Dan Evans is being described almost universally as a “former News of the World journalist” following the CPS’ decision to charge him with phone hacking this morning. Which is true, if slightly misleading. To what time period does that first hacking charge relate?
Charge 1:
Between 28 February 2003 and 1 January 2005, conspired with others to intercept communications in the course of their transmission, without lawful authority, namely the voicemail messages of well-known people and those associated with them.
Between 2003 and 2005 Evans was not working at the Screws, but at the Sunday Mirror. Who have always denied hacking ever happened…
It’s now been confirmed that Piers Morgan will be before Leveson’s show trial next week. Some weekend reading for Mr Jay:
The former Mirror and News of the World editor will be under oath. First question: “How do you explain how you came to be listening to Sir Paul McCartney’s voicemails?”
Which mid-market tabloid editor recently sat down with his whispering broadsheet rival and made it clear that unless the latter’s attacks on his paper were toned down, the broadsheet editor would soon be seeing the fact that he keeps his mistress on his staff in the pages of the said tabloid?
The circular firing squad is getting personal…
Further to Mark Kleinman’s whitewash scoop this morning, Sky News have been running this package, which will not make for comfortable viewing for Trinity Mirror execs:
In other news, it’s the first day of the Leveson Inquiry today. Surely just a coincidence…
Regular readers will recall how Guido often wonders how it is the Guardian gets their hacking scoops. Well it turns out their rivals and the Met itself have been wondering the very same thing…
This recent exchange between the Times’ Sean O’Neill and the BBC’s Gaetan Portal, who both cover crime, reveals their suspicions:
http://twitter.com/#!/GaetanPortal/status/104588299267608576
The proper source of information for journalists is of course the Met’s press bureau. The Indy’s Oliver Wright observes
http://twitter.com/#!/oliver_wright/status/104580767509786624
Lo and behold today a 51 year old police officer, working on the phone-hacking inquiry named Operation Weeting, was arrested and suspended for leaking to the Guardian. Given that David Leigh has already confessed to phone-hacking, the Guardian’s squeaky clean reputation is collapsing at a rapid speed. Was this blatant corruption of police integrity sanctioned?
Just last month the Guardian issued a lofty and updated guide to ethical standards for intruding into private matters, such as a police investigation, rule four stated: “There must be proper authority – any intrusion must be authorised at a sufficiently senior level and with appropriate oversight.”
Guido looks forward to Rusbridger’s imminent statement on what he knew and when…
Interesting to note that it’s the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal that is firing the latest shots across the Mirror Group’s bow. There is no doubt that the target of their story this morning was the former Screws editor Colin Myler, who not only questioned the Murdoch’s version of events, but conveniently edited the Sunday Mirror between 1998 and 2001. The paper hardly comes out of the story well though. The WSJ reports:
“In 2000, a reporter for the Sunday Mirror testified under oath that he paid £50, or about $82, to a police source in exchange for a tip about the arrest of the brother of a government minister, according to two lawyers for the plaintiff.”
The brother of Baroness Tessa Blackstone sued the Sunday Mirror over the alleged content of that tip, a case which the paper subsequently lost in 2000. They had to pay out £50,000 in damages and another quarter of a million in costs. That’s a pretty expensive bribe. Trinity Mirror Group continue to deny accusations of criminality, despite the confession of bribing cops being on oath…
