Beyond Contempt: The inside story of the phone hacking trial by Peter Jukes

Beyond Contempt: The inside story of the phone hacking trial
Peter Jukes
Canbury Press, 2014, £8.99

The Old Bailey trial of Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and others on charges of phone hacking ran from October 2013 to July 2014, attracting huge public interest.

Peter Jukes live tweeted the whole thing. That he was able to do so in an atmosphere where the defence was constantly on the lookout for prejudicial comment or coverage is a tribute to his fairness and stamina – and also to the courage of the trial judge, Mr Justice Saunders, in allowing him to do so.

Jukes needed courage too, suffering harassment from those ‘libertarians’ whose views somehow always coincide with the interests of wealthy corporations.

He takes us lightly through the complicated proceedings and provides character sketches of lawyers, witnesses and defendants. After reading Beyond Contempt, one has a clearer understanding of why it was that Brooks was acquitted and Coulson convicted.

A dramatist himself, Jukes sees many parallels between the courtroom and the theatre. Those who suspect performance in court has much effect on the verdict as the facts of the case will find nothing here to change their view.

Jukes also offers good advice to anyone tweeting from an event and seeking to offer factual coverage rather than opinion. Do not, he says, engage too much with your audience – particularly not with Louise Mensch.

You can buy Beyond Contempt from Amazon UK or direct from Canbury Press.

So farewell then Andy Coulson

When the Guardian broke the News of the World phone-hacking story in July 2009 I wrote that it "could be a huge political scandal". So far that has to count as a bit of an overstatement, but the affair did for Andy Coulson today.

The case against him was always as I expressed it in that original post:

as Andrew Neil explained on Newsnight yesterday evening, it is inconceivable that Coulson would not have quizzed his reporters about their methods when they came to him with big stories.

An editor has to be able to judge the truth of a story and how defensible it would be in court. The way the story was come by is central to both these question.

If this affair, as appears to be happening, now comes to centre on relations between the News International and the police then it could still turn into a huge scandal.

In any case, I can claim to be more prophetic than Guido Fawkes, who has always argued that Coulson would survive. Try a post from 11 December of last year:

What has been a politically motivated attack by enemies of the Murdoch press was bound to fail without a smoking gun, however much they huffed and puffed.

Dispatches: Tabloids, Tories and Telephone Hacking

Earlier this evening Channel 4 screened an edition of Dispatches looking at allegations that Andy Coulson was aware that News of the World journalists regularly hacked into the mobile phones of public figures while he was its editor.

The programme does not show the Conservative Party, the police or the Press Complaints Commission in a good light, and raises questions about how far the powerful are above the law in modern Britain.

You can watch Tabloids, Tories and Telephone Hacking on the Channel 4 website.

Would losing Andy Coulson be so bad for David Cameron?

The idea that the editor of a national newspaper would not insist on knowing the sources of a controversial story before he published it is absurd. That is why it is so hard to believe that Andy Coulson was not aware the News of the World journalists were engaged in phone hacking.

But will it be such a disaster for David Cameron if Coulson is forced to resign?

When Coulson went to work for him, the appointment was widely seen as marking a change in Conservative strategy. Coulson would provide some red meat for the redtops, in contrast to the touchy feely approach which Cameron and Steve Hilton had hitherto adopted.

Given that I believe this approach was a touch of genius that detoxified the Conservative brand and brought the party close to the near impossible feat of winning the last election, I do not think that losing Coulson would be such a blow.

Those in the Conservative Party who were enthused by Coulson's appointment were generally those who yearned for a return to the triumphs of the Hague and Duncan-Smith years. In short, they were the people whom Cameron prospered by ignoring.

It is also worth pointing out that the Coaliton government's handling of the media has not been particularly surefooted.

Of course, Coulson's resignation might dent Cameron's clean and competent image. And the real real reason for Coulson's appointment was probably that he was in good standing with Rupert Murdoch.

But at the heart of the idea that losing Coulson would be a disaster is our modern overestimation of the importance of the press officer. As I found that I wrote five years ago:

Take Alastair Campbell. In the years before New Labour won its first election he acquired the most colossal reputation - part bully, part magician.

Yet when he acted as press office for the British Lions rugby tour earlier this year no one praised his efforts. They were either ignored or slated. No one said: "The team lost all three tests horribly, but I thought the press operation was first rate."

