Leveson Inquiry

Morning Hearing on 11 January 2012

Paul Silva and Peter Wright gave statements at this hearing

Hearing Transcript

(10.15 am) Housekeeping LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Before we start today, there are two things I'd like to say. The first is that although I do not intend to provide a running commentary in relation to media coverage of the Inquiry, I am somewhat concerned that some of the suggestions which I put to the witnesses yesterday have been reported as emerging findings. They are not in fact that. I am testing possibilities. And one of the ways of doing so is asking those who are likely to be affected for their views. It is for that reason that I have encouraged them either to respond immediately or to consider the suggestions and respond later. I would not want it to be thought that I have reached conclusions, for I have not. The second concerns some evidence and I put the word "evidence" in inverted commas given by Mr McKenzie the day before yesterday, when he expressed his personal views on the credibility of a witness. He should not have done so. His views on the credibility of a witness are neither here nor there, and do not affect me in any way. He was entitled to give evidence of fact, although I think his evidence was rather more of opinion than of fact, but that's as far as it goes. MR JAY Sir, may I say something about today's evidence? LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Yes. MR JAY First of all, some people may be wondering why Mr Paul Dacre is not on the list for today. The answer is he's not available for the rest of this month, and indeed for today, but we have lined him up, as it were, for 6 February, so he will be taken slightly out of sequence. Secondly, the supplementary statement of Ms Liz Hartley, which you've seen and has been made available, my learned friend Mr Sherborne has had little time to consider that statement. I will indeed of course be asking Ms Hartley certain questions about it, but I should make it clear, it's without the benefit of any lines having been put to me, quite understandably, by Mr Sherborne's team. If it's necessary to recall Ms Hartley to deal with any specific matters in the interests of justice, then that will occur. Thirdly, the witness statement of Paul Silva, who is the Daily Mail picture editor, it's dated 22 December, I was only made aware of its existence last Friday, when I saw the written submissions of the Mail. I didn't know of its existence before then. And then I think on Sunday, or if not on Monday, I can't recall which, I put arrangements in place through my learned friend and separately for Mr Silva to be called. The upshot of that is that there's been somewhat of a rush making his statement available to the core participants, and I'm told by Mr Sherborne's team that it was only placed on the Lextranet system fairly late last night. We're making enquiries as to the precise time; we don't know at the moment. But it's clear that little time has been made available to consider what he says. In my view, that's not going to matter much, since I'm in a position to ask him appropriate questions, but if it is necessary to recall him to deal with any further matters in relation in particular to Mr Grant and the Drs McCann, again that can happen if you think it's right. Finally, for various reasons I would like to start with Mr Silva and move on to the editor of the Mail on Sunday, Mr Wright, and then finish today with Ms Hartley, if that's agreeable to you. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Right. MR JAY Unless there's any other preliminary observation that anybody would like to make, may I start by calling Mr Silva? LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Yes. I'm sorry if other core participants haven't had the opportunity of seeing some of these statements with as much leisure as they would wish. I don't want in any sense to prejudice lines of questions that are appropriate, but everybody's had to work under a degree of pressure. If it's necessary for a witness to be recalled, as I think I might have said earlier in connection with other witnesses, then that will happen. MR JAY Thank you. MR CAPLAN Might I mention one thing in relation to Mr Silva's evidence? I think I can say quite clearly it's through no fault of ours that Mr what happened was there was a Section 21 notice served on our picture editor and indeed on other picture editors in December. Mr Silva's statement was filed before Christmas with the Inquiry LORD JUSTICE LEVESON It was dated 22 December, Mr Caplan. There was no criticism of you or your team at all in that. It obviously didn't percolate through to be considered until after the break. Why it's taken quite so long to put it on the system I'd be interested to know, but for other reasons rather than to try and ascribe responsibility. I just want to make sure that we can proceed. MR CAPLAN Thank you. MR JAY I think the explanation is this: that when the batting order, as it were, for the Mail was assembled, and it was me who did that, I was unaware of the existence of Mr Silva's statement. It's probably my fault, but it doesn't matter. So it wasn't thought necessary to put his statement on the core participants' side of the website. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Very good. We'll see how we get on. I'm sure we'll manage, if not concluding the matter today, then very shortly thereafter. MR JAY Thank you. May I now call Mr Silva, please. MR PAUL SILVA (sworn) Questions by MR JAY MR JAY Mr Silva, please sit down and make yourself comfortable. Your full name, please?
