Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
2120-2139)
MR LES
HINTON
15 SEPTEMBER 2009
Q2120 Philip Davies: Who at the company
would know? The company is not a person. What person would know?
Mr Hinton: Sorry?
Q2121 Philip Davies: What person
at the company would know if the legal fees had been paid or not?
Mr Hinton: Well, I would guess
the Director of Human Resources but I do not know. When employees
get into difficulty it is not unusual for them to be indemnified
by the company that employs them and for their legal fees to be
paid, but I am sorry, I just do not know. I am just surprised
that of all the people you have had before you in the past two
months you have not asked that question before. I just do not
know, I am sorry.
Q2122 Philip Davies: We keep asking
everybody who comes before us who knew about the payments and
everybody says they do not know, but Clive Goodman—
Mr Hinton: I thought you were
asking me about the legal fees, I am sorry.
Q2123 Philip Davies: Clive Goodman
was represented in his case by John Kelsey-Fry, who is a very
eminent lawyer in this country and I suspect a very expensive
lawyer as well. Is John Kelsey-Fry a lawyer that News International
would employ on a regular basis?
Mr Hinton: I do not know. I know
his name but I do not know how frequently we employed him.
Q2124 Philip Davies: Because John
Kelsey-Fry in Clive Goodman's defence, when Goodman was pleading
guilty to certain counts, and Kelsey-Fry may well have been paid
by News of the World, said that it was important to recognise
that Goodman's involvement was limited to the events to which
he pleaded guilty and that whoever else may have been involved
at the News of the World, Clive Goodman's involvement was
so limited. Would you accept that that is a fair analysis for
John Kelsey-Frey to make?
Mr Hinton: I am sorry but I did
not actually follow what you said. Perhaps you should read it
again.
Q2125 Philip Davies: I will read
out again what John Kelsey-Fry said. He said in defending Clive
Goodman that it was important to recognise Clive Goodman's involvement.
He made the point that whoever else may have been involved at
the News of the World Clive Goodman's involvement was limited
to the counts on which he pleaded guilty. Would you not accept
that everybody is making that point? The Crown accepted that Clive
Goodman had got nothing to do with the other counts laid against
him. Is not all the evidence pointing that other people at the
News of the World were involved, even by the lawyer who
may well have been paid by the News of the World?
Mr Hinton: I can only tell you
what I have told you and that is that we found no evidence and
nor did the police to take any action against anybody else. We
took every measure we could both in taking care of what had happened
in the past, and we tried to discover whether there had been any
misconduct, and to make certain, above all, that it was not going
to happen again.
Q2126 Philip Davies: Perhaps you
could explain to us the payments that were made after their conviction?
Mr Hinton: Well, there were employment-related
payments made to them after their conviction. I have been told
by News International that they are subject to confidentiality.
Even though I have been told not to relay the information, I do
not remember it except that in the case of Mulcaire it had reached
some point of employment tribunal proceedings but I ended up being
advised that we should settle with them and I authorised those
settlements.
Q2127 Philip Davies: When somebody
breaks the law to the extent that they did which led to a conviction
and prison, can you tell me what employment-related claims there
are because surely most people would be subject to a summary dismissal
under those circumstances?
Mr Hinton: That is a good question
and I have to tell you that I have not had an awful lot of experience
of dealing with the departure of people who had been to prison.
The employment law was complicated and I was told that we should
settle and I agreed to do it.
Q2128 Philip Davies: On what grounds
were you told that you needed to settle if it was your decision
to make?
Mr Hinton: I was given advice
by them that there were grounds that we should settle and I accepted
the grounds.
Q2129 Philip Davies: Did you not
question the grounds?
Mr Hinton: No.
Q2130 Philip Davies: You are a senior
executive, clearly a high flyer. Did you not even say, "Why
on earth are we giving payments to people who have been sent to
prison?" Would that not be the first question that anybody
in your position would ask?
Mr Hinton: I agree that it is
unusual for people who go to prison to be given financial settlements
or people to even commit gross acts of misconduct or abuse of
trust. In this case that was the advice that I was given. There
was a great deal going on at the time and my biggest concern,
as I have said before, at that stage in events was to get the
newspaper settled down and back to normal. People sometimes do
gain money after gross misconduct. I think under your own terms
of employment a Member of Parliament has to be sentenced to more
than one year in prison before they automatically lose their jobs
under the Representation of the People Act. I guess therefore
Clive, if he had been a Member of Parliament, would have been
able to do this and continue working.
