Peter Burden » Max Clifford

Will Nicola See It Through?

Peter — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:57:41 +0000

The last time a High Court judge ordered Glenn Mulcaire and the Met to produce disclosures about their part in the Coulson/Screws phone-hacking saga, they were let off the hook when Max Clifford, whose lawyers had asked for them, accepted the tainted Murdoch shilling (and the rest) and dropped his claim.

If his assistant, Nicola Phillips, now suing the Screws for the same thing, sees it through and it is confirmed that Ian Edmondson, senior news editor under Andy Coulson, specifically ordered the targeting of her voice-mail, the Screws and Coulson and, by extension, the Prime Minister will have a lot of egg on their visages. However, the judge is unlikely to award her more than a miserable £20K – £30k for the personal affront of having her voice-mails recorded on the paper’s behalf by Glenn Mulcaire.

But past events suggest that the Screws will make her a much larger offer. We can only hope that she has the principles, the bollocks and enough collateral support to see the case through, because I’m not so sure that George Galloway will when his case reaches this stage.

MAX AND THE SCREWS KISS AND MAKE UP

Peter — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:24:44 +0000

Max Clifford has made up with the News of the World after a four year tiff. He originally fell out with the Screws (when Andy Coulson was editor) over their rough treatment of someone called Kerry Katona (remember her?), who was then (but not now) his client. Posing as a white knight for that sad individual must have been a tricky position to maintain. I dare say Mr C is glad to have £1m gift from the paper as an excuse to climb down. (I’m told the Screws are still the best payers for celebrity trivia.)
A publicity agent like Max Clifford being paid a million quid by a Sunday newspaper is a very big story – but it doesn’t feature much in some papers.
Coverage in The Times – 0 words
The Sun – 0 words
Are they asleep on the news desks at Wapping.

MAX SETTLES FOR MURDOCH’S MILLION.

Peter — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:21:09 +0000

Max Clifford has accepted £1m in what is described not as compensation for invasion of privacy (which is what it is) but as “costs” and a “personal payment” from the News of the World. A Court Order rescinding the Feb 3rd request for disclosure by Mulcaire and of the Screws’ settlement with Gordon Taylor, also states that there shall be no order as to costs, and makes no mention of a settlement, which effectively allows the Screws to deny any wrongdoing, despite this massive pay out to avoid having to make the potentially catastrophic disclosures ordered at the request of Clifford’s lawyers.

No wonder the deal has taken so long to work out, with all this give and take, though it seems likely, with Max holding the whip hand, and Ol’ Rumplechops hopping around in New York, worried shitless about the truth coming out, that he could have held out for a great deal more. After all, Les Hinton was in charge of News International at the time of their Royal phone hacking debacle, and there are few who doubt he knew what was going on, at leat as much as managing editor Stuart Kuttner (who master-minded the scheme), head of legals, Tom Crone and Andy Coulson, who was editor at the time. This is a big problem for Murdoch who is desperate to be perceived as a respectable, major player in New York, as the proprietor of the pre-eminent Wall Street Journal, which Les Hinton now fronts up for Rupert.

I understand that everyone has their price, as Rupert knows well. Since the Royal phone-hacking prosecution revealed five more victims, the Screws have already paid off Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, the hacks who’d been hung out to dry. They have also given a fat fee to Elle Macpherson for an interview (by Sarah Brown, for heaven’s sake!) in their “Crapulous!” magazine, in which pages are devoted to plugging her range of knickers. They’ve paid Gordon Taylor and his minions c £1m in costs and damages.

But a lot of us were hoping Max would abide by his pledge, issued when he launched his claim against the Screws, that his principal aim was to uncover the Truth. He didn’t especially need the money (and anyway said he would give any proceeds of the suit to children’s health charities.) If he hadn’t take Rupert’s tainted money and persisted with his claim, and won (which he almost certainly would have done), he’d have been lucky to be awarded £30K – £50K, but the News of the World, the Metropolitan Police and Glenn Mulcaire would have been forced to produce details which would have had disastrous effects, possibly leading to widened charges over the original phone-hacking crimes.

