Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Tom Crone
Thank you for your letters of November 16 and November 21.
As you know from my letter of 5 November, I have had no access to files or contemporaneous records of any kind relating to the issues raised in your letters since early July and even before July may not have looked at the relevant records for months or even years. Where I can give answers below, they are my best recollection which, judging by recent experience, may be fallible.
In relation to your letter of November 16:
1.(a) In fact, I always thought my “sign-off” authority in requisitioning cheques, for whatever purpose, was £5,000. Any payment made by the legal department above that figure needed a counter-signature from my line manager at senior management level of News International. Counter-signatures required a “requisition” memo to my line manager setting out brief details of the case and the justification for the settlement. I cannot recall ever having such a requisition memo refused.
In practice, I have been settling cases at above £10,000 with great regularity since joining the company in January 1985. Throughout that period the editor of the relevant title would know about the litigation his/her title faced and would be briefed by me or one of my legal department colleagues about the progress of cases and the need, if and when it occurred, to negotiate settlements. Senior management would also know of the caseload from regular case lists I sent them which included current financial provisions allocated to each case and from regular meetings with my line manager in which I would highlight and explain the more important pieces of litigation and answer any questions.
Before agreeing settlements with Claimant lawyers I would specifically brief the relevant editor and obtain his/her agreement to the proposed settlement terms. Occasionally, where the damages were high, editors have sought approval from the chief executive either by telephone or through a meeting.
1.(b) I have very little specific recollection of exactly when the offers of £50,000 and £150,000 were made but they seem to have been in the aftermath of the “for Neville” email being disclosed to us by Mr Taylor’s solicitors. These figures would have been put forward after discussions between Julian Pike of Farrer & Co and myself (and probably discussions between Mr Pike and counsel). Given Mr Taylor’s earlier demand for £250,000, made when his case was not supported by direct evidence, both Mr Pike and I had little doubt that the offers would be rejected, but agreed that it was important to make them in order to draw out Mr Taylor’s current damages demand and to then move towards ascertaining his “bottom-line” figure.
On 3 July 2008, leading counsel’s written opinion was received suggesting that our existing Part 36 offer of £150,000 “probably should” be increased to the £250,000 Mr Taylor originally demanded. Mr Pike and I had further discussions in which we agreed that to achieve a settlement we needed to pitch our next Part 36 offer at a figure which would lead Mr Taylor’s lawyers to advise him that he would be incurring a substantial costs risk if he chose to fight on. We decided that the appropriate figure was £350,000.
The proposed Part 36 offer of £350,000 was discussed with Mr Myler and he agreed, in the light of counsel’s opinion and the reasoning set out in the paragraph above, that it should be made. I cannot recall whether, after our discussion, he told me that he had then discussed the new offer with Mr Murdoch but the two of them had obviously discussed the case on 27 May and when we all met on 10 June, Mr Murdoch did not express any surprise when it was explained our current offer was £350,000.
1.(c) Please see (b) above.
2.I did not “commission private investigators to carry out surveillance”.
(a)In civil litigation there are very strict rules of court and professional standards covering the permissible uses which can be made of documents or confidential information which come into the hands of litigants and their lawyers through the Disclosure process. This regime can become even tighter if confidentiality undertakings form part of the terms under which cases are settled. As I understand them, broadly the rules are that such documents and information cannot be publicised except through the proper course of the specific litigation in which they are disclosed and they cannot be deployed in other litigation except through a fresh Disclosure process in that case or with the authority of the owner of the document/information or because they have legitimately entered the public domain.
In July 2009 the Gordon Taylor settlement was widely publicised as a direct result of confidential documents and information being improperly leaked to The Guardian. There were very few possible sources for this leak. Mr Pike and I eventually agreed the obvious source was Mark Lewis. There were a number of reasons for this. Access to the documents and information was almost non-existent at the News Group end and disclosure was very damaging to the company. It was also entirely contrary to the interests of Mr Taylor himself—and we understood that he was furious over the leak. We learned that at around the time of the leak Mr Lewis had fallen out with his partners at George Davies and Co. We were also told that he seemed to be experiencing problems in his domestic life. Because of the wide range of documents and information in The Guardian’s hands it seemed to us that Mr Lewis was the only possible source.
