That is
what they do. We may not approve of it, we may have a view on
it, but that is not evidence and section 1 of RIPA was what we
were dealing with.
Q2023 Adam Price: Does not even the
fact that a pseudonym was used in the contract set alarm bells
off in your mind that here are potentially the elements of an
attempt to prevent the information getting out, that there were
dodgy dealings going on here and therefore we had better cover
our backs?
Mr Yates: We deal with pseudonyms
to protect sources. It is trade craft, if you want to call it
that. That is what happens. It is not evidence of an offence.
Q2024 Adam Price: Now I am slightly
worried. You said earlier, Mr Williams, that if only you had been
clearer earlier on what the strategy of the accused was going
to be or how they were going to plead—I read Mr Kelsey-Fry
who was appearing for Mr Goodman. It was interesting that a leading
counsel, a QC, was engaged for him, at considerable cost, I am
sure, but he goes on to say that yes, he did not answer questions
at interview but within days of being arrested he was offering
to admit his guilt in court. That seems slightly out of kilter
with what you were suggesting, that within days of his arrest—it
is extraordinary as well, is it not, that somebody says nothing
and then within days apparently they are pleading guilty?
Mr Williams: My objection is,
if, just prior to when they formally appear and the indictment
would be read out, there was an indication and they wanted it
to be called an early indication, I do not remember at all it
being around there because we were building a case on the basis
that it would be a hard-fought battle and we wanted a strong case.
It was only towards the approaching date that there was this potential
indication but we would never have made the assumption that that
was what was going to happen. We would always wait until the day.
Q2025 Adam Price: Mr Justice Gross
goes on to say himself, the judge in the case, "I shall approach
it on the basis that Mr Goodman pleaded guilty at the first available
opportunity", so he seemed to accept that. It suggests that
somebody brought the shutters down. I am not pointing the finger
of blame at you here. Mr Goodman said nothing to you and he pleaded
guilty, and, of course, as you yourself said, that prevented you
from shining a stronger light on all aspects of this case.
Mr Williams: All I am reflecting
is that it would have been interesting for the case to have been
contested in that all the evidence would have been tested. Both
counsel would have had the opportunity to test in the ins and
outs of the evidence, perhaps in similar opportunities to yourselves,
the defendants may or may not have decided to say something, in
which case we would have had the opportunity to really get in
and test it and flag up some of these strange anomalies and we
might have got answers to some of these questions and we still
might have been unhappy in terms of some of them, but that opportunity
did not happen. They pleaded guilty. They said, "Yes, we
have done that".
Mr Yates: And it is quite normal
to have, in the adversarial system we operate, the prosecution
putting the case beyond reasonable doubt. We would show our case
to the defence and then the defendant would take legal advice
and would see the benefits on an overwhelming case of a guilty
plea and his solicitor would advise him in that way. It is not
unusual at all.
Q2026 Philip Davies: No, but, just
to clarify this, it was actually said by his lawyer that Mr Goodman
in fact offered to plead guilty at the magistrates court within
days of his arrest. That is not what you are saying, Mr Williams.
Mr Williams: I must admit I do
not remember that. Let us say that was said. It would never have
been taken on face value. We would have been preparing for a full
case. Hence, as you can see from the things that we asked for,
in particular of News of the World, we were preparing this
case on the basis that we would need a robust case, and indeed
was there anything else?
Mr Yates: In a case like this,
before the man is actually indicted before the crown court he
can put a plea in and you are suspecting it is always going to
be not guilty and you would always prepare accordingly.
Q2027 Adam Price: So you do not accept
that he offered to plead guilty at the magistrates' court?
Mr Yates: He may well have done.
That is part of his mitigation; he may well have done, but you
would never accept that as a plea.
Q2028 Adam Price: Can you just clear
up one thing in relation to the now famous Neville Thurlbeck?
Did you check how many Nevilles were working at the News of
the World at the time?
Mr Yates: No.
Q2029 Adam Price: I think it probably
is one but we will make inquiries. The CPS told Nick Davies, I
think it was, that they were not given that email. You must have
seen the story.
Mr Yates: I have seen the story,
yes. What the DPP says is that he did not have that in his material
possession when he was conducting his own review. What he also
conceded later was that the prosecution counsel in the Goodman/Mulcaire
case had reviewed that material during the prosecution of Goodman
and Mulcaire. It was quite a semantic point but I understand that
he did not have that in his material possession when he was doing
his review in July. He then asked counsel to consider it again,
which he did do, and you have seen the letter about what his view
on that was.
Adam Price: Finally, just to clarify
one of Tom Watson's earlier questions, just for me to be absolutely
clear here, we know that members of the royal household, the staff
of the royal family, their phones were hacked into and that was
the substance of the indictment against Mulcaire and Goodman.
Did you have any information which led you to believe that possibly
Prince Harry's and Prince William's phones themselves had been
targeted or had been accessed?
Q2030 Paul Farrelly: You answered
yes to that, I think.
Mr Williams: Yes, through—
Q2031 Paul Farrelly: No, you said
yes individually, I think.
Mr Yates: No.
Q2032 Adam Price: Their phones themselves,
not their messages but messages on their phones.
Mr Williams: Oh, I see, yes. Their
voicemail.
Mr Yates: We were talking about
their voicemails.
Q2033 Adam Price: Yes, you are right,
the voicemail on their own phones.
Mr Yates: Their messages to people
that worked for them in their outer office. That is how their
voicemails were accessed.
Q2034 Adam Price: Because there was
a particular story which we referred to in the Committee which
was a message left on Prince William's or Prince Harry's phone
which formed the basis for a story by Clive Goodman and the now
famous Neville Thurlbeck, and that could only have been done on
the basis that somebody had hacked their phones themselves or
their voicemail systems, not the voicemails of the royal staff
but the princes' phones themselves.
Mr Williams: I am not aware of
that particular story. I know the stories that first brought it
to attention were about messages that had been left on the private
secretaries' phones, and that is what sparked off the inquiry.
Q2035 Adam Price: We are aware of
that but were the princes' own phone messages to each other? Do
you have any information which led you to believe that that happened?
Mr Yates: Not to my knowledge.
Mr Williams: Yes, other people
and the princes, their voicemails may well have been intercepted.
Q2036 Adam Price: So the princes'
voicemails may have been intercepted?
Mr Williams: Yes.
Q2037 Paul Farrelly: On their own
phones?
Mr Williams: On their own phones.
Q2038 Chairman: When you say "may"—
Mr Yates: We would never have
been able to prove it.
Q2039 Chairman: Anybody may have
been, but do you have actual—?
Mr Yates: It is the letter and
the open letter bit.
Mr Williams: It is whether you
can prove it.
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