So, the Murdoch’s have sort of got away with it this time (for a £1m + their own costs), but the temptation for the growing number of confirmed Screws’ targets to ask for more of the same has been magnified. It only needs one whose sense of public duty outstrips their own greed to go all the way, and force them to throw into the public domain details of endemic illegal news-gathering.

And back in Romania, Albania, and probably still in London,too, is a band of men who have been falsely accused, imprisoned on remand and subsequently acquitted as a result of fabricated stories cobbled together by disgraced Screws Investigations Editor, Mazher Mahmood. In the currrent climate, these victims of the Screws’ outrageous attitude to Truth and Justice could offer a profitable project for a good, hungry lawyer.

AC/DC – A SHOCKING MESS. Andy Coulson/ David Cameron

Peter — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:14:44 +0000

While I applaud John Whittingdale and the Culture Media Sport Committee for their work on making the libel courts a level field of play and for proposing a set of effective teeth for the clapped out PCC, I have to ask myself why in this morning’s Guardian, Whittingdale downplays the importance of their having doggedly pursued the truth about the Screws’ phone-hacking scandal and identified the possibility that senior executives on a paper in Britain’s largest group of national titles may have been complicit, thereby liable to the legal penalties of those who were charged and jailed for phone-hacking.
You wouldn’t have too be much of a cynic to think it likely that people from Conservative Central Office have been leaning on the (minority) Tory members of the committee to leave Andy Coulson alone.
But it would be far safer, in the long run, for senior Tories to ask Coulson to step down, at least until every last investigation has taken place, than to let him stay until they are indelibly tainted by his presence. After all, he hasn’t been doing such a great job with the leader’s image over the last month or so.
With so many Screws’ phone-hacking victims waiting in the wings to sue (and there are hundreds of them), there’s a very good chance that – sooner or later - one of the targets won’t be fobbed off, as I hear Max Clifford will be, with a large purse of gold.

Another confirmed phone-hacking vicitm who won’t be calling in the services of the High Court is Aussie super-body, Elle Macpherson. Why would she, when the Screws , in their tacky little Sunday mag, CRAPULOUS generously gave her a multi-page spread , with an elaborate photo-shoot and a healthy number of name checks for her range of knickers – Elle Macpherson Intimates? (There – she just got another one!)
I dare say Ole Rumplechops (who’s right on top of this potentially disastrous embarrassment), encouraged a large ‘expenses’ cheque for her, too – almost certainly more than she’d have got from Mr Justice Eady for Invasion of Privacy (Max Mosely only got £60K by going to court, but the Screws paid c.£800k to make Gordon Taylor and his friends go away.) Max Clifford won’t come cheap, either. So the Screws may not have been nicked (yet) but it’s costing them plenty to keep out of the High Court, where they’d have to reveal all sorts of nasties. Poor Ole Rumplechops – throwing all that money away when he’s so close to retirement.

Pursuing the truth to the end will take strong principles and big bollocks –
Who’s got ‘em?
Lembit Opik? Not really.
Boris Johnson? I doubt it.
Tessa Jowell? Who knows? (David Mills might.)
George Galloway? Let’s hope so.

The Screws may hurl purses of gold at Max Clifford, to stop him asking embarrassing questions……

Peter — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:41:02 +0000

Tomorrow, Thursday 18th, Max Clifford’s lawyers were due in the High Court to request disclosure by the Metropolitan Police of all documents seized by them as they raided the offices of Screws’ investigator, Glenn Mulcaire when they arrested him in Aug 2006.
BUT, the hearing is not now listed.
Nor has the paper complied with an order in the High Court to disclose (by earlier this week) the terms of their agreement with Gordon Taylor when they gave him £700k+ after he pursued them for invasion of privacy by hacking his phones (although they still deny anyone in the paper knew). Nor has co-defendant, Glenn Mulcaire, as ordered by the court, disclosed the names of the paper’s management who ordered him to hack into Clifford’s voicemail (for which he has already been convicted.)
Could it be that the Screws would rather sign a very large cheque then reveal precisely who in the paper knew about the extensive phone hacking that’s come to light? After all….. how much can it be worth to avoid the risk of former editors going to jail for conspiring to offend under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000)?
And they’d have to pay Max Clifford a great deal more than the Court would award to make him drop a claim which he’s looking forward to pursuing.

