3 The Goodman and Mulcaire employment
claims
Clive Goodman's dismissal
37. Clive Goodman, then Royal Editor at the News
of the World, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator,
were arrested in August 2006 on suspicion of illegally intercepting
voicemail messages. On 29 November 2006, both Clive Goodman and
Glenn Mulcaire pleaded guilty to the charges, brought under section
1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and section 1(1) Regulation
of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. They were convicted and jailed
on 26 January 2007.
38. Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman were jointly
charged with accessing the voicemails of three employees of the
royal household. Glenn Mulcaire alone faced charges of accessing
the voicemails of five further people: the publicist Max Clifford,
sports agent Skylet Andrew, Professional Footballers' Association
Chief Executive Gordon Taylor, politician Simon Hughes MP and
model Elle MacPherson. All bar Ms MacPherson, to the knowledge
of the Committee, subsequently commenced civil privacy claims
and each has been settled out of court. As none of these five
individuals was connected to the royal family, none would have
been of journalistic interest to Clive Goodman, the newspaper's
Royal Editor. As he and Glenn Mulcaire had pleaded guilty, however,
neither gave evidence in court so there was no opportunity to
test the newspaper and News International's 'one rogue reporter'
stance at the time.
39. During the course of our current investigation,
solicitors Harbottle & Lewis, who advised News International
on the claim, were granted a limited waiver of legal professional
privilege by the company as client to co-operate with the Committee.
In a letter dated 11 August 2011,[38]
they disclosed to us that, on 5 February 2007, Les Hinton, then
Executive Chairman of News International, wrote to Clive Goodman
terminating his employment with News Group Newspapers and offering
him 12 months' base salary. The letter made it clear that this
offer was by way of a final settlement and that the company was
under no obligation to pay Clive Goodman anything at all. His
guilty plea, the letter made clear, was sufficient to 'warrant
dismissal without any warnings' and, as for the offer of payment
of a year's salary, News International was only proposing to do
so in recognition of long service. On 8 February 2007, Clive Goodman's
base salary, £90,502.08, was paid.[39]
On 2 March 2007 Clive Goodman responded by initiating an appeal
against his dismissal on the grounds that his activities had been
known about, and supported, by various senior members of staff
at the News of the World.[40]
Specifically, he stated that:
This practice [phone-hacking] was widely discussed
in the daily editorial conference, until explicit reference to
it was banned by the Editor. The legal manager, Tom Crone, attended
virtually every meeting of my legal team and was given full access
to the Crown Prosecution Service's evidence files. He, and other
senior staff of the paper, had long advance knowledge that I would
plead guilty.[41]
40. Upon receipt of this letter, Daniel Cloke,
Group HR Director, and Jonathan Chapman, Director of Legal Affairs,
both at News International, undertook a review of e-mails "with
a view to determining whether the individuals specified in Mr
Goodman's letter knew about his voicemail interception activities".[42]
The review took approximately six weeks to conduct.[43]
The e-mails had been retrieved "against specific search terms
related to the names of the individuals named in Mr Goodman's
letter".[44] The
e-mail review was carefully circumscribed, as Jonathan Chapman
explained to us: "the parameters for the e-mail review were
set by claims made by Mr Goodman in the context of his appeal",
and, later, "it was reactive [...] it was quite limited in
scope".[45] Daniel
Cloke told us that "I believe that we carried out the search
carefully and diligently".[46]
41. Colin Myler, who by then had replaced Andy
Coulson as the Editor of the News of the World in January
2007, and Daniel Cloke then interviewed the individuals mentioned
by Clive Goodman.[47]
Daniel Cloke told us that "no one, when we spoke to them,
admitted any wrongdoing at all".[48]
Les Hinton said that he was not directly involved: "I obviously
did not look at those e-mails personally but I know that that
scrutiny went on and no e-mails that raised any further suspicion
were brought to my attention".[49]
However, Les Hinton was consulted about the review by Daniel Cloke
and was informed of its conclusion.
The Harbottle & Lewis investigation
42. Daniel Cloke suggested to Jonathan Chapman
and subsequently to Les Hinton that an external review of the
relevant e-mails "by a law firm or barrister might be a good
idea and both readily agreed as did Mr Myler". He told us
that "I was concerned that as I was inexperienced in this
area and as a result might have missed something, that there be
a further and independent review".[50]
Thus on Daniel Cloke's suggestion, and with Les Hinton's authorisation,
a firm of solicitors specialising in employment law, Harbottle
& Lewis, was commissioned to examine the e-mails identified
by the initial, internal review. The solicitors' examination was
limited to a remote, electronic review of the emails, which were
made available to them by means of electronic folders held on
the company's computer system.
43. On 10 May 2007, Jonathan Chapman e-mailed
Lawrence Abramson, a partner at Harbottle & Lewis, stating
that he and Daniel Cloke had gone through internal e-mails in
the categories to which Clive Goodman's letter had referred "to
find any evidence in such e-mails to support the contentions made
by Clive Goodman [...] We found nothing that amounted to reasonable
evidence of either of the above contentions [that Clive Goodman's
illegal actions were known about and supported by senior staff]".
The e-mail goes on to state that:
Because of the bad publicity that could result in
an allegation in an employment tribunal that we had covered up
potentially damaging evidence found on our e-mail trawl, I would
ask that you, or a colleague, carry out an independent review
of the e-mails in question and report back to me with any findings
of material that could possibly tend to support either of Goodman's
contentions.[51]
44. In written evidence, Harbottle & Lewis
summed up its understanding of these instructions as follows:
"if we reject Clive Goodman's appeal against dismissal and
he brings employment tribunal proceedings, what is the risk of
him establishing from these e-mails that other people were aware
of his phone-hacking activities, or were doing the same thing
themselves?"[52]
Similarly, Daniel Cloke told us that "the reason why I was
anxious to get the e-mails reviewed by a third party was to give
us comfort on this employment matter that the review Jon Chapman
and I carried out was accurate".[53]
Thus the Harbottle & Lewis investigation was no more than
a risk mitigation exercise in the event of employment tribunal
proceedings.
45. Following a written exchange between the
Committee and News International, in 2009, the company's then
Chief Executive, Rebekah Brooks, provided a copy of a letterdated
29 May 2007from Lawrence Abramson to Jonathan Chapman.
The letter, which was quoted and published in the Committee's
2010 report [54] said:
Re Clive Goodman
We have on your instructions reviewed the e-mails
to which you have provided access from the accounts of:
Andy Coulson
Stuart Kuttner
Ian Edmonson [sic]
Clive Goodman
Neil Wallis
Jules Stenson
I can confirm that we did not find anything in those
e-mails which appeared to us to be reasonable evidence that Clive
Goodman's illegal actions were known about and supported by both
or either of Andy Coulson, the Editor, and Neil Wallis, the Deputy
Editor, and/or that Ian Edmondson, the News Editor, and others
were carrying out similar illegal procedures.
