miércoles, 30 de noviembre de 2011

Leveson Inquiry: British press is 'frankly putrid', Alastair Campbell claims - Telegraph.co.uk

Mr Campbell told Lord Justice Leveson he had been suspicious about a number of stories that appeared about the Blair family during his time as communications chief at Number 10 Downing Street.

He said he believed a story about Cherie Blair's pregnancy printed by the Daily Mirror in 1999 could have been obtained by phone hacking.

He admitted that he had "no evidence" that journalists intercepted the voicemails of either Mrs Blair or her lifestyle consultant Carole Caplin, but queried the source of a number of articles about the former prime minister's wife.

"I have also never understood how the Daily Mirror learned of Cherie's pregnancy. As I recall it, at the time only a tiny number of people in Downing Street knew that she was pregnant.

"I have heard all sorts of stories as to how the information got out, but none of them strike me as credible."

Mr Campbell said he had been contacted by Ms Caplin to inform him that her phone had been hacked.

He said: "There were all sorts of stories where you would just sit there scratching your head thinking, 'How the hell did that get out?'

"I did, at times, directly accuse Carole Caplin of tipping off newspapers about what she was up to.

"I have since apologised because I now realise I was completely wrong."

Mr Campbell said he became suspicious that his own phone might have been hacked following a meeting with former Labour culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

"We set up the meeting via mobile phone, rather than through our offices. When we arrived at my house, where we had arranged to meet, a photographer was outside," he said in his witness statement.

Mr Campbell told the inquiry that he had been contacted by Scotland Yard detectives from the Operation Weeting phone-hacking investigation who showed him references to himself and his partner in notebooks owned by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Mr Campbell added: "[I was] briefed on invoices they had found, that the Mirror had paid private investigators who were looking at me and Peter Mandelson at a certain point."

The inquiry also heard from former police officer Alec Owens and media lawyer Mark Lewis, who was recalled to the Royal Courts of Justice over a supplementary witness statement.

The main points of today's evidence were:

Mark Lewis, lawyer for phone hacking victims including the Dowler family, accused News International of trying to "destroy" his life in a bid to scare him off the hacking litigation. "They very nearly succeded," he told the inquiry.

Mr Lewis said he was "horrified" to discover that private investigator Derek Webb had been commissioned by the News of the World to secretly film his ex-wife and 14-year-old daughter, and to see a number of documents containing personal details belonging to him and fellow lawyer Charlotte Harris.

News International apologised to Mr Lewis for commissioning covert surveillance of his family. "They should be ashamed," he told the inquiry. The newspaper group denied ever hacking his telephone or commissioning Tectrix, a private investigators' firm, to look into his private life.

Alec Owens, lead investigator for the ICO during Operation Motorman, which unveiled data protection breaches by journalists in 2003, said Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and his deputy Francis Aldhouse were "frightened" to take on the press. He claims Mr Aldhouse told him: "We can't take them on; they're too big for us".

Mr Owens accused the ICO of not interviewing journalists listed in the notebooks of private investigator Steve Whittamore and ordering his team not to go to the press over their findings.

Mr Owens said he saw the phone number of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in Mr Whittamore's files in 2002. He claims journalists must have known the information they asked Mr Whittamore for was going to be obtained illegally, as much of it could not be lawfully obtained.

The Leveson Inquiry into press standards will continue next week when Lord Justice Leveson will hear from a number of journalists, academics and Richard Thomas.

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