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Phone hacking: key passages from James Murdoch’s testimony to MPs

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In his evidence to the culture and media select committee last month, James Murdoch said News International had become aware that hacking extended beyond a single rogue reporter only at the end of 2010, more than three and a half years after the former royal reporter Clive Goodman wrote in a letter to the company that knowledge and practice of hacking was widespread at the paper.


Here are some key passages from Murdoch’s testimony to MPs. You can read them in conjunction with the Goodman letter here. It is not yet known if Murdoch was aware of the existence of the Goodman letter, or its contents.

James Murdoch: The statement around the closure of the News of the World newspaper, where I stated that we – the company – had not been in full possession of the facts when certain statements were made to this committee, was referring to the emergence of new facts, largely that came about at the end of 2010, as the due process of a number of civil trials reached the point where document disclosure and evidence disclosure made it apparent to the company and to myself at that time that indeed there was reason to believe that potentially more people had been involved in News of the World illegal voicemail interceptions from before. That was new evidence or new information at the time, which postdated the 2009 hearings and that is what I was referring to.

Subsequent to our discovery of that information in one of the civil trials at the end of 2010, which I believe was the Sienna Miller case – a civil trial around illegal voicemail interceptions – the company immediately went to look at additional records around the individual involved. We alerted – the company alerted the police, who restarted on that basis the investigation that is now under way, and since then the company has admitted liability to victims of illegal voicemail interceptions, has apologised unreservedly, which I repeat today, to those victims, and the company also set up a compensation scheme independently managed by a former high court judge to be able to deal with legitimate claims from victims of those terrible incidents of voicemail interceptions.

Those are the actions that were taken as soon as the new evidence emerged. When I made the statement about not being in full possession of the facts, it was of those facts that at that point were still in the future, and in the due process of the civil trial – the civil litigation process – evidence really emerged for us, and we acted. The company acted as swiftly and as transparently as possible.

Chair: When this committee took evidence in 2009, we heard from the managing editor of the News of the World, Stuart Kuttner; the legal manger of News International, Tom Crone; the News of the World editor, Colin Myler; the former editor, Andy Coulson; and Les Hinton, the former chairman of News International. All of them told us that there had been a thorough investigation and no evidence had ever been found that anybody else was involved. That clearly was not correct. Were any of them lying to this committee?

Murdoch: Mr Chairman, the company relied on three things for a period of time up until the new evidence emerged. The company relied on a police investigation in 2007; I will recount this to try to take us back to that area. This is before I was involved. I became involved in News Corporation and News International matters at the end of 2007. In the 2007 period, there was a police investigation; successful prosecutions were brought against two individuals, and the editor of the News of the World resigned.

The company relied on both the police having closed the investigation and repeated assertions that there was no new evidence for them to reopen their investigation. The company relied on the PCC [Press Complaints Commission], which had had a report and had said that there was nothing more to this at the time. The company relied on the legal opinion of outside counsel that was brought in related to those matters, who, with respect to their review, had issued a clear opinion that there was no additional illegality other than the two individuals involved before. The company relied on those facts, and for the company in 2008 and 2009, it was not clear that there was a reason to believe that those matters were anything other than settled matters, and in the past.

Chair: So is it your testimony to this committee that none of the individuals who gave us evidence in 2009 knew at that time what had been going on?

Murdoch: I do not have direct knowledge of what they knew and at what time, but I can tell you that the critical new facts, as I saw them and as the company saw them, really emerged in the production of documentary information or evidence in the civil trials at the end of 2010. The duration from 2007 to the end of 2010 and the length of time it took for that to come clear and for that real evidence to be there is a matter of deep frustration – mine. I have to tell you that I know and I sympathise with the frustration of this committee. It is a matter of real regret that the facts could not emerge and could not be gotten to my understanding faster.

Paul Farrelly: The proceedings by Goodman and Mulcaire for unfair dismissal, notwithstanding their criminal conviction, clearly never saw the light of day because they were settled beforehand, so we do not know what they were planning to serve on you. Do you know what sorts of allegations they were making? We can only imagine that they were saying that such-and-such a person knew and such-and-such a person knew. Have you satisfied yourself about what allegations they were making?

Murdoch: Many of the individuals you mentioned are currently subject to criminal investigation and some of them have been arrested recently. These are important matters for the police. It is important that I do not stray into or that I am not led into commenting specifically about individuals or allegations made in the past.

Paul Farrelly: The question was whether you had satisfied yourself about what Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were alleging in the discussions and negotiations that led up to the settlements, if they brought industrial tribunal proceedings against you. That was the question: not about what they were alleging, but whether you have satisfied yourself about what they were alleging.

Murdoch: As to Glenn Mulcaire, I am not aware of allegations at the time and other things. As to Goodman – again, this was in 2007, before I was there – it is my understanding that that is what Harbottle & Lewis were helping to deal with, and that that opinion did satisfy the company at the time and we, the company, rested on that opinion for a period of time.

Read More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/16/phone-hacking-james-murdoch-testimony

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