Please let me know if we can be of any further assistance.
46. The wording of that letter had been a matter
of debate between Lawrence Abramson and Jonathan Chapman. The
latter had suggested to Lawrence Abramson that the original wording
for the last sentence of the penultimate paragraph should be "having
seen a copy of Clive Goodman's notice of appeal of 2 March 2007,
we did not find anything that we consider to be directly relevant
to the grounds of appeal put forward by him". To this Lawrence
Abramson responded: "I can't say the last sentence in the
penultimate para, I'm afraid".[55]
As may be seen, the original proposed wording was broader and
would have given more comfort than the wording eventually agreed
upon.
47. Jonathan Chapman told us that there was nothing
unusual in the process of negotiating wording:
I am not sure that those outside the hallowed portals
of the legal profession will necessarily know this, but when you
get a report or an opinion from external counsel, your job is
to get it as wide as possible if you are in-house, and their job
is to cut it back as far as possible and thus limit their liability
subsequently, you might say. There was a normal to-ing and fro-ing,
and I would say that, as usual, Mr Abramson won on that one and
I lost.[56]
48. The process of negotiating wording may have
been a normal one. Nonetheless, the bluntness of the letter from
Lawrence Abramson is pronounced and it is difficult to understand
why he would have baulked at saying that Harbottle & Lewis
did not find anything that it considered to be directly relevant
to the grounds of appeal put forward by Clive Goodman if that
was indeed the case. The terms of reference given to Harbottle
& Lewis were narrowly drawn and the findings of that firm
were accordingly narrow. Lawrence Abramson would not commit himself
to anything more general.
49. Indeed, the evidence is clear that not all
of the e-mails examined by Harbottle & Lewis were entirely
straightforward. Lawrence Abramson told us that:
There remained somewhere in the order of a dozen
e-mails that I had a query about. I therefore spoke to Jon Chapman
and discussed these e-mails with him. During the course of that
conversation, Jon Chapman explained and I accepted why those e-mails
fell outside the scope of what News International Limited [...]
had instructed Harbottle & Lewis to consider. In one specific
case, Jon Chapman instructed me to look at News' server myself
to put the e-mail in its context which I duly did.[57]
50. The matter appears to have been resolved
to the satisfaction of those involved at that time. It is notable
that Lawrence Abramson only dismissed the e-mails that had been
of concern to him on the basis that they "fell outside the
scope of what News International Limited [...] had instructed
Harbottle & Lewis to consider". He did not assert that
they could or should have been dismissed on any other basis.
51. When the same e-mails were examined by News
International's Group General Manager Will Lewis between April
and June 2010 they were not dismissed.[58]
Indeed, Will Lewis referred some of the material on to a different
law firm, Hickman Rose, which in turn referred the matter to the
former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Macdonald of River
Glaven.[59] Lord Macdonald
told the Home Affairs Committee that the file of e-mails that
he was handed "was evidence of serious criminal offences.
I gave that advice to the News Corp board, and I have to say that
it accepted the advice unhesitatingly and instructed that the
file should be handed to the police".[60]
He went on to say that "I cannot imagine anyone looking at
the file and not seeing evidence of crime on its face". He
also explained that making his assessment had taken him very little
time: "about three minutes, maybe five minutes".[61]
52. Lord Macdonald explained that, because of
his role as Director of Public Prosecutions at the time that the
original police investigation into phone-hacking had taken place,
any material in the e-mails that related to phone-hacking had
been withheld from him on his request. The evidence that he referred
to the police thus related to criminal matters other than phone-hacking.[62]
The e-mails now form part of Operation Elveden. For this reason,
and given the police investigation in which a number of arrests
have now been made, we have neither had, nor sought access to,
the relevant e-mails and are not aware of their contents.
53. Nobody has taken responsibility for the fact
that e-mails included inand disregarded bythe two
reviews by Daniel Cloke and Jonathan Chapman and by Harbottle
& Lewis have subsequently merited referral to the police.
Daniel Cloke suggested that, had there been evidence in the e-mail
cache of any wrongdoing that lay outside the scope of the employment
dispute, it was for Harbottle & Lewis to have acted: "I
would have hoped that if an independent third party had thought
that there was definite evidence of criminal activity, that that
lawyer would have told us. And that lawyer did not tell us that".[63]
It is possible that this is not the whole truth: Lawrence Abramson
told us that he did indeed query some of the e-mails within the
sample, but that he was offered reassurance by Daniel Cloke and
Jonathan Chapman.
54. Rupert and James Murdoch placed similar emphasis
on the importance of the role played by Harbottle & Lewis.
Rupert Murdoch claimed that the firm had been engaged "to
find out what the hell was going on".[64]
James Murdoch claimed that the letter from Harbottle & Lewis
"is a key bit of outside legal advice from senior counsel
that was provided to the company, and the company rested on it".[65]
Indeed, he claims that the Harbottle & Lewis letter "was
one of the pillars of the environment around the place that led
the company to believe that all of these things were a matter
of the past and that new allegations could be denied".[66]
55. The letter sent by Harbottle & Lewis
to News International at the conclusion of the review is, however,
tightly worded and does not suggest the granting of a clean bill
of health. It does not draw any conclusions about the existence,
or otherwise, of evidence of any form of criminal activity other
than phone-hacking. Daniel Cloke was quick to note that the review
was never intended to range more widely than the parameters set
by Clive Goodman's letter: "if there had been a more wide-ranging
inquiry [...] frankly, I would not have been involved in it, because
I do not have those investigative skills".[67]
Jonathan Chapman told us that "I think that Mr Murdoch did
not have his facts right when he [blamed Harbottle & Lewis...].
I do not think he had been briefed properly".[68]
Harbottle & Lewis, indeed, defended itself vigorously against
claims that it should have taken action as a result of its review,
stating that "there was absolutely no question of the Firm
being asked to provide News International with a clean bill of
health which it could deploy years later in wholly different contexts
for wholly different purposes".[69]
Taken literally, this is correct: Harbottle & Lewis was asked
to investigate a specific matter and drew its conclusions accordingly.
56. Rupert Murdoch suggested that Jonathan Chapman
had been negligent in failing to act on the basis of the information
uncovered during the e-mail review. He told us that "Mr Chapman,
who was in charge of this, has left us. He had that [e-mail cache]
for a number of years. It wasn't until Mr Lewis looked at it carefully
that we immediately said, 'We must get legal advice, see how we
go to the police with this and how we should present it'".[70]
In response to this Jonathan Chapman told us that "we came
to the conclusion, having carried out that exercise carefully
and taken quite a long time on it, that there was nothing there
that indicated reasonable evidence of the matters that we were
looking for, which was knowledge of, or complicity, in voicemail
interception".[71]
He then went on to say:
In terms of other illegal activities, I am well aware
that Lord Macdonald mentioned stuff to the Home Affairs Select
Committee in July. What I can say on that is that I have no recollection
of specific e-mails at the time that would have led me to that
conclusion, but I am at a disadvantage, of course, because he
has seen those e-mails and I haven't seen anything subsequently.
