For those of you who are interested in this type of thing:

• First Witness Statement Regarding Campbell Evidence Leak
• Second Witness Statement
• Oral transcripts
• Video Morning | Afternoon

Incidentally the allegations made today under privilege have been made previously without the protections of privilege. Nobody has sued.

Lord Hunt, Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, was a charmer when Guido met him last November. He claimed to be a fan and said his kids printed out the profane comments from a previous Guido blog piece about him and stuck them on his fridge. The meeting followed some comments he made suggesting that blogs were a regulatory problem. This blogger thinks statutory regulations are a problem.

It was reported that Lord Hunt told the Leveson Inquiry last week that we had a “very good” discussion and Guido told him that what he writes is “always accurate”. Guido recalls, more precisely, that he said this blog always strives for accuracy.

It was also reported that Guido “promised to go away and consider” being kitemarked under the new beefed up PCC successor. It is true to say that when pressed Guido may have told Lord Hunt that he would consider it, not saying “no” there and then. It is however a very definite no to kitemarking, or any other form of self-censorship.

This blog aims to amuse, inform and entertain our readers, reporting the truth as we see it. That sentence is this blog’s entire code of conduct.

The former Mirror journalist whose testimony will painful to watch for Piers Morgan will be before Leveson on Wednesday morning. The day after Morgan.

In July Hipwell spoke out of his time at Morgan’s Mirror:

“I used to see it going on around me all the time when I worked at the Daily Mirror. I sat right next to the show business desk and there were some show biz reporters who did it as a matter of course, as a basic part of their working day. One of their bosses would wander up and instruct a reporter to `trawl the usual suspects’, which meant going through the voice messages of celebrities and celebrity PR agents. For everyone to pretend that this is some isolated activity found only at the News of the World is ridiculous, it’s just a lie.”

Said Showbiz Editor was one Mr. Richard Wallace who is also expected to give evidence this week. He is now the Mirror’s editor…

See also: Ex-Mirror Journalist Puts Morgan’s Denial in Doubt and Mirror Journo Speaks Out Against Morgan’s Version of Events

UPDATE: Sky’s digital-guru Neal Mann scooped Guido by about eight seconds. He’s pretty grumpy about this.

At the height of the phone-hacking scandal, backbench Tory MP Dominic Raab took to the Huffington Post to pen a passionate defence of the freedom of the press:

“Above all, we need to preserve the rule of law, hold those in authority to account and defend free speech… the Press Complaints Commission has been discredited. A stronger mechanism of oversight, at arms-length from politicians and the media, is needed. But, that is not the same as calling for tighter legal restrictions on reporters.”

Given his clearly deep rooted convictions about  the ability to scrutinise those in power, you might well ask why Raab is trying to gag a former colleague in the High Court under the guise of suing the Mail on Sunday for libel.

In Court 14 last Thursday, Raab’s lawyers pleaded to Justice Tugendhat that the now MP’s  former colleague in the office of David Davis, who can only be named as “Miss E”, should be gagged and banned from passing a Witness Statement about his behaviour, produced for her Industrial Tribunal, to Associated Newspapers. The Mail on Sunday ran a story last year that Raab had been accused of being a “sexist bully” by “Miss E”, resulting in a £20,000 settlement paid to her and a confidentially agreement before an Employment Tribunal hearing in 2007. Ever since then Raab has been on the warpath; he is suing Associated for damages, but crucially he is trying to silence the one person who could determine whether the original story is true. By gagging “Miss E” Raab is essentially preventing the libel aspect of his claim being fairly judged on the evidence of her Witness Statement.

The whole thing smells rather fishy, not least the part about needing the gag because of the “huge emotional hurt” that the black-belt wearing Karate champion and boxing MP says he is going through.  Raab’s lawyers claimed that if “Miss E” speaks then the original confidentiality agreement between Davis, Raab and her is null and void so she will have to pay back the money. Her lawyers cited ”increasingly threatening emails” in court.

