Today the PCC has published its biggest report so far since the new chairperson, the almost invisible Baroness Buscombe took over from bombastic banana skin skier Christopher Meyer.
As anyone who has watched this lily-livered organisation in action would expect, it manages no more than a pale watery light grey wash over the misdeeds of News International’s old harridan of a rag, the News of the World.
They are happy to publish the feeble denials issued by little Colin Myler, gibbering fall guy in the Screws post-Coulson era, over their hacking of the Princes’ voicemails.
Nick Davies at Mediaguardian isn’t quite right when he says today that it hadn’t been revealed before that the paper had hacked into the royal phones until Assistant Commissioner at the Met, John Yates, pressed by Adam Price, admitted it to the Culture, Media, Sport Committee on September 2nd.
In my book, News of the world? Fake Sheikhs & Royal Trappings, in May 2008, I refer to a story – “Fury after he ogled lapdancer’s boobs” – in which the paper produces a verbatim transcript of a jokey message left by Prince William on Prince Harry’s voicemail. I posited that, unless the paper had just made it up, the only way it could have been obtained the story was through illegal phone-tapping, and, while they are past-masters at creative embellishment, it was inconceivable that they would have risked making up a personal royal story like this.
Subsequent revelations about the timing of police investigations into the activities of News of the World royal editor, Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator contracted by the paper to gather information (although in this case, paid directly in cash by Goodman) have established that the Royal Household were aware of this reporter’s activities by the time the story was published, and therefore the message was likely to have been a kite deliberately flown to confirm their findings. From this, it was clear to anyone investigating events that the paper had indeed hacked the princes’ voicemails.
The PCC’s report on the subject doesn’t address the fact that the by-line on the “Lapdancer’s boobs” story was shared by Clive Goodman and Neville Thurlbeck, a senior reporter who has been involved in many different methods of gathering personal stories. Although in last year’s High Court hearing over Max Mosley’s claim against the paper, Thurlbeck denied that he had any idea where the Royal story had come from, it was beyond the credibility of most observers that he would have been unaware of the illegal manner in which the key element of the story had been acquired. Along with an email obtained and revealed by Nick Davies last July which directly implicated Thurlbeck, this more than suggests that Clive Goodman was by no means the only journalist on the News of the World involved in phone-hacking.
The PCC seem to have accepted the evidence given them by Colin Myler, the current editor, that the story which contained the transcript of a voicemail message was in fact a conversation. Although self-evidently not based on a ‘conversation’, had it been, the paper would have been guilty of an even more serious breach of privacy, by hacking into a live conversation. Presumably aware of this, Myler made the extraordinary claim that their source was not phone-hacking, but a dancer called Annabella at Spearmint Rhino. How she would have had access to a transcript of a phone conversation between the two princes is not explained. This is an entirely new version of the grounds on which the story was based. Certainly Neville Thurlbeck hadn’t thought of using it when questioned in the High Court last year.
Absurdly, though, the PCC has used this highly questionable evidence of Myler’s to discredit the Guardian’s report.

The PCC also omitted in their summary of evidence given to the CMS committee by Gordon Taylor’s lawyer, Mark Lewis, to pursue further his statement [quoted from CMS Com website]:
Detective Sergeant Mark Maberly said to me, “You are not having everything but we will give you enough on Taylor to hang them.” …… He also mentioned the number of people whose phones had been hacked….. they had found there were something like 6,000 people who were involved. It was not clear to me whether that was 6,000 phones which had been hacked, or 6,000 people including the people who had left messages.
The PCC didn’t contact or question DS Maberly. That the PCC in their attempt to discredit the Guardian’s report have chosen to ignore such clear evidence demonstrates once again their unfitness – or simple unwillingness – to carry out the function of press self-regulation for which they were set up.
They also showed an alarming lack of determination in failing to question Andy Coulson who was editor while all the royal phone hacking was going on – either now, or (because he had “left the industry”) after the conviction of Goodman. Given his extraordinary denial to the CMS committee last July that he knew anything about the story which had been flagged on the front page and filled page 7 of an edition that he had edited, it seems imprudent, to say the least, to have overlooked any part he might have played.

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The MPs on the Culture, Media, Sport Committee must have been asking themselves yesterday, what on earth a reasonable person could do when confronted with three hardened, well-rehearsed liars, all desperate to avoid having their collars felt?

Experienced interpreters of body-language can enjoy a revealing session by tuning into the video-archive of yesterday’s oral evidence in front of the CMS Committee in Portcullis House.

Andy Coulson – bullish, assertive, knowing his best defence is attack, with a dash of cheeky chappy charm.

Tom Crone – for once not so sure of his ground, nervously cutting in a little too quickly when little Colin Myler gets it wrong, with a giveaway sheen of sweat on the strong, ruddy features.

Stuart Kuttner – eau de nil, haunted, shaking like an aspen, fiddling, fiddling, picking up his water, putting it down undrunk, rearranging files and pens, moving his large spectacles from side to side – meaning, for those who speak body language, that he is shitting himself; that after an ignominious dismissal by … who? Which Mr Murdoch? … his long, wicked career at the Screws is well and truly on the skids.

Little Colin Myler doesn’t need to lie. He wasn’t there when events at the centre of this enquiry took place. [When he’d arrived, he did arrange a few training sessions in act-cleaning-up for his newsroom hacks. But did Mazhher Mahmood and Neville “Onan the Barbarian” Thurlbeck attend? From the continuing and relentless shoddiness of their output, it seems they were excused – or just weren’t paying attention.]  

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The difference between the popular press and the thinking-person’s press could not have been demonstrated more clearly than it was last Tuesday in evidence given to the House of Commons Culture Media Sport Committee in the Inquiry into Press Standards.

The Tabloids, Red Tops and Shag Rags were represented by little Colin Myler, Scouser and former editor of the Liverpool Catholic Pictorial (I mention this only to demonstrate how far the man’s standards have fallen) who is now editor of the News of the Screws, the nadir of British journalism. At his side was the legal artful dodger, Tom Crone who as the paper’s busy in-house lawyer for a quarter of a century has been ducking writs issued by members of the public whose lives it has set out to destroy. Myler thinks that the public has no fundamental right to privacy. The News of the World had a string of successful actions brought against it last year for invasion of privacy – and not a word of remorse did Myler express for the damage they caused the victims.

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Next Tuesday (May 5th) News of the World editor, little Colin Myler is summoned to give evidence to the Culture Media Sport Committee Inquiry into Press Standards, Privacy & Libel.

Last week they had the Mail’s Paul Dacre and this week, Peter Hill from the Express, in fine displays of obfuscation, filibustering, disingenuousness and downright lying. (Did Dacre really not know that his paper was the first, cruelly, to reveal the whereabouts of much traumatised Elisabeth Fritzl? I don’t think so. Do you?)

Little Colin is not as muscular and perhaps a tad more troubled by his Catholic conscience than the hard-hearted Mail and Express men. Lucky for him, Tom Crone, leading in-house lawyer to the Wapping hackery is coming along to Westminster, too, to hold his hand, and no doubt, jump in to stifle him if he feels a sudden rush of truth coming on, or to protect him if things get too tough.

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Yesterday I wrote about the News of the Screws feeble effort to put the boot in while the Shadow C of the E was down. I mentioned that their story of Osborne and the alleged hooker, Natalie Rowe had first appeared three years ago. I failed to mention my other well-documented theory that this first story – when Andy Coulson was editor – was in fact a subtle piece of spin to suggest that the otherwise saintly and over-squeaky-clean young prodigy did in fact have a human side to him. I still believe that.

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