If I were to look at those again, I could give my reaction, but
I cannot recollect specific e-mails that led me to that conclusion.[72]
When questioned further, Jonathan Chapman reiterated
that "to my recollection, as we sit here today, there was
nothing that gave me cause for concern or that needed to be escalated".[73]
57. The accounts given by Jonathan Chapman and
Daniel Cloke explaining why they took no further action in relation
to the e-mails they reviewed are rendered less credible by Lord
Macdonald's statement that the criminal activity that he found
in the e-mails was obvious to anybody. Since we are unable to
view the e-mails for ourselves, we are not in a position to adjudicate.
We note, however, that there was sufficient doubt about the content
of some of the e-mails examined for Lawrence Abramson to need
reassurance on them from Jonathan Chapman. In this context, we
are astonished that neither Jonathan Chapman nor Daniel Cloke
appear to have referred those e-mails anywhere else. We were particularly
surprised that their certainty about these e-mails was such that
they did not consult anyone with expertise in the criminal law
to set their minds at rest. When we asked them about this, Daniel
Cloke did not directly answer the question, even though it was
put to him three times. Instead, he replied that the steps that
the pair had taken "gave me comfort as an HR director that
we had covered all the bases and done the proper thing in terms
of investigating these claims, bearing in mind that this was an
employment dispute".[74]
In other words, Jonathan Chapman and Daniel Cloke were not willing
to consider any matters that came to their attention that were
not directly related to Clive Goodman's employment claim.
58. Our exchanges on the subject of the Harbottle
& Lewis investigation provide an instructive insight into
the approach taken by executives at News International to providing
evidence to the Committee. On the one hand, senior executives
have been quick to point out that they had no involvement. When
asked about the Clive Goodman settlement, for example, James Murdoch
stated that "first, I do not have first-hand knowledge of
those times. Remember that my involvement in these matters started
in 2008. In 2007, up until December, I was wholly focused in my
role as chief executive of a public company. I was not involved
in those things".[75]
Similarly, in written evidence about the Clive Goodman settlement,
Rebekah Brooks did not herself personally endorse the account
that she was giving to the Committee but instead explicitly inserted
text drafted by Jonathan Chapman into her letter.[76]
59. Thus senior executives have both denied responsibility
for the conduct of the e-mail reviews, but on the other hand have
been quick to rely on them when it has suited them to do so. As
Jonathan Chapman told us:
I do not think any of them would have direct knowledge
of it, because Rebekah Brooks was an editor at the time, Mr James
Murdoch was out of the country doing other things and Mr Rupert
Murdoch was in the States, so to the extent only that Mr Hinton
told him what was going on; there would be no real knowledge of
that process. That is why I found it strange that they were very
definitive about what had happened, and what its [the Harbottle
& Lewis review] parameters were and so on.[77]
60. News International repeatedly made misleading
and exaggerated claims regarding the 'investigations' it had purportedly
commissioned following the arrests of Clive Goodman and Glenn
Mulcaire. As with the Harbottle & Lewis review, this conclusion
applies similarly to the earlier engagement of solicitors Burton
Copeland in August, 2006. On 30 August 2011, Burton Copeland wrote
to the Committee, clarifying that their role was to respond to
requests for information from the Metropolitan Police. 'BCL was
not instructed to carry out an investigation into 'phone hacking'
at the News of the World,'' the firm wrote.[78]
Prior to that, on 22 July 2011, Linklatersthe solicitors
acting for News Corporation's Management and Standards Committeealso
wrote to disown evidence given by Colin Myler and Tom Crone in
2009 that Burton Copeland undertook an investigation into wrongdoing
at the paper.[79]
Throughout this affair, senior News of the World and News
International executives have tried to have it both ways. They
have been quick to point to 'investigations' which supposedly
cleared the newspaper of wider wrongdoing, but have also distanced
themselves from the detail when it suited them.
61. The account we have heard of News International's
internal e-mail review and the second review, conducted by Harbottle
& Lewis, is unedifying. It is clear that the e-mails examined
did not exonerate company employees from all suspicion of possible
criminal wrongdoing, possibly not even from phone-hacking. It
is probable that all those who reviewed the e-mails will have
been aware that this was the case. Indeed, if the content of the
e-mails had exonerated News International employees entirely,
it is doubtful that Daniel Cloke and Jonathan Chapman would have
seen the need to refer the matter to a firm of external lawyers
at all. Doing so can only be seen as an exercise in self-protection.
The fact that Jonathan Chapman drew up such narrow terms for the
Harbottle & Lewis review strongly suggests that he was deliberately
turning a blind eye to e-mails that he did not want to investigate
further. In keeping his conclusions about the e-mails strictly
within the narrow scope of his investigation, Lawrence Abramson
was undoubtedly simply doing his job as a lawyer. Indeed, he seems
to have made some effort to alert News International to problems
that he uncovered. If either Jonathan Chapman or Daniel Cloke
had raised the alarm internally, instead of sticking so rigidly
to the terms of the reviews, it is conceivable that criminal activity
would have been exposed and stopped far earlier. The fact that
they were only looking for evidence that supported Clive Goodman's
specific assertions is not an excuse for dismissing evidence of
anything else.
62. Senior executives at News International
undoubtedly extolled the thoroughness of the reviews rather too
fervently. It was certainly expedient for them to rely upon the
apparently positive outcomes of the reviews in giving evidence
to the Committee. Senior executives were clearly aware that the
reviews proved less than they were claiming for them and that
the assertions that they made to the Committee were the result
of a deliberate strategy to exaggerate evidence in support of
the company's innocence.
The decision to settle Clive Goodman's
claim
63. In the context of the unprompted offer of
a year's salary and his criminal conviction leading to dismissal
for gross misconduct, Clive Goodman's claim for unfair dismissal
is startling. Indeed, on 6 September 2011, Colin Myler told us
several times that he had been very surprised that the Company
had any obligation to hear Clive Goodman's appeal: "I felt
it was a pretty extraordinary sequence of events that a man who
had pleaded guilty and served a prison sentence then had the opportunity
to appeal against his dismissal".[80]
We have sought to understand why News International should have
settled the claim under such circumstances, unless it felt that
it had something to hide that it would not want to be aired at
a tribunal.