Mr Pike and I discussed the possibility of making a complaint of professional misconduct against Mr Lewis but decided not to do so in the absence of direct admissible evidence.
In the following months various phone-hacking cases were brought against News Group. Mr Lewis acted for some of the litigants, Ms Charlotte Harris acted for others and a small group of other solicitors’ firms were also involved. Without reference to the paperwork I cannot remember the specific details, but Mr Pike referred me to various instances where it looked like information disclosed to Mr Lewis in one of his cases (including the Taylor case) was being deployed by Ms Harris in one of her cases and possibly vice versa. Mr Pike’s view, which I shared, was that this information-sharing was occurring in breach of professional conduct rules and/or rules of court. Mr Lewis and Ms Harris had previously worked together at George Davies.
We had also heard from two separate sources that Mr Lewis and Ms Harris had had or were having a romantic relationship. It seemed that any sort of evidence that they had such a relationship or evidence of transient or longer term co-habitation could be relevant circumstantially to a complaint of professional misconduct.
I raised the matter with the head of the News of the World’s news desk with a view to seeing whether it was practicable or possible for him to assign one of his journalists to ascertaining the nature of the relationship. He said he could get Derek Webb to have a look at Mr Lewis and Ms Harris in this context and I agreed with that course. There was never any suggestion that Mr Webb might also look at the families of either person. My understanding was that Mr Webb had worked for the News of the World regularly as an accredited freelance journalist and not as a “private investigator”.
To the best of my recollection I heard nothing back from the news desk executive for about three weeks and this was because Mr Webb had been busy for a while on other matters. He then produced a number of photographs which had apparently come back from Mr Webb. There were no pictures of either Mr Lewis or of Ms Harris. There were a number of pictures of a woman shopping at a garden centre. Since the woman was clearly not Ms Harris I pointed out to the news desk executive that there seemed to be have been a case of mistaken identity. Either then or very shortly afterwards, the executive asked if I thought he should send Mr Webb back for another try and I told him not to bother doing so.
Apart from the above I played no part in, nor was I aware of any surveillance of lawyers, Committee members, claimants or anyone else connected to the phone-hacking cases or inquiries.
I do not accept that I gave incorrect answers to Mr Watson in this area. There is a very clear difference between asking the newspaper’s news desk for help in gathering facts and commissioning private detectives. In Q1029 to Q1033 I made the distinction between a private investigator and freelance journalists and told the Committee that I had seen something about the private lives of two of the lawyers. The use of private detectives by our journalists (including news desk executives) was banned in early 2007. For what it is worth, I also do not accept that what I saw could properly be called a “dossier”.
(b)Please see a) above. I have no knowledge of that apart from what I have seen in media reports —which is very little.
3.I have nothing to change or add to what I have told the Committee on this subject.
In relation to your letter of November 22:
1.I am fairly certain that I provided Mr Myler with a copy of Mr Silverleaf’s opinion as soon as it reached me which I think was the afternoon of Tuesday 3 June, 2008. Since getting the written opinion was virtually the last thing we discussed before I left for a week’s holiday on Saturday, 24 May and the first thing he asked me about on the morning of my return to the office on Tuesday 3 June, I was keenly aware that he wished to see it. I note from the documents supplied to the Committee that I also pointed out Mr Myler’s keenness on getting counsel’s opinion in my last email to Mr Pike before going on holiday and that “wait for silk’s view” was part of what Mr Myler told Mr Pike on 27 May about his meeting/conversation with Mr Murdoch earlier that day.
2.I cannot remember whether I handed a copy of counsel’s opinion to Mr Murdoch when Mr Myler and I met him on June 10 or whether we simply briefed him on its contents. I suspect the latter, given the length of our meeting. I certainly went to the meeting with a spare copy of the written opinion for Mr Murdoch and would have offered it to him. If he was not given the copy it was because he asked to be briefed rather than reading it himself.
3.Unless NGN and Mr Clifford have agreed to waive legal professional privilege I am unable to answer most of the questions set out in points 3 to 15 of your letter. All I can say is that, to the best of my recollection, Mr Clifford did serve a Claim Form and Particulars and that I cannot remember whether NGN served a Defence.
1 December 2011
