Phone-hacking trial: Gene Simmons, Playboy and the bullying boss

Timothy Langdale QC, acting for Andy Coulson, was the first barrister to rise and question Goodman and he began by asking the defendant if he had told the court the full extent of his personal hacking activities. Goodman said he believed so. The defence QC then suggested that he had not been fully honest and "he knew full well there were other victims".

Langdale then asked the witness about his previous evidence that former News of the World editor Andy Coulson was fully aware of his phone-hacking. The barrister showed the court an email exchange between the two from February 2006 in which Goodman stated: "We've aquired a long list of names and numbers we otherwise could not have got." The defendant said this was true and Langdale asked: "Did you make a list of these new names and numbers?" Goodman said he did and the barrister asked where the list was. Goodman told the court that some of these were in his office and some at home. Langdale said: "You must know." Goodman replied: "I know that a lot of property was confiscated by the police which I never received back." The QC responded by suggesting this was not a credible answer. "You would have been concerned that this list implicated you."

Goodman was then asked why, in the email, he told Coulson that his contact "is not a hack so misses stories". "If Coulson knew it was Glenn Mulcaire [the phone-hacker], why did you have to tell him that?" The defendant said he was just reminding his editor of the situation and asking for more regular payments. "You hadn't told Coulson it was Mulcaire at all, had you Mr Goodman?" the barrister asked. "That's not true," the defendant replied, adding that Mulcaire was unhappy with being managed by the news desk and had asked about a possible move to the Sun if they were interested in using his services. Langdale suggested that this was "another example of you flanneling" and told the witness he would come back to the topic later.

Coulson's QC then moved on to the issue of cash payments to sources and the witness agreed it was common for journalists to create false names to allow contacts to remain anonymous, and sometimes "as a goodwill gesture" long-standing sources would be paid even if their information did not lead to a story if they had performed "some kind of service". Langdale asked Goodman if he agreed "there were some pretty substantial sums of cash passing through your hands over the years" and brought into evidence a "schedule" listing the cash payments and expenses claimed by the defendant between 2000 and 2006. The document, the jury was told, also had Goodman's personal bank records showing how much he withdrew from cash machines each month.

Langdale then went through each year of the schedule showing, for example, that in 2004 Goodman claimed over $40,000 in cash payments and expenses from the News of the World but withdrew no money from the bank in 2004, 2005 or 2006. Goodman said that his life had changed in 2004 as he had a "new wife and a new child, I did not spend a lot of money". He went on to say he went to supermarkets more and got cash back. "My life had changed," he said. Langdale asked if the witness had any other sources of money. Goodman said that in 2004 he received a legacy from his mother of over £100,000 which was in a different account. "This is not a complete record of my financial history," he added. Langdale asked: "what have the police missed?"

"I don't know, you would have to ask them," Goodman replied.

The barrister then asked: "Do we just have to take your word for it that the cash you claimed went to the person named?" Goodman responded: "It did." Langdale asked: "Did you keep any of the cash you claimed from the News of the World?"

"I did not," the defendant said, adding: "There was a crowd of journalists at the managing editor's office every Tuesday chasing up cash payments." Goodman agreed he gave the company false names and addresses for his contacts he paid in cash as "the company required an address", but he wished to keep his sources anonymous.

Goodman was then shown a list of the names he gave for cash payments, none of which had not been located by the police and he was asked if they were all false. The defendant said the majority were but he could not be certain that they all were. "I don't want to say they all are unless it comes back and hits me." Judge Saunders intervened and told the witness he could answer in general terms now and examine the list later to be sure. Goodman said that in general terms he thought they all were.

Langdale then moved on to the detail of one of the false names, "Farish", and Goodman agreed that this contact was providing information about the Royal family and people associated with them. Another name, "Anderson", Goodman told the court, was a freelance journalist. The defendant was asked why there were no payments to these sources after April 2006. "Was it just a coincidence?" the barrister asked. "Sorry, I don't know," Goodman replied. "It was a long time ago and I don't recall." Langdale asked if the payments stopped "because the rules were getting tighter at the News of the World". Goodman said that "Anderson just sort of fizzled out, he lost his contact".

"Was it just a co-incidence that you started withdrawing money from the bank in June 2006?" the QC asked. "The events are two months apart," Goodman replied, "I don't see the connection."

The defence barrister then moved on and asked the witness if the size of the cash payment to a source "was agreed in advance". "Sometimes," Goodman replied, adding: "I was not in charge of how much a story was worth, that was decided by how much the paper was willing to pay for it, it wasn't my money, each case was individual." Langdale asked the witness if he ever paid a source who was not providing information. "They might be providing you with a document or an insight," the defendant replied, adding: "It's difficult to generalise about a 20-year career of paying sources."

The defendant was then asked about a cash payment for a story about Kiss frontman Gene Simmons which was listed as appearing in the News of the World in 2002. The article quoted the singer as saying he wanted to be seen as a family man, adding: "Our kids are the only ones in the world that can say both parents have appeared on the cover of Playboy." Langdale asked if this information had come from his anonymous source "Mr Hall". Goodman confirmed it had and that Hall had been paid £200. The prosecution then brought into evidence a story that appeared in the Daily Telegraph before the News of the World piece that had the same Playboy quote. "Were you paying Mr Hall for his ability to read?" Langdale asked. "We were paying him for his ability to spot a quote from a long article in a low circulation newspaper, it happens all the time." Another News of the World article, about Sarah Ferguson returning from an overseas trip, was shown to the jury alongside a previous piece from the Observer containing many of the same quotes. "The Observer is not a paper I would normally take," Goodman said. "Mr Anderson spotted it, the skill is identifying the story and presenting it."