A. Paul Dominic Peter Silva.
Q. Thank you. I hope you have in front of you your witness statement?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Signed and dated by you 22 December. It doesn't have a formal statement of truth on it, but is this your truthful evidence?
A. Yes, it is, sir.
Q. Thank you. We know from your statement that you've been at the Daily Mail now for 23 years and for 13 years as the picture editor; is that right?
A. That is correct.
Q. And formerly you worked at other picture desks, including the Daily Telegraph, the Evening Standard and the London Daily News. Can I ask you, please, a number of questions arising out of your statement. You say in paragraph 5 you "cannot think of an occasion in recent years where a formal complaint has been lodged with the PCC and has resulted in a ruling and adjudication by the PCC", but you say in paragraph 6 "there have been occasions where complaints have been made". Do you mean by that complaints made directly to the newspaper rather than to the PCC?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Can you tell us something about those complaints? First of all, approximately how many have there been?
A. Oh, a handful in the last few years.
Q. And by whom have they been brought?
A. They can be by celebrities or they've just been by members of the public. It's across the spectrum.
Q. Can you tell us, please, anything about the complaints, particularly those by celebrities? Do they relate to pictures taken by paparazzi in circumstances which might be debatable?
A. In some cases, yes, that is true.
Q. And how have those complaints been dealt with?
A. Well, the complaint has been made to the managing editor's office. The managing editor then comes to speak to me, I give my version of events and then the managing editor will deal with the complaint accordingly.
Q. By your version of events, does that mean you finding out from the agency involved who engaged the paparazzo the circumstances in which the photograph was taken?
A. Yes, that's correct, yes.
Q. Have there been circumstances in which the complaint has been justified?
A. Not so far, no. Not that I'm aware of.
Q. And have the complainants always been satisfied with the internal resolution of it by the Mail?
A. Given the fact that I've not heard anything back on it, I assume that the answer is yes.
Q. Thank you. In paragraph 8 you explain how the system works in relation to the Daily Mail. You receive a vast number of pictures, 30,000 a day, from all around the world.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. There are three types of agency, the large international agencies, the domestic news agencies and the celebrity agencies, which you name, and for whom the so-called paparazzi generally work. Can I ask you what you mean by the term "paparazzi"?
A. Well, paparazzi is a freelance photographer who doesn't work for any newspaper and is basically taking pictures of celebrities out and about and at photo calls and film premieres, that sort of thing.
Q. Thank you. You don't use the word "paparazzi" in relation to the freelancers who work for either the international agencies or the domestic news agencies; is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Why is that?
A. They are freelance photographers who cover all sorts of events, news events, court cases. They're not concentrating on just celebrity photographs.
Q. Thank you. Then you explain what happens next with the photograph, that there's a picture taster, a selection is made of about 400. Can I ask you though about the last clause of paragraph 9, the criteria by which photographs are taken. You say "and whether they appear to have been taken in a questionable way". What does that mean?
A. Whether they breached the PCC guidelines and the code, basically.
Q. Are these amongst the 400 photographs which you are going to look at?
A. Yes.
Q. Or are these photographs which have been excluded before you get
A. No, no. The paparazzi pictures, if there are any that day, would be part of that selection, would be part of that selection.
Q. Are those therefore which might have been taken in a questionable way earmarked for further consideration?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that what you're saying?
A. That's what I'm saying, yes.
Q. Who does that earmarking?
A. Basically it would be my picture taster. Picture comes in, he says, "Look, this is a good picture, I'm a bit worried about how it's been taken", he refers it to me and then we put the process into action.
Q. Then you explain that you have a number of staff photographs and then a larger number, 16, freelancers. But you do the selection from amongst the 400; is that right?