Just as alarming is the demeanour of the Met, who seem determined not to assist anyone in establishing the truth, including the Commons CMS Committee. To say that Asst. Commissioner John Yates was economical with the truth when being questioned by the committee, would be to put it politely.
AND NOW… after all the rubbish press – the ShagRags and Arse-Wipers – have said they were cleaning up their act in the wake of the Screws’ blatant misbehaviour, someone’s been at it again. A Certain Footballer’s former lover has been told officially within the last fortnight that her voicemail and that of sympathetic friends have been accessed …….

WAS IT THE SCREWS, AGAIN?
Watch out for stories this Sunday with signs of phone hacking (as well as the usual hackery).
I hope to reveal more soon……..

In the High Court: Clifford:3 – Screws:0

Peter — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:53:42 +0000

Max Clifford’s legal team, barrister Jeremy Reed, and solicitor Charlotte Harris (bright and sexy in six inch heels) on Wednesday gave the News of the World a good trouncing in the first skirmish of a High Court battle over the paper’s (one is supposed to say “alleged”) raid on the formidable publicist’s voicemail. This represents another step closer to the truth, which the paper has been desperately trying to hide, about the way their journalists have been systemically, and with the full knowledge of management, breaking the law to discover personal details of celebrities and thereby create invasive, damaging stories about them which are of no public interest. Significantly, so far, only the Guardian has chosen to report this result.
Clifford’s lawyers had asked for and were granted by Mr Justice Vos three specific orders for disclosure – despite the Screws’ peevish objections.
       First, they required Glenn Mulcaire, the investigator responsible for accessing Clifford’s voicemails, to disclose which individual or individuals (editor at the time: slippery spinner, Andy Coulson) asked/ suggested/ ordered him to perform this illegal act, which was included in his conviciton after he pleaded guilty 3 years ago to hacking into the Royal Household phones.
       Mulcaire, second defendant, has also already admitted Max Clifford’s claim, but, as his counsel explained, the father of five children under 16 is out of work (having made known his intention not to return to the snooping game) and living on job-seekers’ allowance. Even taking that with a hefty helping of sodium chloride, the judge might well have asked who was paying his legal bills, and how he would pay any damages awarded against him. But then, it’s not inconceivable that the paper is picking up these tabs – especially if it was they who got him into trouble in the first place by pressurising him to do what he did. If this is so, though, it would undoubtedly make some people think that the way he frames his responses might be influenced by News Group’s support. The paper’s bosses would probably like him to say that he was on a fishing expedition on his own account, and luckily stumbled across messages left by (and the mobile nos. of) several of Mr C’s hapless, high profile clients, and passed them to the lucky hacks without saying where or how he found them.
       He’s also been asked to reveal to whom he passed the contents of any voicemails acquired by him from this source, and to name anyone whom he might have instructed on how to access the voicemails themselves. The judge accepted the absolute necessity of this, and ordered that this information be made available to the claimants within 14 days.