Such is the sensitivity around it all that Guido had to go down to the Royal Courts of Justice himself to get his own Court Order last Thursday in order to get third party access to the papers relating to the case. Justice Tugendhat has reserved judgement to a later date…

Such is the sorry state of the freedom of the press nowadays that the newspapers are cowed by politicians from reporting their murky goings on for fear of statutory repercussions. Guido is still not able to tell you what he was going to tell Lord Justice Leveson in his own evidence to the inquiry because he has been restricted by him from saying what an ass Leveson had made of himself…

So after Guido having instructed solicitor Robert Dougans of Bryan Cave to formally submit a Witness Statement to Lord Justice Leveson, as so compelled under threat of imprisonment, Lord Justice Leveson now says he is discharging Guido from appearing tomorrow. Well Guido had a lot to say.

It is almost as if they are embarrassed at the string of cock-ups. First of all no crime has been committed. The evidence was not restricted until after it was published. Some might think that an inquiry into matters like press hacking and privacy should be careful to protect itself from press leaks.

Alastair Campbell went from “shocked” on Sunday at his draft evidence leaking to the media to explaining this morning that actually he had emailed his dodgy document to a few journalists, politicians and friends. How shocking to discover that there was no WMD it leaked.

So all that dark guff about the Leveson Inquiry’s computer security being compromised turned out to be rubbish and Alastair Campbell is shown to be a disingenuous manipulator, again. Oh, and under the terms of the Restriction Order Guido is not allowed to tell you what he was going to tell the judge in his Witness Statement tomorrow. Suffice to say Guido was refusing point blank to reveal his source’s name. Maybe Guido should just email it to a few close journalist friends…

The judge in the Katia Zatuliveter case says she was prone to what “was little more than a late teenage crush”. Not the first time the self-confessed teen fondler has got himself in that situation…

This was sent to a co-conspirator in response to a question as to why Tom Watson MP isn’t in trouble:

Thank you for your email.

The Inquiry is satisfied that Mr Watson obtained his version of the statement from the Guido Fawkes website, rather than through other means. As soon as Mr Watson became aware that the Inquiry had not released the statement formally, he removed it from his website. He has apologised to Lord Justice Leveson and to Alastair Campbell and the Inquiry does not, therefore, intend to take this any further.

Kind regards,
The Leveson Inquiry Team

The Guardian’s legal eagle Joshua Rozenberg has written an article which is supportive, and reckons Leveson was wrong on the law.

He might say that, but Guido couldn’t possibly comment…

from	Guy Fawkes guido.fawkes@order-order.com
to		generalenquiries@levesoninquiry.org.uk, john.toker@levesoninquiry.gsi.gov.uk
date		Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 9:47 AM
subject		Request for Service
mailed-by		gmail.com

Dear Sirs,

Yesterday afternoon I became aware, via calls from journalists, that an order had been made against me. As I told the journalists and is widely reported this morning, I had not received any such order at that time.

Last night a tweet by the BBC’s Ross Hawkins directed me to the Inquiry website where I found a copy of the order. I also understand there is a notice, which I have yet to receive.

On the front page of my blog, in large type, my email, phone and fax numbers are clearly displayed. Could I politely request that service is effected by either email or fax as set out below.

Pending sight of the notice which will enable me to get legal advice, late last night I removed the statements by Alastair Campbell from my website. This is in no way an admission of any kind nor is it an acceptance of jurisdiction.

Paul Staines
Editor Guido Fawkes’ Blog
Guido.Fawkes@Order-Order.com

www.Order-Order.com

Voicemail 0709 284 0531 Facsimile 0709 201 2337

UPATE 10.15:  Have now been served via email. Apparently they in their wisdom served the papers yesterday on Harriman House Publishing, the 2007 publishers of the The Big Red Book of New Labour Sleaze edited by Guido and Iain Dale. Now out of print alas…

Until seeing this tweet a few minutes ago from the BBC’s political correspondent, Ross Hawkins, Guido had not seen the restriction order.

The #leveson ruling designed to make @GuidoFawkes remove draft @campbellclaret witness statement just published here levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/upl…—
Ross Hawkins (@rosschawkins) November 28, 2011

There are phone and fax numbers plus an email address clearly indicated in the right hand column below. As this goes to pixel there has been no service of the order communicated by those means…

UPDATE: Bad Al still complaining about headlines. Once a spin doctor…

Genuinely shocked someone has seen fit to leak my statement to Leveson. Less surprised that Guido Fawkes headline misrepresents it—
Alastair Campbell (@campbellclaret) November 27, 2011