64. News International has repeatedly denied
that the payments made to Clive Goodman compromise the company
in any way. Witnesses have consistently argued that the decision
to settle his employment claim was made for pragmatic, commercial
reasons. Jonathan Chapman did not think that this was surprising
in a commercial context, telling us that "many companies,
particularly big companies, pay out on employment claims of little
or no merit for pragmatic reasons, because they do not want stuff
to be raked up. Even if allegations that are unfounded are made
in the context of a tribunal, those who wish to believe those
allegations will believe them".[81]
This is true: clearly, companies will often settle employment
claims before they reach tribunal to avoid embarrassing publicity
and the cost of litigation, which is not recovered in employment
cases. Even where there has been a criminal conviction, there
remains the risk that procedural errors might render a dismissal
unfair.
65. Jonathan Chapman categorically denied that
the company had anything to hide, repeating the claim that the
company had investigated the claims being made by Clive Goodman
and had found them to be baseless: "we had carried out an
e-mail review and a number of executives had been interviewed
by Mr Cloke and Mr Myler".[82]
In October, Les Hinton told us that: "I decided at the time
that the right thing to do was to settle this and get it behind
us".[83]
66. When Clive Goodman was dismissed in February
2007, Les Hinton made it clear that the company was not obliged
to pay him anything, but was offering him a year's salary in recognition
of long service and the needs of his family. The decision to settle
Clive Goodman's employment claim is at variance with the terms
of this letter but has, nonetheless, been presented to us as a
pragmatic, commercial decision. We recognise the legal precedents
and accept that News International was acting within accepted
commercial norms by settling before the case reached tribunal
in order to avoid litigation costs and reputational damage. Despite
the legal precedents, however, we are astonished that a man convicted
of a criminal offence during the course of his work should be
successful in his attempt to seek compensation for his perfectly-proper
dismissal. Illegally accessing voicemails is wrong and News International
should have been willing to stand up in an employment tribunal
and say so.
67. In the rush to "get it behind us",
News International neglected to go further than the narrow confines
of the due diligence exercise it had commissioned in response
to Clive Goodman's employment claim. Ironically, by not taking
Clive Goodman more seriously, the company ensured that, far from
being put behind them, the matters that Clive Goodman raised in
his appeal were left to fester untreated. The reputational damage
is by now far worse than it would have been had the company acted
on Clive Goodman's warning early in 2007.
Amounts and authorisation
68. The amounts paid to Clive Goodman did not
stop at a year's salary. In fact, he was paid a total of £243,502.08
by News International from the time of his arrest in August 2006.
until the conclusion of his claims. In a letter of 11 August 2011the
same date as the disclosures by Harbottle & Lewis and a full
two years after the Committee first sought to get to the bottom
of what pay-offs were made to Clive GoodmanJames Murdoch
told us:
I am informed that Mr Goodman was paid £90,502.08
in April 2007 and £153,000 (£13,000 of which was to
pay for his legal fees) between October and December 2007. The
first payment was approved by Mr Daniel Cloke, Director of Human
Resources for News International. The second was approved by Mr
Cloke and Mr Jon Chapman, Director of Legal Affairs for News International.
These payments were in the context of an unfair dismissal claim
brought by Mr Goodman.[84]
69. The second payment of £153,000 was broken
down by Jonathan Chapman as, approximately, £90,000 notice;
£40,000 compensation; and £13,000 legal expenses.[85]
The total amount of the payments made to Clive Goodman came as
a surprise to the Committee, which in 2009 had been left with
the impression that the amount was much smaller. This is important
because any suggestion that the Committee was deliberately given
the impression that the payment totalled less than was actually
paid to Mr Goodman would tend to lend weight to the argument that
News International had something to cover up; had paid Clive Goodman
to remain silent; and had concealed information about the payments
from the Committee and others to prevent this being known.
70. In a letter dated 4 November 2009, which
was marked confidential at the time but has been published with
this Report, Rebekah Brooks cited Jonathan Chapman as saying:
Pursuant to the agreement, Mr Goodman was paid his
notice and an agreed amount representing a possible compensatory
award at tribunal (which was some way below the then £60,600
limit on such awards). It should be noted that, as a matter of
policy, News International companies tend always to pay notice,
even in cases of summary dismissal (which is not unusual).[86]
71. In the counter-intuitive circumstances of
Clive Goodman being successful at an employment tribunal, despite
his conviction, any statutory compensation award would have been
made in addition to any contractual pay entitlement. Legal fees
apart, therefore, the £153,000 pay-off made to Clive Goodman
in the autumn of 2007 is, strictly speaking, not at variance with
the careful wording in Rebekah Brooks' 2009 letter to the Committee.[87]
That letter failed, however, to make explicit the terms of the
payment, in particular the fact that "his notice" here
meant a year's salary.
72. We accept that Rebekah Brooks' letter
to the Committee of November 2009 was accurate in stating that
the amount of compensation paid to Clive Goodman (£40,000)
fell below the statutory limit of £60,600 on such awards.
The answer that she and Jonathan Chapman gave the Committee in
that letter was, however, incomplete because it did not specify
the significant amount of money paid to Clive Goodman by way of
"notice" (£90,000), nor that he had already separately
been paid £90,500 when he was first notified about his dismissal.
Such incompleteness is either the result of an attempt to play
down the settlement, or of ignorance about the full extent of
the payments or both. None of these scenarios casts Rebekah Brooks
and Jonathan Chapman in a positive light: either they should have
been more frank or else they should have been better informed.
73. The discretionary payment of a year's salary,
£90,500, made in early 2007, was not accounted for in the
November 2009 letter. We have sought to ascertain whether this
amount was deliberately concealed, or was simply not known about
within the company. James Murdoch's written evidence asserts that
Daniel Cloke authorised the first payment of £90,502.08,
made in February 2007. Daniel Cloke's oral evidence on 6 September
2011 contradicted this: "in terms of the first £90,000,
I was not even aware that that had been paid, because the letter
wasI thinkin February, and I did not know of any
of this until the appeal process came".[88]
It is clear that the payment was made at Les Hinton's suggestion.