Clifford’s counsel also requested that the News of the World release details of the secret settlement they reached out of court with Professional Footballers’ Association boss, Gordon Taylor for invading his privacy by accessing his voicemails (to which Mulcaire had also pleaded guilty). And the court was treated to the strange sight of Taylors’ brief, Manual Barker standing alongside counsel for the Screws, who only last year had to pay Taylor £700k+ for their crimes. Now both parties were intent – for their differing reasons – on not letting the public see what they had agreed. The judge sensibly granted that while private details of Gordon Taylor’s messages which the paper had illegally acquired should remain secret, the terms and conditions and, significantly – the sums paid by the paper in recompense should be released to the claimant’s lawyers under strict terms of confidentiality.
Thirdly he ordered that the Information Commissioner’s Office should be allowed to release (which they have asserted they are happy to do) all data, files and documents accumulated during their investigation into illicit information gathering which resulted in the 2006 report, What Price Privacy, specifically those relating to News of the World journalists. The Screws claimed this was irrelevant, because it contained no information on phone hacking; Clifford’s lawyers said it would help to establish that there was an endemic culture of illegal information gathering at the newspaper, and how phone hacking was a natural extension of the activities in which they’d been engaged for years.

Next time….
Clifford asks the Metropolitan Police to release the stack of documents they took from Mulcaire’s office when they arrested him in August 2006.

Will the Murdochs have to open their Wallets – again – for Max Clifford

Peter — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:25:02 +0000

News International boss, Rebekah Brooks has stamped her little foot, shaken her ginger curls and says she jolly well won’t go to the Houses of Parliament to tell the Culture, Media & Sport Committee that everyone in Wapping knew who was engaged in illegal “news” gathering. Pity, because she could also have told them why managing editor and senior spell-binder at the Screws, Stuart Kuttner was sacked last summer, just when the Guardian broke the story of the Screws’ out of court settlement with Gordon Taylor for hacking into his voicemails.
She might have been able to explain why, without any of the management at the paper (they say) being aware of phone hacking by Glenn Mulcaire, they thought they were liable for what Mulcaire had done without their knowlegde or involvement. After all the paper’s head legal honcho, Tom Crone suggested to the Committee last July that Mulcaire was working for other papers. On that basis, he could have hacked Gordon’s phone on behalf of the Sunday Mirror or one of the Dirty Des rags. If they didn’t even know it was going on – and they categorically denied that they did – why should they have coughed up before Gordon Taylor even got them to court?
But the police had an email which made it clear that a transcript of Mulcaire’s interceptions on Taylor’s phone had been made by Screws reporter, Ross Hindley (AKA: Ross Hall) for senior shag hack, Neville “Onan the Barbarian” Thurlbeck. (You might ask why the police didn’t pursue this prima facie evidence of law-breaking at the Screws by people other than fall guys Goodman and Mulcaire.)
Maybe Kuttner’s firing was a response by James Murdoch, his ultimate boss in the UK, to the increasing filthiness of the paper’s reputation under Kuttner’s regime and the vast sums of money gushing down the Screws loos, thanks to pay-offs to Max Mosley, Gordon Taylor, Barry George and even £800K to one of their own, maligned ex-employees, Matt Driscoll (to name a few of many, not to mention Goodman and Mulcaire). And shortly they may well have to dig deep for veteran media warrior, Max Clifford, whose case against the paper for invasion of privacy gets underway early next month (if the paper doesn’t settle before). It seems unlikely, though, that Max Clifford would be ready to sign a non-disclosure agreement, like the one Taylor did. So maybe the paper will be forced to take its chances in court, where Clifford’s lawyers (and the intelligent press) will have a field day. I can’t wait.
Who’s next?

PCC’S PETA GETS HER SHOW ON THE ROAD WITH A ‘FUCK’.

