News. Now on bbc news. Scandalous Phone Hacking On Trial episode four. I wanted to expose the criminality that runs through the heart of this corporation. They very nearly ruined my life. I have certainly seen how they have ruined the lives of others. Its really difficult for me to sit here and talk about this because the whole point of fighting these newspapers is because i was so keen to have my privacy. I feel a sense of duty to expose them as they have exposed us. Prince harry and sir Eltonjohn Have launched legal action against the publishers of the daily mail. Action is being taken against the sun newspaper. Action over the mirror group of allegations of Phone Hacking. Who did you hack . It would be quicker to say who i didnt hack, wouldnt it . Celebrities, politicians. I was living in this sort of superhighway of illicit information. It was exciting, you felt like a spy. I dont know, to this day, how many people have heard my deepest secrets, my desires. Phone hacking was not practised by the Mail On Sunday or by the daily mail. You have just about anybody who has ever appeared in a Tabloid Newspaper Saying give me large wodges of cash please. Its actually a legal scandal. Its not the money im after, its to expose their guilt. Itsjustice. Prince harry has brought a claim against Newsgroup Newspapers for publications both in the News Of The World and the sun. Over 200 articles. More than half were published by the sun. The articles stretch from the mid 90s when his mother was still alive to 2010, so they include articles from when he was still a child. Its alleged that they were Phone Hacking princess diana. Prince harry is going on this crusade that some have described as a moral crusade to right the wrongs of the past as he sees it. He believes that they contributed to the death of his mother everything goes back to the death of diana, princess of wales. He believes it was her paranoia, her fear that her bodyguards were leaking information that led her to get rid of her police protection, and he believes that if she had had those bodyguards with her she would not have died in that car crash in paris in 1997. The crash happened shortly after midnight. They were apparently being pursued at high speed by photographers on motorbikes. There are some specific examples given in prince harrys claim that are worth hearing about. Around 2004, he met Chelsey Davey, started dating her, and there was a huge amount of interest in that relationship and huge amounts of targeting of chelsey, and harry. In his claim, there is evidence that chelseas Phone Records were supplied to the sun by a South African private investigator called mike bair. Chelsea lived in cape town. Also, there is a payment made by the sun, again, to the South African private investigator mike bair, a payment of £1500, � exclusive for Chelsey Davey hospital. One theory is that that involved accessing Chelsey Davey� s private medical information. When you go through some of the claims, some of them seem quite weak. Frankly, it seems like theyjust had access to someone in his inner circle. In terms of the articles, you are often misled in terms of where this information may have come from. They never quote a source, they never say so and so said this, Theyjust Say The Palace or an insider has said this, deliberately worded to throw you off the scent. In harrys case, he would be very keen to go to trial. He wants everything out in the open, he wants everybody to know the full extent of not only him but all the other claimaints he has suffered as well, and i think he wants to hold the people have done all this accountable at the of the day. Harry has got this claim against you with the 50 or so articles, saying you used illegal means to get the stories. What harry must know in his own mind that that cant be the case. I cant say where every story was from but i can say ones that i wrote werent from Phone Hacking, simple as that. Do you think hacking was going on at the sun . I dont. I certainly didnt think so at the time. You dont think they were using pis to get information . The people i worked with were journalists, not private investigators. Did you know about people using pis to get Something Like that . I was aware that there are. I mean they call them the dark arts, i was aware that there is more than one way of skinning a rabbit, and in certain circumstances, newspapers employed those people. Did the sun employ those people . I think everybody did, yeah. I have heard more and more allegations that illegal newsgathering was something incredibly common in the sun and that has not been my experience in the place i worked. I never ever heard a suggestion that the sun was involved in Phone Hacking in any way. I dont believe they were. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service do not believe it is something worth pursuing, so there has not been a criminal enquiry into Phone Hacking for literally years and years. Police raiding the homes of News International staff looking for evidence of Phone Hacking. In the years following the closure of News Of The World in 2011, the Police Conducted a series of high profile investigations into illegal activity by newspapers. About 6am in the morning, there was a knock on my front door. The police had arrived to arrest me. For me, it begain with a dawn raid on my house. My dog started to bark, probably about six oclock in the morning, and i opened the door to a crowd of police officers, all in plain clothes, searching through my five year olds bedroom i dont even know to this day what they were looking for, saying they have come to arrest me over operation alberton. It was about paying public officials, and yes we pay public officials, thats why it says on page two of the sun, we pay cash for stories, ring this number. It was the start of four years of hell because they kept me waiting on bail. Just had to wait and wait and hope it would go away, but a year later i was charged, and then a further two and a half years on, on the Fifth Ofjanuary of 2015, my trial started at the old bailey in london. At the end of four years, thejudge said you can go now, and that was the end of it. It was devastating, completely devastating, devastated my life. You know what . I will never get over this. I have been virtually unable to work for four years, it has taken my health, my familys health, our money, my career, and all because of a campaign against you guys, just as much as it is against tabloid journalism. A campaign against