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Andy Coulson Phone-Hacking Trial

Phone-hacking trial: Coulson PA challenged over evidence

By James Doleman

April 30, 2014 | 7 min read

    Court: The phone-hacking trial continues at the Old Bailey

  • Coulson's former PA cross-examined
  • Denies any involvement in "cash payments" shown cash requests signed by her
  • Was shown draft email documents at former editor's solicitors
  • "Is your evidence actually true" Lead prosecutor asks
  • Court adjourns until Friday
  • Court resumed this afternoon to hear further evidence from former personal assistant to Andy Coulson, Belinda Sharrier. David Spens QC, who represents Clive Goodman, asked the witness if she ever attended editors' conferences. Sharrier said she did not and agreed she would not have witnessed bullying if it happened there.

    Andrew Edis QC, for the prosecution then rose and asked the witness how Coulson dealt with journalists who did not perform well. "I wasn't really involved with that," the witness replied, and said she had no dealings with cash payments. The prosecution barrister then asked the witness about a statement she made to police in 2011 in which she stated: "During my time working for Andy Coulson I knew nothing about phone-hacking, even after Clive Goodman was arrested I never heard Andy talking about it, I was never involved in cash payments." The PA agreed that this was what she said.

    The witness was then shown a series of contributor payment forms signed by her and asked: "How did this happen, do you know who these payments were going to?" Edis asked. "I know some of the names," Sharrier said. "Why were you doing the signing," the barrister asked. "Because they came from my office," the PA responded. "Actually, you were involved in cash payments," Edis suggested. "I had forgotten about these," the witness replied. The prosecutor then asked the witness if she had really never heard Coulson talking about phone-hacking. "I heard conversations but the way police were asking I thought they meant if I was involved in it."

    "So it wasn't true what you said to the police," Edis suggested. "I was involved in it in the sense of organising meetings," Sharrier replied.

    The QC then asked about the witness's evidence that her former boss did not use notebooks. "He did not generally use them," she responded. "What was his method of keeping notes of offsite meetings? If he met the chancellor, Gordon Brown, he had no way of writing down what happened?" Edis asked. "He might have used a piece of scrap paper," Sharrier replied.

    Edis then asked the witness about draft emails she printed off for Coulson in November 2006 before he resigned. "I didn't go into his drafts," she replied. "You did once," the prosecutor replied. "I don't remember the email," the PA replied, but added: "I would have printed them off and put them in a folder."

    "Were you aware Clive Goodman was about to appear at the Old Bailey the week after?" Edis asked. "No," Sharrier replied. The prosecution QC then asked the witness if printing off the drafts was a "big job". "I genuinely don't remember," Sharrier responded. "You say they were budgets and speeches, were they secret documents?" Edis asked. "I don't remember," the witness said. "It was a very odd process, for the first time in your life you are asked to go into your bosses email," the prosecutor said. "Andy asked me to do all sorts of things," the witness replied.

    Sharrier was then asked if she had ever seen the draft emails again. "Yes, at Mr Coulson's lawyer's I was shown a couple of them," she said, and agreed she had confirmed that they "looked like what draft emails do". The prosecutor asked the witness if she read the emails. "Not in great detail, no," she replied, and agreed she had "hard copies" of many of the emails in her office and had taken Coulson's desk diaries home after he resigned. "Why did you take material from the office to your house?" the prosecutor asked Sharrier, "Did anyone ask you to do that?"

    "I don't remember a specific conversation, no," she replied. The witness was then shown her police statement from 2011 in which she stated that Coulson had asked her to clear the office. "It all happened so suddenly," Sharrier told the court.

    The prosecutor then turned to the witness's evidence this morning that when the letters "cxl" were written beside a meeting in a diary this meant it still happened. "You would write cxl beside meetings that had happened, what would be the point of that?" he asked, referring to pages in the desk diary that showed "cxl" beside arranged meetings with government minsters on the same day witness Dan Evans said he played a hacked voicemail to Coulson. "That was my system," Sharrier replied. "I can't remember a time when Andy cancelled a wave of meetings like that," she added. "You were asked before lunch if you remembered these meetings but you did not answer the question," the prosecutor said. "It was nine years ago, but from my perspective those meetings happened," the PA told the court.

    The QC then told the witness he had only one more thing to ask her about, an email from September 2005 from Clive Goodman were he discussed "leaving a memo with B" over continuing cash payments to his Royal source. "If he left a memo with me, he would have left a memo with me," the witness said, and agreed she would have stored a hard copy document in a file. "Is that the sort of document you would have taken to your house?" Edis asked. "No," Sharrier said. Andrew Edis ended by asking the witness: "You obviously admire Mr Coulson, is the evidence you have given to the jury actually true?"

    "Yes," she replied, and at that point the barrister thanked Sharrier and sat down.

    Junior counsel for Andy Coulson then rose to re-examine the witness and asked if she had been shown the contributor payment forms when interviewed by the police. Sharrier said she had not seen these since they were signed in 2003 before being presented in court today and she "didn't remember doing them".

    The jury was then excused until Friday to allow legal discussions to take place

    all of the defendants deny all of the charges, the trial continues

    Click here to view more posts from The Drum's daily phone-hacking trial coverage straight from the Old Bailey

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