Phone-hacking trial: Witnesses against Andy Coulson 'thoroughly suspect' and 'unreliable', court told

The defence barrister began by reviewing the police's Operation Weeting, which he said should have been a "fair, open minded and rigorous operation", but for his client, he said, it had been far from that. "There should be no thought that someone high up in News International must be made to pay for phone-hacking," he said to the jury, adding he had a number of examples of mistakes made by the prosecution.

Langdale then asked "how the prosecution called Dan Evans" without checking if actor Daniel Craig had a voicemail number on the weekend Evans said he hacked his phone. The QC also pointed out that evidence showed that Coulson was in Brighton on the day Evans said he played him a voicemail message. The second issue, raised by the barrister, was that the jury had never been told the full extent of Clive Goodman's hacking. "It was the defence that had to bring this out," he said. Langdale then asked the jury to recall the "do his phone" email and how the prosecution case had changed over who it referred to. Finally, Langdale criticised the Crown for failing to fingerprint members of the Royal household to find the source of the disputed telephone directories. "The prosecution has been cavalier," he said, adding: "I am not going to go into every detail, we would be here until doomsday if I did that."

The defence QC then asked the jury to consider some further questions. For example, why the tapes of the David Blunkett hack had been found in a safe at the News of the World. If News International was a "sinister" organisation, he said, surely these would have been destroyed? The next question raised by the QC was why, if phone-hacking was an "open secret" at the News of the World, there were no emails requesting or discussing voicemail interception? Langdale then asked: "Where is the office cat?" He said that the only two witnesses who testified that his client were involved in hacking, Clive Goodman and Dan Evans, were "thoroughly suspect" and "unreliable".

Langdale then asked the jury to consider where they had been on 14 April 2014. "Can you remember what emails you sent, what texts you received?" He went on to tell the jury that was 12 years after the Milly Dowler voicemail story had been published in the News of the World and it was no surprise his client could not recall the details of what occurred at such a distance of time. He then pointed to the "gaps in the evidence" in the case given by the prosecution and suggested that "whatever is insinuated by the prosecution, you cannot speculate to Coulson's detriment where there is a gap". The barrister also asked the jury to consider that the prosecution had called 14 witnesses who worked at the News of the World and they all said they had never heard of phone-hacking until Clive Goodman was arrested in 2006.

Langdale then discussed the guilty pleas of Glenn Mulcaire, Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup and asked the jury to consider there could be no question of "no guilt by association", adding that in phone-hacker Glenn Mulcaire's notes there was no tasking from "Andy". The barrister said that the evidence of Goodman and Evans contained a number of "wild assertions" over the scale of phone-hacking at the News of the World, such as Goodman's claim that there was "industrial scale hacking" at the paper and there was hardly a single story from the period that was not the result of voicemail interception. The QC then went through the details of Mulcaire's notes from the period that Coulson was editor and said that only five per cent of the hacks carried out by Mulcaire led to a story being published. "Hardly industrial scale hacking," he suggested.

The barrister then asked the jury to note that his client's phone had also been hacked by Mulcaire. "The prosecution have never explained his status as both a conspirator and a victim," he said, going on to ask the jury to consider that if Coulson had known about hacking he would have protected his own phone better. "This lack of protection is an indication he knew nothing about it," Langdale suggested. He then asked the jury to consider that "the best the prosecution could come up" to show Coulson was aware of the phone-hacker "was a reference to Glenn "trigger" Mulcaire being on the special investigations team in an obscure sports story on page 87 of the paper". He added that even the sports editor of the News of the World had testified that he had no recollection of that story.

Langdale then moved on to the testimony of Dan Evans and Clive Goodman. "Rarely have there ever been cases where even the prosecution have branded their own witnesses as unreliable," he said. The barrister said Evans in particular was a "dishonest witness" and asked the jury to consider Evans' attempts to "manipulate the process" in implicating Coulson and blame others for his own actions. The QC said Evans had been discovered hacking interior designer Kelly Hoppen's phone in 2009 as he had used his own mobile - "a clumsy method for a supposedly ace hacker," Langdale said. The barrister said that Evans had then tried to divert responsibility by making false statements and when that had failed had sought immunity from prosecution by naming the editor as having been aware of his activities. "He had to give the police what they wanted," Langdale told the court, adding that checks on phone data were not done to check Evans' story. "In their enthusiasm for the cause they forgot to do basic police work, there was an unseemly rush to make him a witness," he added.

Court then took a short break.

When the jury returned, Timothy Langdale QC resumed his speech by continuing to examine the evidence given by prosecution witness Dan Evans, which he characterised as a "fabricated account". The defence barrister asked the jury to consider Evans' evidence that an email about the Jude Law/Sienna Miller story discussing "special checks" meant phone-hacking. The barrister called Evans' evidence over this "hopeless" as the number he had on his palm pilot for Miller was one she was allocated months after the date of the alleged hack. "He changes his account after he is asked a few searching questions about it," he said. The QC suggested that the "special checks" were contacts with search agency ELI. "The News of the World did not have to hack Kelly Hoppen as there was already information coming in from both camps," he added, saying that the former journalist's testimony "verged on the ridiculous".

The defence barrister then challenged Evans' testimony that he had hacked the phone of actor Daniel Craig and taped a message from Sienna Miller saying "I am at the Groucho club with Jude, I love you". Langdale asked the jury to note that Miller had not been in London that weekend and that there was no telephone record showing Craig's voicemail had been intercepted that weekend. He also questioned Evans' account that he had played the tape of the call to Andy Coulson on the following Tuesday as records show, he claimed, that his client had been at the Labour party conference in Brighton that day and had not been at News International's offices in Wapping. The jury were then reminded of the evidence of Coulson's PA Belinda Sharrier, who Langdale called "an honest witness who may have got flustered under cross-examination", adding that Prosecution QC Andrew Edis is "capable of making running for the number nine bus sound sinister". Langdale continued by asking the jury to consider that Evans' evidence created a 'fatal hole' in the prosecution case and they then "scurried around to put a finger in the dyke".

Langdale then asked why Evans would have used his own phone to intercept voicemails as this could have allowed him to be traced and reminded the jury that the former journalist had testified he had problems getting expenses approved for top up cards for his two pay as you go mobiles. "That doesn't make any sense," the barrister suggested, asking why if Evans had been hired specifically to intercept voicemails he would have had problems getting payments authorised. "It just comes out of his mouth with an extremely fertile imagination," the defence barrister invited the jury to conclude.

Langdale then asked the jury to consider where this leaves the prosecution case when the evidence shows Evans was so "capable on invention" and asked the jury to consider an email sent by a journalist at the News of the World to Andy Coulson that Evans should be credited with the Sienna Miller/Jude Law story thanks to his "special checks". The QC suggested this was an editor trying boost a member of his team and that it was no proof that phone-hacking was involved sourcing the article.

Court then rose for lunch.

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