journalism. Many other people were put on trial. Frankly, they were show trials, as mine was, time and time again, as in my case. A jury of 12 good people listened and threw it out. It destroyed my career, destroyed my confidence, destroyed my marriage and nearly destroyed me completely. Im obviouslyjust relieved at todays verdict, but there is no celebration whilst this witch hunt continues against my colleagues, who still are facing the nightmare that i hopefully one day will wake up from. That is definitely Rebecca Brooks and her husband charles brooks. I think rebecca went in first. In total, 41 people were arrested. Nine were convicted. The others, like Rebecca Brooks, were cleared of all charges. The cps has not turned to the police and said start investigating again. They are not interested. They do not believe there is anything like enough evidence. If the allegations are true, why arent the Police Investigating this . I think the difficulty was that after the trial of Rebecca Brooks and andy coulson, etc, i think the publicjust lost the appetite for it and therefore the cps also lost appetite for it as well. It is disappointing that the police dont take it further, given the evidence that has come to light since, but its a decision for them. People on the other side would just say this is just proof that the evidence is flimsy and does not mean anything. If that was the case, why would newsgroup be Settling Hundreds of claims in the last ten years for millions and millions and millions of pounds if it was just flimsy evidence that did not mean anything . Newsgroup newspapers are now fighting to bring an end to the waves of civil litigation against them. At the end of 2022, they asked the courts to strike out two high profile claims arguing that the alleged unlawful activity happened too long ago. One is the case of prince harry, the other is of hugh grant. The press should have massive power. They are such an Important Pillar of democracy. They need to be there to hold power to account. Where there is a genuine public interest, i think the press should be given enormous license, almost to the point of illegality. But it does not matter really what a celebrity is doing. Its interesting to the public, but its definitely not in the public interest. At that point it becomes invasion of privacy, or privacy theft, i would argue, and really what they were doing was looking for profit at whatever cost, and by whatever means, criminal or not. In september 2022, several victims of crime and their relatives were among 200 new claims brought against the sun and the News Of The World. The Phone Hacking scandal broke at the exact moment that the Business Model for these previously incredibly profitable Tabloid Newspapers was collapsing of its own accord. The internet had come along information was no longer just what you could read in a print product. In the old days, if you got a good kiss and tell or a good scandalous celebrity story, you would get a quarter of a million sales to your tabloid just like that. With the internet, they might click on it but you will not make money off that. Having hundreds of millions of pounds leaving these business in damages, at the exact moment they needed to be investing hundreds of millions of pounds to secure their future has been incredibly damaging for the bridges newspaper industry. Most of the British Press operates at breakeven at best. It would not surprise me if this Constant Drip drip drip meant that at some point, shareholders and media owners will say we cant afford this anymore, we need to close. Just close it. It will be a terrible day for the British Press, freedom of the press, Freedom Of Speech if this is allowed to continue. Prince harry has arrived at the high court this morning at the start of his latest privacy case. The duke of sussex is taking legal action, along with a group of other high profile figures against the publisher of the daily mail. Elton john has also just arrived. Baroness Doreen Lawrence will also attend. For the first time, the daily mail the Mail On Sunday and now facing claims from seven alleged victims. This year, the initial hearings in the strongly disputed cases took place at the high court to decide whether they can proceed to trial. When the Phone Hacking scandal broke, paul dacre, editor of the mail, made it very clear that this was not the sort of behaviour that mail group would have been involved in. I can be as confident as any editor, having made extensive enquiries into his newspapers practices and now an enquiry, that Phone Hacking was not practised by the Mail On Sunday or the daily mail. You know that because i gave this enquiry my unequivocal unequivocal assurances on that. The cases against the mail came out of the blue. It was extraordinary. You could see it in the response of the mail. It was discust that they were even having to deal with this. It was accusations that this was a stitch up by a cabal of press reform campaigners. The claimants� cases also evidence from a number of private investigators turned whistleblowers. What were really looking for is whether the claims of the private investigators, who formed bedrock of this case, really stack up, whether theyre credible and whether there are documents to back up the allegations they had made that they were doing illegal work on behalf of the mail and the Mail On Sunday over several decades. In a blow for the claimants, one investigator that they had hoped would give evidence on some of the most serious allegations has now denied he was ever commissioned to work for the mail. Some of the private investigators providing evidence are convicted criminals. This includes the jailed Phone Hackinger glenn mulcaire. I hacked for the Mail On Sunday indirectly through mercury press. Targets included sadie frost, simon hughes, and jude law. So you kept notes and materials . Everything was always dated and all the information can always be referred back to when journalists need to pick up more details. What we have here is the instruction. You have the Mail On Sunday, clearly noted there, you have sadie frost as a target, you have all the details, and you also have the transcription of the voicemails of sadie frosts voicemails. They were then forwarded my boss by email, who then emailed the Mail On Sunday. An email which contained transcribed quotes from the alleged hacking was sent to the Mail On Sunday by mulcaire� s boss at mercury press. However, the email said nothing about how the quotes