In oral evidence Jonathan Chapman stated that: "Mr Hinton
asked me to help him with that letter [of 5 February 2007]. He
indicated that he was going to pay 12 months' salary, and he said
that he wanted to do it on compassionate grounds because of Mr
Goodman's family situation".[89]
He emphasised Les Hinton's responsibility for the decision to
make the payment in the answers to several subsequent questions,
for example: "It was not me agreeing to that, it was not
me having a say on that finally. It was Mr Hinton".[90]
Les Hinton agreed: "I made that decision myself".[91]
74. We did not find any evidence to disprove
the account that the only people involved in the decision-making
chain that led to the payment of £90,502.08 to Clive Goodman
in February 2007, as part of his dismissal terms, were Les Hinton,
who suggested the payment; Jonathan Chapman, who assisted in the
drafting of the letter to Clive Goodman; and Daniel Cloke, who
authorised the payment when it was made. The evidence suggests
that Les Hinton also authorised the £153,000 settlement to
Clive Goodman, paid out between October and December 2007. In
2009, he himself stated that "putting aside signatures, I
would take responsibility for a payment such as that".[92]
In written evidence Daniel Cloke described the authorisation process
for the payment:
As is usual in contentious employment cases, Mr Chapman
as Director of Legal Affairs to the Company assessed the matter
to make a recommendation as to whether to settle or try to defend
the case. [...] Mr Chapman made the recommendation (with which
I agreed) to try to settle the case on reasonable grounds which
after negotiation with Mr Goodman's lawyers was approved by Les
Hinton.[93]
75. This account is supported by the November
2009 letter from Rebekah Brooks to the Committee, which states
that "Les Hinton [...] authorised the settlement with, and
payment to, Clive Goodman, following discussions with Jon Chapman
and Daniel Cloke".[94]
Thus it is clear that Les Hinton authorised both of the
payments made to Clive Goodman, and so will have been aware that
they totalled around £1/4 million.
76. When Les Hinton gave evidence to the Committee,
for the second time, on 15 September 2009, he made it clear he
was under instructions from News International not to discuss
the settlement with Clive Goodman (and with Glenn Mulcaire, to
which we turn later in this chapter), on the grounds that they
were confidential.[95]
Nonetheless, he certainly played down his role in relation to
them: "I ended up being advised that we should settle with
[Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire] and I authorised those settlements";
and again: "the employment law was complicated and I was
told that we should settle and I agreed to do it".[96]
It is clear that both Jonathan Chapman and Daniel Cloke had a
role in the process by which the amounts were arrived at, although
Jonathan Chapman has sought to distance himself from the earlier
payment, made in April 2007: "The £90,000, I have to
leave to Daniel or Mr Hinton to explain, because that was outside
my brief and I don't really have any recollection of how that
fitted into it. It is not part of the settlementthe £90,000".[97]
He later described that first payment as "gratuitous".[98]
This is not the description that he would have given had the payments
been made on the basis of his advice. Jonathan Chapman's evidence
suggests that Les Hinton's role was far more directive than he
had led us to believe in 2009.
77. As well as downplaying his role, in evidence
in 2009, Les Hinton also appeared to lose much of his memory,
certainly as far as Clive Goodman was concerned:
Well there were employment-related payments made
to them. Even though I have been told not to relay the information,
I do not remember it except that in the case of Glenn 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.[99]
78. Whilst citing the involvement of Daniel Cloke
and Jonathan Chapman in the process, when pressed as to who precisely
had given him the advice to settle with Clive Goodman on employment
grounds, Les Hinton went on to say:
You know what, there were several senior people,
and I cannot remember. Nor can I remember the particular legal
people. There were people who gave me the advice and I cannot
remember who they were.[100]
79. On 24 October 2011, on his third appearance
following the disclosures of the Clive Goodman payments and correspondence,
Les Hinton's memory wasin some respects, at leastdistinctly
sharper:
Chair: you decided that he should receive one year's
salary payment of £90,000, and you authorized that payment.
Les Hinton: I did. [101]
Chair: So you paid him in essence, two years' notice,
or one year's notice twice over?
Les Hinton: We paid him a year's salary, and we paid
him the £90,000 of notice in relation to his appeal, yes.[102]
80. Asked to explain the double payment, however,
Les Hinton's memory again began to fail him: 'I can't recall exactly
what the process was of those payments, Chairman, but what I can
say is that, in my mind and, I think, in others' minds, the matter
of my having given Clive Goodman a year's salary and the subsequent
appeal were treated separately".[103]
He did not specify who the 'others' allegedly were.
81. Tom Crone was also certainly aware that payments
had been made to Clive Goodman, though not necessarily the full
amount. This is clear from the evidence he gave on 21 July 2009.
Under persistent questioning, he first categorically denied knowledge
of any payment, then cited misunderstanding and 'confusion' about
the question, before finally admitting the newspaper group 'may
have' made a payment.[104]
While Tom Crone was evasive, and plainly reluctant to make the
admission, from the same evidence session it seemed clear to us
that Colin Myler did not know, even though he was aware that Clive
Goodman had lodged an appeal against dismissal. Repeatedly Colin
Myler said he was not aware[105]
and Tom Crone's eventual admission appeared to Committee members
to come as a complete surprise to the News of the World's
editor:
Paul Farrelly: Would you clarify that [payments to
Clive Goodman] to us?
Mr Crone: I am not absolutely certain, but I have
a feeling there may have been a payment of some sort.
Mr Myler [turning to Mr Crone]: With?
Mr Crone: Clive Goodman.
Mr Myler: I would have to check.[106]
82. In subsequent written evidence, nonetheless,
Colin Myler backtracked as to his lack of knowledge. In a letter
dated 4 August 2009,[107]
he wrote: 'I and Tom Crone were broadly aware of the claims and
the fact that they were settled, but not of the terms of the settlement.'
This was clearly an attempt to salvage something of the united
front which had cracked in oral evidenceand typifies the
initial, closing ranks approach of the News of the World
and News International in dealing with questions about phone-hacking
affair and its aftermath.
83. It is not clear the extent to which either
of the Murdochs were made aware of either of the payments to Clive
Goodman. When asked whether Les Hinton had referred the matter
to either of the Murdochs, Daniel Cloke answered, "Not to
my knowledge, no, I am not aware of the conversations that Les
Hinton might have had with those two gentlemen".[108]
In 2009, Les Hinton was asked what Rupert Murdoch thought about
the "Clive Goodman case" and answered that "he
was very concerned about it".[109]
He did not, however, state whether Rupert Murdoch had been made
specifically aware of the financial settlement arising from the
case. The oral evidence given by Rupert and James Murdoch on 19
July 2011 would tend to suggest that they had not beenRupert
Murdoch because he has no involvement in his companies at that
level and James Murdoch because it predated his arrival at News
International.[110]
James Murdoch, for example, told us in a variety of different
ways that "I do not have any direct knowledge of the specific
legal arrangements with Mr Goodman in 2007, so I cannot answer
the specifics of that question".[111]
84. The total amount paid to Clive Goodman
is extraordinary when one considers that he had been convicted
of a criminal offence and that his actions had helped stain the
reputation of the company. The double payment of a year's salary
was, by any standards, 'over-generous' and it is impossible, therefore,
not to question the company's motives. The pay-offs to a convicted
criminal hardly reflect well on Les Hinton, who had authority
over both payments. When questioned about them in 2009 he was
startlingly vague andinexcusablysought to portray
his role as a passive one, simply following the advice given to
him by his subordinates. The evidence we took in 2011 suggests
that he not only authorised the payments, but took the decision
to make them in the first place. Furthermore, he was responsible
for the double payment of Clive Goodman's notice and, his 'selective
amnesia' notwithstanding, he would have been perfectly well aware
of what he had done. We consider, therefore, that Les Hinton misled
the Committee in 2009 regarding the extent of the pay-off to Clive
Goodman and his own role in making it happen.