Peter — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:47:52 +0000

Baroness Peta Buscombe, the newish boss of the Press Complaints Commission, made an unfortunate choice over the timing of her first set-piece gig. Last April, after much searching, she was appointed to the PCC Chair after a string of rumpuses had been mismanaged by her predecessor, renowned downhill banana-skin skier, Sir Christopher Meyer, since when she has pragmatically maintained an almost undetectable profile. She must have told her colleagues and members of the commission that she’d like to take a little time to bed into the job and learn what it was about before delivering her mission statement.
The occasion chosen for this formal spout was the annual conference of the Society of Editors last weekend, and it was bad luck for her that it happened so soon after the body she heads had loudly hammered in one of the last few nails needed to seal its own coffin.
Only a week before, she’d put her name to one of the most pusillanimous, cringe-making, Murdoch-arse-licking reports that the PCC has delivered to date, unequivocally supporting the cabal of evil, mendacious men who run – or, in the case of Stuart Kuttner, used to run – the News of the World, while at the same time trying desperately to rubbish the irrefutable and damning evidence of an investigative reporter on a paper that still has an interest in delivering the truth – evidence which, when offered to members of the Commons Culture Media Sport Committee, left them in no doubt that they were being lied to.
(I’ve previously referred more than once to the spectacle of former Screws editor, Andy Coulson leafing through a copy of the paper, telling his questioners that he has no recollection whatever of a story, flagged on the front page of an issue of the paper that he’d edited, occupying the whole of Page 7, depicting a verbatim transcript of a message left by one prince on another prince’s voicemail, knowing that not a single person in the Wilson Room in Portcullis House, or viewing the session on Parliament TV, or in the evening news broadcasts would believe him, a which point you had to conclude that here is a youngish man who sees his whole future in jeopardy if he breaks and admits to a scintilla of knowledge of the phone-hacking that was involved in acquiring the story.)
   So, at this inauspicious moment in the PCC’s shameful career, the week after it had blatantly rallied round to uphold the obvious untruths of all the senior staff at the News of the World and ex-News International Chairman, Les Hinton, Baroness Buscombe chose to deliver a dog’s dinner. Her speech, empty of wit or erudtion was carefully – and irrelevantly – implanted with a “fuck”, ( “Peta Buscombe? Who the fuck is he?”), just to let the hard men know what a ballsy gal she is. She devoted a lot of it to party politics, MPs’ expenses, Lords’ reform and what it’s like being a woman in a man’s world. Her views on the function of her new body were expressed in a torrent of weasel words and Dacre-speak about the State ‘spying’ on citizens and ‘terrorising’ parking offenders, and the sanctity of press ‘freedom’, dutifully regurgitating the tabloid mantra that if papers weren’t able to tell stories about the private lives of famous people, the public would be deprived of a basic human right. She offered a little moan about PC gone mad, asking, ‘Whatever happened to common sense and a sense of proportion?’, and suggested that people were blind to put faith in laws and regulation – for, ‘as Gibbon pointed out, “Laws rarely prevent what they forbid”,’ an argument sometimes out forward for the dismantling of the whole penal code (though not usually by Conservatives).
   She told editors that Simon Cowell had successfully used the PCC to give him freedom from intrusive paparazzi, although he could have afforded to go to the courts if he’d wanted. She may have forgotten that only last month, Max Clifford was seen on clips from the documentary film, ‘Starsuckers’, saying that Cowell had been paying him a large retainer for several years, just to keep his name out of the papers. Or perhaps, as the film shows how easy it is to sell totally fictitious stories to most of the tabloids, her paymasters forbade her to see it.
   It was a feeble performance by a person who seems to have no clear concept of her function, which will only hasten the demise of this doomed organisation. MPs and even some serious-minded journalists are realistic enough and, in the case of MPs, brave enough to face down Murdoch and Dacre and accept at last that the concept of self-regulation by an industry that includes publications like the News of the World, the Sun, the Daily Star, the Express and the Daily Mail is not a feasible option. Next year should at last see moves towards establishing an independent, statutory body with quasi-legal powers to curb the excesses of the Shag Rags and their tawdry hacks, while making Britian a cleaner place to live.

THE END OF THE AFFAIR – DO THE MURDOCHS STILL LOVE THE SCREWS?