Similarly, Campbell acquired his reputation in the years running up to 1997 because it was obvious from a long way out that Blair was going to win. Therefore political journalists had to establish good relations with him and his future cabinet ministers. Therefore Campbell had great power over them.

In the end press officers, whatever grand titles they are given, are just not that important. So I suspect David Cameron would survive Coulson's departure with surprising ease.

Six of the Best 89

Nick Thornsby has caught Labour MP Phil Woolas, already facing a court challenge to his victory at the last general election, faking a photograph of his Liberal Democrat opponent.

The death of Sir Cyril Smith is marked by Sandy Walkington: "Cyril’s tragedy was that his weight made him a figure of fun when he was in fact a shrewd and insightful politician who never got the recognition he deserved."

Disgruntled Radical says the Coalition "must ... be a launch pad for Liberalism, not a slippery slide into decline". Better than that, he suggests how we can ensure that it is.

Tom Watson MP reproduces the letter he has written to the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police about the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

A feature in the Leicester Mercury introduces us to Gary Silke, who edits a Leicester City fanzine but is pleased that his children have not inherited his passion: "Everything good about the game I fell in love with in the mid-70s has either gone or been devalued." Maybe he has just grown older, but his children do sound promising. His son "builds dens, climbs trees and is a keen cricketer" and his daughter, wonderfully, is called Liberty.

Found Objects recalls the lost Teesside village of Warrenby. I have done my best to perpetuate its memory by borrowing one of that blog's photographs.

New York Times article on the News of the World and phone hacking

The New York Times has reawakened the controversy over the hacking of celebrities' mobile phones by News of the World journalists.

And there is more on the Guardian website, which quotes Adrian Sanders as saying:

"For the sake of justice a judicial inquiry would, along the lines of the Hutton inquiry, put this to bed once and for all."

Tory MPs to refer Andy Coulson to party's ethics committee

From the Sunday Times:

Rebel Conservative MPs plan to refer Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s chief spin doctor, to the party’s sleaze watchdog over his role in the illegal phone hacking row.

Some Tory backbenchers believe Cameron took an excessively tough stance on the expenses scandal. Now they hope to exploit the row over Coulson, the former News of the World editor who resigned when the paper was caught hacking into royal aides’ phones.

Yesterday, Lord Tebbit lent his voice to the Tory rebels. “Cameron has talked a lot about ‘detoxifying’ the Conservative brand,” he said. “Perhaps he should now think about a ‘detoxification’ of his own office.”

If this comes to anything - and it does feel like Sunday paper talk - it will be because the Tory old guard (the owners of moats and duck houses) think that Cameron has thrown them to the wolves while protecting his inner circle.

News of the World scandal will harm David Cameron

This morning's Guardian breaks what could be a huge political scandal.

The newspaper claims that Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

In particular, the Guardian says the story "poses difficult questions" for:

• Conservative leader David Cameron's director of communications, Andy Coulson, who was deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World when, the suppressed evidence shows, journalists for whom he was responsible were engaging in hundreds of apparently illegal acts

• Murdoch executives who, albeit in good faith, have misled a parliamentary select committee, the Press Complaints Commission and the public

• The Metropolitan police, who did not alert all those whose phones were targeted, and the Crown Prosecution Service, which did not pursue all possible charges against News Group personnel

• The Press Complaints Commission, which claimed to have conducted an investigation but failed to uncover any evidence of illegal activity.

It will also pose a difficult question for David Cameron. How can he possibly continue to employ Coulson?

The BBC quotes a spokeswoman for David Cameron as saying he is "very relaxed" about the story:

"The ramping up of this story is ridiculous - this is about a payment made well after Andy [Coulson] left the News of the World," she said.

But this defence is laughable. The payment was made well after Coulson left the paper, but it was made because of the actions of News of the World journalists while he was editing it.

And as Andrew Neil explained on Newsnight yesterday evening, it is inconceivable that Coulson would not have quizzed his reporters about their methods when they came to him with big stories.

An editor has to be able to judge the truth of a story and how defensible it would be in court. The way the story was come by is central to both these questions.

The irony is that Cameron might well be better off without Coulson. The Conservatives made their come back precisely by ceasing to appeal to the baser instincts of Sun readers and courting the liberal middle class voters they have lost over the last two decades.

But if he insists on trying to hang on to Coulson, David Cameron's squeaky clean image could well be tarnished.