Phone-hacking trial: Max Clifford agreed £200,000 per annum to end civil case, court hears
- Police identify 6,813 "hacking calls" up to August 2006
- "Do his phone email" meant check a phone bill Coulson's counsel argues
- Max Clifford agreed £200k per year to drop civil case court hears
After a delay for legal argument, the jury took their seats this morning to hear what is expected to be the last week of prosecution evidence. Detective constable Fitzgerald continued his evidence about telephone records for convicted phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire. These, the officer said, show 1450 calls to 88 different voicemail numbers in the period of 191 days 2005 to 2006. The officer said this only represented calls to "unique voicemail numbers" and excludes possible hacking through merely dialling a number and interrupting the message. There were also 45 calls to the "Orange voicemail platform" which, in the officer's analysis, were hacking calls.
Max Clifford
Mark Bryant-Heron QC, for the prosecution, then turned to records from News International's Wapping office. Fitzgerald told the jury that police had seized billing records for this "hub phone" from July 2005 to May 2009. The officer said he had identified 4714 calls to 99 voicemail retrieval numbers which he believed were hacks or attempted hacks. In addition to this, the officer said, former News of the World royal correspondent Clive Goodman made 649 hacking calls to 14 targets from his home phone from January 2005 to August 2006. The full extent of voicemail interception could never be known, the jury said, as phone records for the period have been deleted.
The jury was then asked to briefly leave the court.
On their return, Judge Saunders told them to note that they were only being asked to consider conspiracy to engage in phone hacking until August 2006 and they should ignore any data from after that date. Officer Fitzgerald then stepped down from the witness box.
The next witness was detective sergeant James Guest. The police officer introduced documents related to Calum Best, son of the late footballer George Best, which were to be added to a large folder the jury have already been given. On addition was a record that Glenn Mulciare hacked, or attempted to hack, the phone of a News of the World journalist who we are unable to name for legal reasons. "Tasking documents" seized from Mulcaire's home also show he held records to Best's mobile number and PI details. There is also an email exchange between Andy Coulson and another journalist discussing Best, in which Coulson states "do his phone".
The court then waited until these were inserted into the "timeline" by the jury members. These bundles tie together evidence from phone records, emails and newspaper articles to allow the jury to follow the often complex threads of evidence in the prosecution case.
DS Guest was then asked to go through the discovery process his team had carried out with email data received from News International. The officer told the court that emails were checked and marked either relevant or irrelevant to the investigation. Guest was asked about a particular email to Coulson which calls stories about Best as "scraping the bottom of the barrel." The police officer confirmed this had originally been marked as irrelevant. A later review had also dismissed it as significant. However in July 2013 it was disclosed to Coulson's defence team as part of a wider set of documents.
Timothy Langdale QC, for Coulson, then asked for a short break while he checked on material needed for his cross-examination. Justice Saunders apologised to the jury for the case being so "bitty" today, but explained this was common at the end of the prosecution case. The jury then left the court.
When the jury returned, Mr Justice Saunders addressed them on the expected timetable of the case. Court would sit late tomorrow but then they would not be required until a week on Monday while legal arguments were dealt with. The "worst case scenario" would be for the jury to be considering their verdict in the middle of May. Saunders told the jury that it was a complex case but the issues they would need to decide may end up being rather simple. "This is an important case and we will finish it together," he added.
Timothy Langdale then rose to cross-examine DS Guest. He asked him about the process about receiving emails from News International and put it to him that only today had the defence received a copy of one about Best which said in part "girl won't budge from £5k, we'll try again today". Guest said he had not seen this before and agreed it should have been disclosed to the defence. "For some reason it did not come to us in the right category" the officer stated.
The defence QC asked who was responsible for briefing the officers categorising the email traffic, and Guest confirmed there were a number of people involved apart from himself. Langdale put it to the officer that in pre-trial hearings in April 2013, Coulson's defence had argued that the "do his phone" email was a request to check the phone bill of a News of the World journalist suspected of leaking information to Calum Best. Langdale pointed out that the leak email had only been disclosed to a defence team in August 2013 with the condition not to disclose it to Coulson or Brooks. It was only disclosed to him on 13 November 2013 and the password was not disclosed the morning Calum Best gave evidence. Two other officers were then called to the stand, and they confirmed that the emails in question had been in an "overlooked" hard drive which is why they had missed it on their first search.
The jury was then given more documents, including a copy of a News of the World "budget" from 2005 which the jury has already seen. This proposes a 50 per cent cut in the budget for Glen Mulcaire's investigations. This is later deleted after a meeting between Stuart Kuttner, the paper's managing editor, and "AC".
The second set of documents, the jury was told, covers the settlement of a civil claim against the News of the World by publicist Max Clifford from 2010, when Rebekah Brooks was CEO of News International. In a minutes of the meeting a lawyer, Mr Pike, reports: "Mulcaire has popped out of the blue..he does not have any money and does not want a court settlement..he can identify individuals re the phone access". This goes on to discuss an "indemnity" for Mulcaire which included paying for his legal representation. Brooks then reports on a meeting with Max Clifford where he agreed to drop his legal action in return for £200,000 per years worth of work for the Sun. The meeting then discussed if a deal with Clifford would be seen as a "cover-up". "It would look terrible to be seen to buying off Max," Brooks replied.
Court then rose for lunch.