Some at the 'News of the World' were relieved three years ago when only one of its journalists was jailed for tapping phones, but the issue is now coming back to haunt the tabloids, the Metropolitan Police and the Conservative Party, writes MARK HENNESSY, London Editor
ON THE NIGHT of a Fleet Street awards ceremony in 2002, flushed on the fruits of an evening of banter and cruelly delivered sarcasm, a tabloid-newspaper executive gave a speech that mocked a mobile-phone company's poorly secured voicemail service for leading to a string of stories about show-business celebrities. His remarks raised few eyebrows on the night. Indeed, one newspaper diarist wrote a jocose, rather knowing remark about it. But the situation became serious in 2006 once News of the World's royal editor, Clive Goodman, who had been helped by a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, was charged with conspiracy to access voicemail messages.
Today a controversy believed dormant has erupted back into life, threatening the stability of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Fresh allegations claim that Andy Coulson, who resigned as editor of News of the Worldbecause of the scandal, and is now David Cameron's top media adviser, knew of the tapping despite his denials at the time.
MPs are baying for blood. Labour wants Coulson's head because it believes the News of the Worldinvaded the privacy of some of its senior members, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and former minister Chris Bryant – and because it is determined to damage the coalition, which is still enjoying a honeymoon with the electorate.
Politicians from all parties are also keen to take revenge on the media generally, after the torrent of abuse that MPs faced during the Commons expenses scandal last year, much of which they believe was unfair, exaggerated and malicious. Tom Watson, a Labour MP, perhaps best captured their feelings during a debate on Thursday, saying: “They, the barons of the media, with their red-topped assassins, are the biggest beasts in the modern jungle. They have no predators. They are untouchable. They laugh at the law. They sneer at parliament. They have the power to hurt us, and they do, with gusto and precision, with joy and criminality. Prime ministers before them. And that is how they like it. That, indeed, has become how they insist upon it. And we are powerless in the face of them. And we are afraid. And if we oppose this resolution , it is our shame. That is the tawdry secret that dare not speak its name.”
Watson received substantial compensation last year from the Sun, News of the World's sister title, after he was falsely accused of involvement in a Labour smear campaign.
Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 for intercepting messages for three members of staff at Buckingham Palace. Mulcaire was also separately convicted of unlawfully intercepting the voicemail of five other people: football agent Sky Andrew, publicist Max Clifford, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes, supermodel Elle Macpherson and Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive Gordon Taylor. Both Goodman and Mulcaire have served their time and are now free.
But the Metropolitan Police’s investigation could have cast its net much wider. Mulcaire’s files held the details of 2,000 people, and Mark Lewis, the solicitor who acted for Taylor, believes that up to 6,000 people were targeted. None of them was told by the police that their phones may have been tapped.
News of the Worldis believed to have paid more than £1 million (€1.2 million) in compensation to Taylor, his legal adviser Jo Armstrong, and a third person who has never been identified. All three signed confidentiality agreements, and News of the Worldasked the court to seal the case files to ensure that no details ever emerged.
The Metropolitan Police later admitted, in response to a freedom-of-information request from the Guardiannewspaper, that voicemail access codes were listed alongside the names of 91 people mentioned in files seized from Mulcaire, though it added that this did not prove the Pin numbers were accurate; nor did it cover people who left their Pins on their phones' default 0000 setting.
Mulcaire posed as a credit controller to trick mobile-phone companies into switching users’ Pins back to 0000, thereby allowing Goodman to listen to the messages. Junior staff transcribed them. The con was surprisingly easy to carry out, and lots of evidence suggests that Mulcaire was but one of scores of private investigators offering such services to Fleet Street newspapers. Everyone now insists that it no longer happens.
Brought before the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, executives from Rupert Murdoch's News International, the parent company of News of the Worldand the Sun, insisted that Goodman had acted alone and that nobody on the Sunday tabloid had been aware of his links to Mulcaire. By then, Coulson had quit the paper, later re-emerging as Cameron's £400,000-a-year adviser as the Conservatives prepared their campaign for Downing Street.
After disclosure of the compensation payments to Taylor and the others, the House of Commons committee reopened its inquiry last year, demanding the presence of Goodman and Mulcaire, along with a number of News of the Worldwitnesses and Rebekah Brooks, who had moved from editing the Sunto become News International's chief executive.By then it had also emerged that News International had made payments to Goodman and Mulcaire. "The News of the Worldand its parent companies did not initially volunteer the existence of pay-offs to Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, and their evidence has been contradictory. We do not know the amounts, or terms, but we are left with a strong impression that silence has been bought," the committee said in its findings.
Faced with the mood of the House of Commons, the British government supported a motion calling for a new inquiry by the more powerful Standards and Privileges Committee, although by doing so it has ensured that the pressure on Coulson to quit could become unstoppable, which might badly damage David Cameron in the process.
Rebekah Brooks refused to appear before the culture and media committee, but this time MPs are determined to put her in the spotlight – though Tom Watson, unrealistically, argued that Rupert Murdoch should also be ordered to turn up.
The Standards and Privileges Committee can compel witnesses to appear, though it would have to go back to the Commons to seek powers to force attendance by anyone who refused. “Its powers are untrammelled in that regard,” says a Commons official.
For now, Cameron is standing by Coulson, and many Conservatives are criticising the Labour-led attacks as politically inspired. But Coulson knows that press officers become expendable once they begin to dominate the headlines. And the Commons inquiry to come means he is set to do exactly that.