Peter — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:54:22 +0000

It would be surprising if Rupert ‘Rumplechops’ Murdoch did not have a soft spot for the News of the World; after all, the old tart gave him his first big break in international newspaper publishing, which he now dominates from the offices of the Wall Street Journal – a very long way from the seedy Bouverie Street newsroom he took over back in 1969. Nevertheless, when he first made her acquaintance, buying the notorious ShagRag from under Robert Maxwell’s acquisitive hooter, she was, at least, an honest old tart, with great earning potential.
The tales of rapacious vicars, strippers at policemen’s balls and philandering politicians were more or less true. But over the last 25 years, under the evil influence of men like Stuart Kuttner, recently sacked managing editor, backed up by truth-hating hacks like Trevor Kempson, Mazher Mahmood and Neville Thurlbeck, the paper has utterly abandoned the principles expressed in its 1843 founding mission statement – “Our motto is the truth; our practice is the fearless advocacy of the truth,” perhaps to be replaced by a quote from former news editor, Greg Miskiw: “This is what we do; we go out and destroy other people’s lives.”
Now the culture of lying and fabrication which is endemic in the newsroom is beginning to alienate a better educated public and lose sales. And it’s costing enough in damages and legal fees to make a big dent in the paper’s formerly impressive earnings.
          Tom Crone, head legal honcho at Fort Wapping must be getting nervous, sharpening his pencils and checking the emergency exits in preparation for a long campaign in the trenches. Will his new boss, Rebekah TestaRossa come and hold his sweaty hand? Or will she, along with her boss, Master James, be glad to see the back of the liability and steaming pile of ordure that the tacky little ShagRag has become?
          In the last year or so, the paper’s had a lot of big bills to pay for damages and legal fees. The Max Mosley fiasco cost them somewhere between £500k and £1m. They settled getting on for £1m with Gordon Taylor and two of his colleagues at the Professional Footballers’ Association for hacking into their voicemails. A writ from Max Clifford and Sky Andrew for more phone hacking and invasion of pivacy is hovering. In Paris a judge d’instruction is preparing a prosecution against the paper, its editor, Colin Myler, the reporter, Neville “Onan the Barbarian” Thurlbeck, and their lawyers, Farrers for publishing and sending copies of the paper containing details of Max Mosley’s private life to the FIA in Paris, which is a criminal offence in France.
          The paper is a source of a great embarrassment to James Murdoch, who must feel that the corporation which publishes the WSJ and wants to be taken seriously shouldn’t be messing about in the gutter with an organ at least as disreputable as the National Enquirer in the US.
          Kuttner has had his marching orders; Mazher Mahmood’s by-line is a rare sight these days; even Thurlbeck’s not getting the space he used to.  Following the paper’s admission that they had paid off Gordon Taylor (with a far bigger sum than Max Mosley was awarded in the High Court), the extraordinary display of dissembling put on by Crone, Myler, Kuttner and former editor Andy Coulson for the Commons Culture, Media, Sport Committee must have shoved the Screws public image even deeper into the Wapping mud.
          Don’t be surprised to see more changes; young Murdoch won’t want to live with his father’s old flame for ever.

Mr Scowell is keeping his hair on

Peter — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:56:23 +0000

Simon Cowell is not everyone’s favourite celeb – mainly because he’s (sort of) honest about the performances of the weeping wannabes who appear on X-Factor and his shows in the US.

But not being popular doesn’t make him eligible for having his Roller bugged by hacks employed, we may safely assume, by one of our inglorious Shag Rags (Sun, Star, Express, Screws, People, Mirror). Although we may deplore his taste in owning a Rolls Royce and having a hair cut like pan cleaner (is Max Clifford going to have a go at his crimper, too?) he, like every one of us, is entitled to his private life, and should have recourse to the law to protect him if the editors of the sad hacks harassing him publish any shots or other material of him going about his private business.

Max Clifford and Carter Ruck have issued warnings to the bugger who’s been doing the bugging (they know the pathetic branleur), and Max tells us Simon is unfazed, and keeping his hair on – which is a pity.