85. The testimony regarding the payments to
Clive Goodman is not the only evidence from Les Hinton which we
find unsatisfactory. He first appeared before the Committee on
6 March 2007, precisely four days after Clive Goodman's letter
alleging widespread involvement in phone hacking, which was copied
to him.[112]
Whether or not Les Hinton had seen this letter before his appearance
in 2007, he certainly had by the time he did so on 15 September
2009 when he said: 'There was never firm evidence provided or
suspicion provided that I am aware of that implicated anybody
else other than Clive within the staff of the News of the World.
It just did not happen'.[113]
This was not true. Clive Goodman had certainly provided 'suspicion'
of wider involvement, but Les Hinton failed to mention it to the
Committee.[114]
At no stage did Les Hinton seek to correct the record, even when
invited by the Committee to do so. We consider, therefore, that
Les Hinton was complicit in the cover-up at News International,
which included making misleading statements and giving a misleading
picture to this Committee.
86. When the predecessor Committee published
its Report on Press standards, privacy and libel in 2010,
it did not know the amount of News International's settlement
with Clive Goodman but was left with the "strong impression
that silence has been bought".[115]
We have subsequently learnt that News International paid Clive
Goodman a total of £243,502.08 from the time of his arrest
in August 2006. The size of the pay-off serves to confirm our
view that it was used to buy Clive Goodman's silence.
87. It was only on 11 August 2011, in the
letter to us from James Murdoch,[116]
that News International finally came clean about the extent of
the pay-offs to Clive Goodman. Up until then, the evidence given
by News International executives had been vague and at times incomplete,
often for the stated reason that the person being asked was not
the person ultimately responsible. In the case of the vague answers
given by the Murdochs on 19 July 2011, we would have thought that
they could have anticipated the line of questioning simply by
reading the transcripts from the Committee's evidence sessions
in 2009. It is not a sufficient excuse that Les Hinton authorised
the payments and has since left for the United States. Personnel
changes are commonplace and we would be very surprised if News
International did not keep records of its financial decisions.
LEGAL FEES
88. Approximately £13,000 of the £153,000
settlement with Clive Goodman comprised a payment to cover his
legal fees. In 2009, Les Hinton told us that this was not unusual:
"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".[117]
This is true: an employer has to indemnify his employee against
claims made against him for acts done by him in the course of
the employment. By extension, it could be said that there is a
duty on the employer to stand behind the employee and assist him
in his defence in such circumstances. It is unusual for an employer
to pay the legal fees of an employee facing a criminal charge,
but this is because most criminal charges apply to acts committed
outside the scope of an employment. In Clive Goodman's case, however,
the criminal act involved him carrying out his job in an illegal
manner. In that case, it would not necessarily have been improper
or particularly surprising for News International to have paid
his legal fees, andhowever distasteful it may seem in retrospectit
certainly does not imply complicity by itself in the criminal
act of phone-hacking.
89. The settlement with Clive Goodman, including
the element to cover his legal fees, was authorised by Les Hinton
in 2007.[118] However,
when asked in 2009 whether or not News International had paid
Clive Goodman's legal fees, Les Hinton answered "I absolutely
do not know. I do not know whether we did or not".[119]
When he was asked if he knew who would have authorised such a
payment he answered: "I would guess the Director of Human
Resources but I do not know".[120]
When questioned in 2011 about the discrepancy between his 2009
answer and the fact that he authorised the payment of the fees,
he said: "if I had been sure at the time, I would have told
you".[121]
90. When asked about who would have authorised
the payment of Clive Goodman's legal fees, Tom Crone answered
that "Les Hinton was the chief executive at the time. I would
imagine that he would have authorised it".[122]
When pressed, he said that "I've answered. Les Hinton. It's
possible that Andy Coulson could have done it, as the editor at
the time", and later "I am certain that Andy Coulson
knew that and I am fairly sure that Les Hinton knew, but I can't
be absolutely certain".[123]
We have been unable to ask Andy Coulson for his account of the
payments made to Clive Goodman, so as not to impede ongoing police
proceedings and can, therefore, draw no conclusion about his involvement.
91. We accept that, however distasteful it
may seem, there was nothing inherently sinister about News International
paying Clive Goodman's legal fees in respect of the criminal charges
he faced. Now that we are certain that he authorised the payment,
however, we are distinctly unimpressed by Les Hinton's 2009 assertion
that he did not know whether or not the company had paid those
fees. Declarations of ignorance or amnesia do not assist News
International in its bid to convince the Committee, and the wider
public, that it had nothing to hide. If it was legitimate to have
paid Clive Goodman's legal fees, the company would have been better
advised to admit to having done so. Again, we consider
that Les Hinton's unwillingness to be explicit over the payment
of legal fees was a deliberate effort to mislead the Committee
over News International's payments to Clive Goodman after he was
charged and convicted.
Clive Goodman's prospects for
re-employment
92. Far from expecting to be dismissed, his appeal
against his dismissal suggests that Clive Goodman may have hoped
to have been given a job by News International once he had served
his sentence, as "a sub-editor, a book filleter or in such
a capacity".[124]
In oral evidence on 6 September 2011, Tom Crone stated that, between
Clive Goodman's arrest and his conviction, Clive Goodman:
was quite pessimistic, depressed and worried about
his family for obvious reasons and his future. Now, I was able
to say to him, 'Andy Coulson is hoping that he can find a way
that you can come back to the company. It is not absolutely certain
that you are going to lose your job over this [...] Once you have
served whatever sentenceif there is a sentenceis
going to be imposed upon you.'[125]
93. Tom Crone was not sure whether Andy Coulson
had raised the matter with Les Hinton, though he remembered Andy
Coulson saying that "I'm hoping I'll be able to persuade
Les".[126] He
also said that, when he had been shown a draft of the letter sent
by Les Hinton to Clive Goodman on 5 February 2007, in which Clive
Goodman was summarily dismissed, in the light of his earlier conversations
with him, "I was very annoyed".[127]
94. When we asked Les Hinton about whether he
had considered giving Clive Goodman his job back after his conviction,
he said: "No. I dismissed him for gross misconduct, so of
course not".[128]
Once again, we have been unable to ask Andy Coulson about the
veracity of Tom Crone's account because of ongoing police proceedings.