Q2131 Philip Davies: Yes, we will
ignore the smokescreen if you do not mind, Mr Hinton.
Mr Hinton: It is not a smokescreen;
it is a statement of fact, is it not, unless I am wrong?
Q2132 Philip Davies: Can I finally
put a proposition to you and just gain your reaction to it before
letting someone else try and jog your memory. A payment might
have been made, might it not, to Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire
to make sure that they did not spill any beans to anybody else
about any of the other activities that had been going on at the
News of the World? What do you make of that presumption?
Mr Hinton: Not surprisingly, I
was waiting for you to get to that point, but I cannot actually
see what silence there was left because these chaps had been through
months of police interrogation, months of investigation, they
were taken before the court and I do not know what silence there
was. There was a court hearing, there was a rigorous police inquiry;
I am not sure what silence you are talking about, so therefore
I think it is wrong to assume that.
Q2133 Adam Price: Good morning presumably
to you; it is good afternoon from here.
Mr Hinton: It is good morning.
Q2134 Adam Price: Just returning
to the trial for a minute, referring to counts 16 to 20 in the
indictment—and I remind you they referred to those individuals
that Philip Davies referred to a moment ago, non-Royal individuals
if you like, people like Gordon Taylor, Max Clifford, et cetera—in
relation to those phone-hacking cases what the judge actually
said in his summing up is that he accepted that Clive Goodman
was not involved with that phone hacking and that Glenn Mulcaire
was acting with others at the News of the World. Why would
the judge say that in a trial if there was not even the hint of
any evidence that that had been the case?
Mr Hinton: I do not know but you
have had the principal investigating officers from Scotland Yard
saying they found no evidence to warrant further charges and I
do not know. I do not remember that particular passage. I am sure
you are quoting it correctly but all I can tell you is Yates of
the Yard said that there was no basis for making further charges.
Q2135 Adam Price: What they also
said to us was if they were conducting the investigation again
today they would probably do it differently and maybe if they
had done, Mr Hinton, we would not be having this conversation
now. You said that no further evidence has come to light but you
would accept that we have an email from a junior reporter, now
named by the police as Ross Young, with a series of transcripts
of phone messages relating to Gordon Taylor, a story that we know
the News of the World was interested in from other evidence,
and that is the email the Chairman referred to right at the very
beginning "copy for Neville". There are no other Nevilles
that I am aware of—and possibly you might be able to enlighten
us as to whether there were any other Nevilles at the News
of the World at the time—other than the Chief Reporter
of the News of the World. Surely on the basis of that piece
of information, it is reasonable to draw the conclusion that that
junior reporter and the Chief Reporter of the News of the World
were aware that phone hacking was being commissioned by the News
of the World in relation the Gordon Taylor story?
Mr Hinton: In answer to your question
about Neville, I have never done a Neville count on the News
of the World staff, I do not know of any others, but this
took place, the issue of this email happened, I have not been
there for two years, and I just do not know the detail. I gather
that you have asked questions about this in the past and I am
not sure of the answers that you have been given, but that was
post my time there so I am afraid I cannot really give you a qualified
response to it.
Q2136 Adam Price: I would just like
to correct something, it was Ross Hindley who was the junior reporter
and I now he is permanently resident in Peru having left the employment
of the News of the World. If we return again then to the
issue of the payments which were made to Mulcaire and to Goodman
after they left prison, in this case where an employee was guilty,
from your perspective it is your position that Clive Goodman was
working alone and, according to Colin Myler's letter to the Press
Complaints Commission, it is your position that he deceived his
employers and his managers, so why was he not summarily dismissed?
Mr Hinton: But he was summarily
dismissed, was he not? People not involved, the Legal Department
of News International and the Human Resources Department of News
International, who were in no way involved in any of this, gave
the advice that these people were entitled to a settlement which
I authorised.
Q2137 Adam Price: So, hang on, your
initial advice was that he should be summarily dismissed, which
was perfectly reasonable from your perspective if you did not
know about his criminal activity, and yet how could he then bring
an unfair dismissal case against you?
Mr Hinton: I have not discussed
the terms of that or the grounds for the case because I have been
told I should not.
Q2138 Adam Price: Well, did Clive
Goodman in those negotiations in relation to his dismissal threaten
to make public information which would have been damaging to the
News of the World?
Mr Hinton: That was never suggested
at the time.
Q2139 Adam Price: At whose behest,
who first mentioned placing a confidentiality clause in relation
to these payments to Mulcaire and Goodman?
Mr Hinton: So far as I can remember,
if I knew at all, it was mutual.
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