were obtained. So what has been happening in court . Probably the most damaging thing that came out was the claim from baroness lawrence, who is the mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence. What she said was explosive. I now feel i was betrayed. She says while she thought they were on her side they were actually going behind her back and trying to dig up information on her. This is the scenario that everyone feared, emotions running out of control down here and the evidence of the five suspects temporarily derailed. I started reporting on the Stephen Lawrence murder in the mid to late 1990s. Doreen lawrence was thrust into the spotlight by the fact that the police failed to get justice for her son. Well, no, because stephens killers are still walking the streets. It wasnt until the coroners inquest that we got to see the five main suspects. They appeared to treat the legal system with contempt, as if they were above the whole process. That triggered the daily mail to publish its now infamous headline murderers, naming the five main suspects. The daily mail has really thrown down the gauntlet with this story. That headline was so powerful that the case for examining what had gone wrong became increasingly impossible to avoid. The day in 2012 when dobson and norris were convicted was a day of huge satisfaction for both of stephens parents. Ive had a lot of support from everybody, from the press included, and ijust wanted to say thank you all. I think Doreen Lawrence came to trust the daily mail because of the role that they played in her campaign. In her claim, there is a section that is very personal. You get the sense that there was a close relationship there and one where she felt that she was in safe hands. She trusted them. Weve got the claim form from baroness lawrence and its a quite incredible litany of allegations, including interception of voicemail, so old school Phone Hacking, tapping of landline telephones, blagging of personal records, monitoring of bank accounts, covert electronic surveillance, and corrupt payments to serving metropolitan police officers, including some who are working on the Murder Investigation into who killed her son. Is it difficult for you to know if this stands up . We are at the point in the Legal Process where these are a load of allegations, a lot of it is based on Circumstantial Evidence and a lot of it is based on the belief of the claimants and their legal teams. If this goes to trial, thats when well see their claims tested. Baroness lawrence writes wonders whether by trusting the daily mail whether she let down her murdered son, stephen. She writes in her statement that she has been played for a fool. I dont believe for a minute that illegal behaviour happened at the daily mail. This litigation is a windmill that keeps turning and very lucrative it is for various law firms and various people trying to now make money from events that happened many years ago. What were seeing is the end game, really, of three decades almost of Phone Hacking legal cases. Now youve got almost every Single National Newspaper Group in the uk being sued by various prominent individuals who are determined to drag this back into the public consciousness. They have already succeeded on that point and the next challenge is can they actually get the legal victories that they want . Hello. It feels more like autumn than august out there for many of us, thanks to storm antoni, this shield of cloud here you can see on the satellite picture. This storm has been named by the met office because of the potential for disruption, particularly on the western edge of this area of low pressure as it continues to journey eastwards through the rest of today. So a met Office Amber Warning covering parts of South West Wales and south west england, the risk of gusts of 60 mph or more, particularly for exposed coasts and hills, but even quite a long way inland some quite strong, unusually strong winds for this time of year, hence the risk of disruption. Also some pretty heavy bursts of rain journeying eastwards, in fact some thunderstorms likely across southern and Eastern Parts of england, some pretty hefty showers across parts of Northern England up to scotland. Perhaps fewer showers out towards the west as we head towards the end of the day. Temperatures quite disappointing, some places only up to 1a degrees. Through this evening and tonight our area of low pressure rolls eastwards and as we will continue to see one or two showers, particularly out to the west, towards the end of the night, and also some Rain Lingering in Eastern Parts, in between we will see clear spells and that will allow it to turn relatively cool, 7 12 degrees, but into tomorrow this area of High Pressure tries to build from the west, so certainly a drier and brighter day. There will still be some showers around, that the odd heavy, thundery one, particularly across parts of scotland. The Winds Continuing to ease, though still quite breezy across eastern england. With sunshine, not as much cloud or rain, a bit warmer, 17 20 degrees at best. As we head for the coming week, we start off with some further frontal systems, so a bit of rain at times, but by the middle part of the week High Pressure begins to build. I dont think we are looking at a prolonged spell of completely dry and settled weather, but we will see something drier than we have had of late and we will also start to bring in some warmer air, so temperatures at least for a time are set to climb, 25 or 26 degrees looking quite possible, but we do have the chance for some showery rain to return by the end of the week. Goodbye for now. Live from london. This is bbc news. Pakistans former Prime Minister imran khan has been given a three yearjail sentence over corruption allegations. Mr khan was found guilty of not declaring money from selling gifts he received while in office and denies any wrongdoing. Ukraine has damaged a russian fuel tanker in its second Sea Drone Attack in two days. In an unverfied video sent to the bbc by a Ukrainian Security service source, they claim it shows the moment of attack. Talks begin in saudi araba for two days to find a peaceful settlement to russia s war in ukraine. Senior officials from dozens of countries are taking part. And a danger to life warning has been issued, as storm antoni hits parts of the uk, bringing heavy rain and strong winds. It is the uks first named storm in more than a year
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