95. Tom Crone's account provides an intriguing
insight into the culture at the News of the World. Evidence
given to the Committee points to a culture of mutual protection
within the newsroom at the News of the World. Jonathan
Chapman told us that:
I have noted that on the editorial side at News International,
there has certainly always been more of a feeling of family compassion
and humanitarian stuff, which, as a person on the commercial side
at News International, I am not sure that I would enjoy. I do
not think that there is anything sinister in that; I just think
there is quite a big feeling of family on newspapers. When someone
messes up badly and commits a crime, I think there was also a
feeling that, yes, they have done a terrible wrong, but their
family should not suffer. I am not sure that applies through the
business to the rather newer commercial side at News International.[129]
CONFIDENTIALITY
96. Clive Goodman's financial settlement contained
a confidentiality clause. We were interested to find out whether
the confidentiality requirement had any impact on the size of
the payment. When we asked Jonathan Chapman about this, he told
us that:
After some discussion with Mr Goodman's lawyers,
a proposed settlement was reached which was approved by Les Hinton
and Daniel Cloke, our Director of Human Resources. This was then
embodied in a compromise agreement. This is a type of settlement
agreement required to be used in employment cases and which complies
with the specific requirements of section 203 of the Employment
Rights Act 1996. In this case, we used a standard-form News International
compromise agreement and only minor changes were made to it. In
particular, there was nothing tailored specifically to Mr Goodman's
possible future activities.[130]
97. Les Hinton believed that the decision to
include a compromise agreement in the settlement had been "mutual".[131]
As set out above, one of the considerations in making the settlement
without going to tribunal was the desire to avoid allegations
made by Clive Goodman being aired in the public domain. This rationale
is not unusual in a commercial context and could apply whether
or not News International believed the allegations in question
to be true. Thus it could be argued that confidentiality was inherently
a factor in the settlement. How significant other factors may
have been is unclear. The statutory cap on awards by an employment
tribunal for unfair dismissal, for example, does not apply where
the claim is based on discrimination or the making of a protected
disclosure, otherwise known as "whistleblowing". We
have received no evidence, however, that Clive Goodman was claiming
whistleblower status.
98. Regarding the principal reason for confidentiality
in the Goodman settlementmaking sure his allegations were
not aired in publicin 2009 Les Hinton continued to maintain
News International's standard line, telling us: "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
enquiry; I am not sure what silence you are talking about."[132]
In fact, Les Hinton had no basis on which to say this. There was
no public cross-examination in court, nor any thorough investigation
by the company into wrongdoing. By settling with Clive Goodman,
with a confidentiality clause included, News International had
ensured that its public stance would not be openly contradicted.
The settlement with Glenn Mulcaire
99. Neither Clive Goodman nor Glenn Mulcaire
has co-operated with this Committee, nor has News International
provided us with copies of the settlement or compromise agreements,
including the clauses relating to confidentiality. Clive Goodman
told us that he wanted to put the affair behind him and, through
an intermediary, we understood that Glenn Mulcaire was concerned
that saying anything to the Committee might prejudice an indemnity
he had been given by the newspaper group, which protected him
from civil action by phone hacking victims. The existence of an
indemnity was alluded to in questioning of Les Hinton in 2009,
but he refused to confirm or discuss it.[133]
In evidence, Les Hinton, Tom Crone and Colin Myler were open,
however, in confirming that a settlement had been reached with
Glenn Mulcaire after he, too, had threatened to take the organisation
to an employment tribunal. They did not, however, reveal details.
100. When they appeared before us on 19 July
2011, Rupert and James Murdoch were asked about the indemnity
to Glenn Mulcaire and alleged payment of his legal fees. During
questioning, James Murdoch publicly confirmedfor the first
timepayment of Glenn Mulcaire's legal fees, and Rupert
Murdoch said he would put a stop to the arrangement "if it
is not in breach of a legal contract".[134]
A halt was, in any event, called immediately after their appearance
at the Committee, following which Glenn Mulcaire sued News Group
Newspapers for breach of contract. Thanks to this questioning,
Rupert Murdoch's follow-up action and Glenn Mulcaire's lawsuit,
we do now have details of the settlements the group reached with
the private investigator, including the agreements regarding confidentiality.
These are contained in a judgment delivered in the High Court
on 21 December 2011,[135]
which upheld Glenn Mulcaire's case and ordered the company to
adhere to the terms of the indemnity. The judgment discloses that
Glenn Mulcaire was given an indemnity on 28 January 2010 in a
letter from Farrer & Co in respect of the costs of opposing
a court order to name those who had instructed him to target and
hack into the phone of Max Clifford.
101. Following further civil claims in 2010 by
the interior designer Kelly Hoppen, by Skylet Andrew and by Nicola
Philips, then a colleague of Max Clifford's, Glenn Mulcaire sought
confirmation that NGN would meet the costs of defending these
claims, too. The indemnity was duly given by Julian Pike of Farrer
& Co in a letter dated 29 June 2010. It was the second indemnity
given by NGN to Glenn Mulcaire; the first was in relation to the
civil claim by Gordon Taylor in 2007, the judgment says. Under
its terms, NGN agreed to meet Glenn Mulcaire's legal costs and
any damages awarded against him, provided that he kept NGN fully
informed and did not publicly reveal the indemnity's existence,
especially to claimants and their lawyers. The judgment discloses
that in 2007 Glenn Mulcaire "was paid £80,000 in full
and final satisfaction of all his claims"one third,
as we now know, of the total payments to Clive Goodman. As part
of the settlement, the judgement states: "He undertook not
to disclose the terms of that settlement nor thereafter to make
any statement or comment which might injure, damage or impugn
the good name, character or reputation of NGN."
102. By this time, Glenn Mulcaire knew the amount
NGN was paying to settle the civil claims, and clearly felt aggrieved.
On 2 July 2010, his lawyer Sarah Webb, presently a partner at
solicitors Payne Hicks Beach, asked for a further £750,000
for Glenn Mulcaire for further co-operation in all the civil litigation.
"Mr Mulcaire considered," the judgment states, "that
he had 'carried the can' for all those involved in telephone tapping
at NGN. By at least 2010 he felt he had been badly treated by
NGN when compared with others also involved in telephone tapping
at NGN; as subsequently became apparent, some were paid substantially
more, others retained their positions in NGN." As part of
the negotiations over the indemnity, Sarah Webb recorded in her
attendance notes a conversation on 28 June 2010 with Julian Pike
of Farrers: "Whilst he acknowledges the indemnity that they
have offered, I think he actually feels that News Group should
be paying him more in effect for his silence." In the event,
the indemnity was extended to cover the further cases and, following
this, on 1 September 2010, Tom Crone finally responded to the
additional £750,000 demand, refusing to pay the money.