The court then took its morning break.

When the jury returned, Langdale asked him if he read all of the Sunday papers. "Not every word, not every supplement, no," Goodman replied. His contact "Hall", the witness said, worked for a "middle market paper" and he would pass on stories that he could not get published there. The defence barrister asked about a £250 payment to "Anderson" for information on Prince Charles calling for better standards in education. "Would you keep an eye out for stories about Prince Charles in other papers?" Langdale asked. "If I saw them," Goodman replied.

The court was then shown an article from the Guardian with the same quotes from Prince Charles. "I must have missed it," the defendant replied, adding that he paid £150 to a contact for the tip. "It's a straight lift," the barrister suggested. "You mean by me personally?" Goodman asked. "It's not true." Langdale pointed to the same story appearing before his article in the Daily Express, the Western Mail and on the same day in the Observer. "It had escaped your attention," the barrister said. "I missed it in the Guardian or I would have run it myself and the Western Mail is not available in London, the Express piece had none of the same quotes," Goodman responded, adding: "Andy Coulson took a great interest in my column and if he thought the story was in another paper he would have been very quick to say so."

Langdale then brought another News of the World article into evidence featuring Madonna for which "Hall" was paid £650, and told the court the quotes were taken from a fashion magazine called "W". The barrister suggested to Goodman that W was a publication he had delivered to his desk when he was at the News of the World so he must have seen the article. The barrister showed the court a 2006 email from Goodman in which he complained about the news desk stopping him getting W and Goodman agreed W was a magazine he read but he was not sure if he was getting it in 2003. "You were getting W in 2003," Langdale suggested. "It was a long time ago," Goodman replied. Judge Saunders then intervened and asked Langdale if he had any evidence that Goodman was getting W in 2003. Laidlaw said he did not and was just asking the question. Goodman said that the payment was for "spotting a story and packaging it up so it made the lead in his column".

The defence QC then moved on to another subject and asked "if the stories you were getting dried up after the death of Princess Diana". Goodman said that after the accident there was a public feeling that coverage of the Royal family should be cut, especially to protect her two children from press intrusion. "The stories were still there but there was less of a market," Goodman told the court. Langdale asked about a story, about a person dressed as Osama Bin Laden gatecrashing a party. Goodman said the source of the story was Andy Coulson, who got the story from one of his contacts, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Langdale told the court that the defendant had over-stated his role in getting the story. "Exaggeration is something you are prone to," he suggested.

Langdale then brought into evidence a document from 1998 which accused Goodman of being inaccurate about a story about Prince Andrew and calling it a "balls up". The defendant told the court: "It was an error I made, I trusted a source and it was wrong." The email, he said, "was a friendly warning, not a disciplinary matter". In another 1998 email, Goodman asked for payment for "matey" and Langdale asked if this was a common word the defendant would use for a source. "I used it in this case," Goodman replied. Langdale suggested that Goodman often made mistakes and brought into evidence a memo from 1995 which stated that Goodman was not "following up on Royal stories". The defendant stated that he worked in a "difficult business" and conflicts often arose.

Goodman was then asked when he first spoke to convicted phone-hacker Glenn Mulcaire. The witness said he first came across him in around 2002/2003 when he sometimes took messages from him for Greg Miskiw. "I knew he was a private detective and a valuable source," he said, but added that in those days he did not know Mulcaire was hacking phones. The court was then shown an undated document found at Mulcaire's home by police which had the name Clive the top left and information about a Susan Gambol. "It's clearly my name but I don't know what it was about," Goodman said. Langdale asked the witness if he had ever "tasked" Mulcaire in this period. "I don't recall," Goodman replied. "Are you saying it might have happened?" the barrister asked. "I'm saying I don't recall," the witness said. The defence barrister then showed the court more documents from Mulcaire dated 1999 naming Eddie Irvine and having "Clive" written in the top left corner. "Can you recall anything that might have caused Mulcaire to do that?" Langdale asked. "I can't," Goodman replied.

The defence barrister put it to the witness that from 2003 he was "on the decline as a journalist". Goodman said: "I had a very strange experience as a journalist when Coulson arrived," adding that "deputy editor Neil Wallis didn't like me for some reason".

"Were you getting a bit out of touch, a bit workshy, a bit reluctant to go out and get stories?" Goodman asked. "Certainly not," Goodman responded. "Were you not called the eternal flame at the newspaper, because you never went out?" Langdale asked. "You don't get Royal stories by knocking on doors, there are no doors to knock on, it's all about contacts," Goodman said. Langdale asked if Coulson was "trying to help you" and gave him his own column "carvery" and later gave him work on another section "Blackadder" as Mark Bollard, who was writing it, "did not bring his backstabbing self to it". Langdale suggested that Goodman was not demoted under Coulson's editorship. "I was," the witness said, and he told the court that he was appointed assistant editor by Rebekah Brooks but under Coulson his role was "eroded" to the extent he was not even asked at conferences what stories he had. "It was humiliating, and intended to be humiliating," he said. Langdale asked the defendant about his evidence that Coulson was a "bullying, difficult and unpleasant boss" and if this was true why was he was invited to Goodman's wedding. "I had been to his wedding so I felt it was only right to invite him to mine, or he might be offended," the defendant said.

Court then rose for lunch.

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