103. Tom Crone was, according to the judgment,
particularly sensitive about there being any publicity at all
about the arrangement: "His concern that any payment made
to Mr Mulcaire should not become public knowledge was not related
just to the conduct of NGN's defence to claims made or anticipated",
as Sarah Webb's evidence recorded. A dispute then took place with
NGN over whether Glenn Mulcaire should provide a defence and information
demanded in the Skylet Andrew claim. "NGN considered that
it would be easier to settle that claim if the information had
not been provided and Mr Mulcaire did not serve a defence,"
the judgment stated. "On 9 September Mr Pike indicated in
an email to Ms Webb that service of a defence would bring into
play conditions 2 and 4 of the Indemnity Letter."
104. In the event, Glenn Mulcaire served a defence
in this casebut refused to supply the additional information
sought by the claimantbut subsequently, as the judgment
states, he co-operated with NGN after it extended the indemnity
to all the 38 civil cases which had started by 28 July 2011, including
appealing a High Court ruling that he reveal who instructed him
over phone-hacking. The significance of 28 July 2011 is that it
was the date on which Farrer & Co wrote to Glenn Mulcaire
confirmingfollowing the Murdochs' appearance at the Committeethat
NGN would no longer pay his legal fees. Glenn Mulcaire's legal
action started on 17 August 2011. By that time, the judgment records,
the newspaper group had paid a total of £269,305.70 in respect
of Glenn Mulcaire's legal costs in the civil claims, with a further
£95,531.24 having been billed but not paidmaking a
total of some £365,000.
105. The arrangements with Glenn Mulcaire
following his conviction were every bit as distasteful as those
with Clive Goodman, if the newspaper had nothing to hide. The
settlement, though, is hardly surprising given News International's
over-riding desire to avoid the bad publicity which an employment
tribunal would bring.
106. The facts revealed in the High Court
judgment in Glenn Mulcaire's favour in December 2011 are instructive
as to the lengths to which News International has gone to maintain
confidentiality. The indemnity given to Glenn Mulcaire, paying
any costs and damages from the civil phone hacking claims, was
not only conditional on its existence not being revealed; it could
also, the company's lawyers sought to maintain, prevent Glenn
Mulcaire serving his own defence in those cases. The company's
determination to cover up the extent of the phone hacking scandal
is also further demonstrated by its willingness to meet the costs
of Glenn Mulcaire's successive appeals against court rulings to
reveal who instructed him to hack the phones of the various targets.
107. Following a recent Court of Appeal decision
to uphold the High Court's rulings, Glenn Mulcaire is currently
taking the matter to the Supreme Courtall at News International's
expense. We look forward to the final judgment and any further
light that any evidence, finally, from Glenn Mulcaire sheds on
this damaging affair. So far, with the complicity and financial
support of News International, he has kept silent.
38 Ev 202 Back
39
Ev 254 Back
40
Ev 202 Back
41
Ev 202 Back
42
Ev 223 Colin Myler also indicated at one stage that he may have
carried out the review (see Press Standards, Privacy and Libel,
Vol II, Ev 311), but there is no other evidence to support
this. It seems that he probably conducted the interviews but not
the paper review. Back
43
Q 656 Back
44
Ev 223 Back
45
Qq 607 and 620 Back
46
Ev 223 Back
47
Ev 223 Back
48
Q 611 Back
49
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 385 Back
50
Ev 223 Back
51
Ev 202 Back
52
Ev 202 Back
53
Q 638 Back
54
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 467 Back
55
Ev 172 Back
56
Q 630 Back
57
Ev 227 Back
58
Q 329 Back
59
Home Affairs Committee, Unauthorised tapping into or hacking
of mobile communications, Thirteenth Report of Session 2010-12,
HC 907, Q 1003 (hereafter 'Home Affairs Committee') Back
60
Home Affairs Committee, Q 1010 Back
61
Home Affairs Committee, Qq 1016 and 1059 Back
62
Home Affairs Committee, Q 1020 Back
63
Q 645 Back
64
Q 366 Back
65
Q 346 Back
66
Ibid. Back
67
Q 640 Back
68
Q 728 Back
69
Ev 202 (para 8 but see paras 6-13 in their entirety for further
detail) Back
70
Q 365 Back
71
Q 594 Back
72
Q 595 Back
73
Q 599 Back
74
Q 640. See also Qq 637-639 Back
75
Q 288 Back
76
Ev 231 Back
77
Q 710 Back
78
Ev 228 Back
79
Ev 228 Back
80
Q 1023 Back
81
Q 669 Back
82
Q 671 Back
83
Q 1327 Back
84
Ev 172. Subsequent evidence from Linklaters (Ev 254) to the Committee
points out that the payment of £90,502.08 was made to Clive
Goodman on 8 February 2007 but only passed through the payroll
in April 2007. Back
85
Q 671 Back
86
Ev 231. The statutory cap on compensatory awards by an Employment
Tribunal for unfair dismissal stood at £60,600 in 2007, and
has increased after annual review to £63,000 in 2008, £66,200
in 2009, £65,300 in 2010 and £68,400 in 2011. Back
87
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 464 Back
88
Q 687 Back
89
Q 662 Back
90
Q 676 Back
91
Q 1323 Back
92
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 393 Back
93
Ev 223. See also Daniel Cloke's answer to Q 689 Back
94
Ev 231 Back
95
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Q 2126 Back
96
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Qq 2126 and
2127. Ev 387 Back
97
Q 670 Back
98
Q 674 Back
99
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Q 2126 Back
100
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Q 2206 Back
101
Q 1322 Back
102
Q 1331 Back
103
Q 1324 Back
104
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Qq 1416, 1531,
1532 and 1534-36 Back
105
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Qq 1416, 1531
and 1533 Back
106
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Q 1537 Back
107
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 321 Back
108
Q 600 Back
109
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 390 Back
110
Qq 289-301 Back
111
Q 291 Back
112
Culture Media and Sport Committee, Self regulation of the press,
Seventh Report of session 2006-07, HC 375, Ev 32 Back
113
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Q 2168 Back
114
Q 1341 Back
115
Press standards, privacy and libel, para 449 Back
116
Ev 172 Back
117
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 386 Back
118
Ev 231 Back
119
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 386 Back
120
Ibid. Back
121
Q 1384 Back
122
Q 941 Back
123
Qq 944 and 949 Back
124
Q 756 Back
125
Ibid. Back
126
Q 761 Back
127
Q 757 Back
128
Q 1399 Back
129
Q 701 Back
130
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 464-465 Back
131
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Ev 388 Back
132
Ev 387, Q 2132 Back
133
Press standards, privacy and libel, Vol II, Qq 2197-2200 Back
134
Q 323 Back
135
Mulcaire v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2011] EWHC 3469 (ch) (21
December 2011) Back
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