A. Yes, ultimately I do.
Q. In paragraph 12 you explain the criteria which you apply, and there are 11 of those criteria.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. Can I ask you specifically about six or seven of them, which is 12.4 to 12.10. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Before you get to 12.4, let's start with 12.1.
A. Okay. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON If somebody wishes to drive away, they walk out of their house, that's private, their car is parked in their driveway, that's private.
A. Mm-hm. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON And therefore no photograph?
A. No, that would be private. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON But if their car is parked on the road, so they have to cross the pavement, the pavement is public?
A. Correct. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Therefore they could be photographed?
A. Correct, yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON It sounds a rather arbitrary distinction and doesn't actually aim itself at the substance of what you're trying to avoid.
A. It's that line, isn't it? It is a public place, but then they are in a public place and on that basis we feel happy that the picture's been taken in a public place and we're happy to consider it. If it's taken on somebody's driveway, on their private property, the answer would be no. We're only talking about a matter of yards, I appreciate that. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON That's the point.
A. I know. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON That's the issue I'm asking you about.
A. If it was a situation we had a situation where there were pictures of Kate Middleton's mother and sister out shopping and we ran the pictures and we only ran the pictures of them in the street. They then went into the shop and they're in the shop window, which is again only a matter of yards. Some papers used those pictures and there were complaints. That shows the problem you have. A few yards one side were considered okay; move the other way, it then becomes a problem. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I just wonder whether the line is appropriately drawn, but there it is.
A. It's just coming onto the pavement is LORD JUSTICE LEVESON No, I understand where the line is drawn. The question is whether it's appropriately drawn there. Anyway. MR JAY The issue under the code, and I was going to come to this in a moment, Mr Silva, is whether there's a reasonable expectation of privacy. Do you follow me? And your interpretation of that. It might be said that walking to your car outside your house, there remains a reasonable expectation of privacy because that's what people have to do these days to access their car, but once they are away from their house and in a public place, that's where the dividing line falls. Would you agree with that?
A. No, I don't. I think once they're in the street, that's a public street, that is a public place.
Q. Is it your view that as soon as the target is in a public place, namely on a street, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, whatever the circumstances?
A. If they're on a public street, it's a public place, they're in view of members of the public, I think that is a public place, in my view.
Q. Whatever the proximity or otherwise to the person's home or some other private place? Is that your analysis?
A. At the moment, yes.
Q. Have you ever sought clarification of that issue from the PCC, because it's an issue which must often arise?
A. No. Not personally, no.
Q. Have you ever sought advice from your editor on that issue?
A. I've never taken it up personally with the editor, no.
Q. It's an issue which must arise quite often, mustn't it?
A. Well, to the best of my knowledge I can't recall a complaint about a photograph taken of somebody when they're in the street getting into a car, whether it's outside their house or outside their office or wherever it may be, I don't recall that.
Q. At this stage I was going to ask you specifically about items 12.4 to 12.10. Can I just ask you to look at those before I ask the general question. The general question is this: how would you know, simply by looking at the photograph, what the answers were to those questions?
A. Starting at 12.4?
Q. For example.
A. Well, if you get a photograph and the person is in more than one situation, so he's photographed just outside his home and then a bit further down the road, it's clear they've been followed and then you would ask that question on that basis. So it should be obvious from the sequence of photographs you get whether following has taken place or not.
Q. I understand the answer to that question, but of course if there is only one photograph you wouldn't know one way or the other whether
A. That's a fair point.
Q. So that's that one. 12.5, "Was the subject harassed in any way?", how would you know that?
A. We'd ask them.
Q. Ask who?
A. The photographer or the agency in question.
Q. What might cause you to ask that question?
A. It depends what their demeanour is like in the picture. Do they look agitated, do they look like they are unhappy, are they trying to hide their face? You know, they're all various indicators which would make that clear.
Q. So the answer is: if there's some evidence, some indication of possible harassment, that would be the trigger to you asking the photographic agency?
A. Normally, yes. Normally it should do, yes.
Q. What about 12.6, "How long was the photographer taking the photographs for"? How would you begin to know the answer to that?
A. We ask them. It's a simple thing. We say, "How long were you there for?"
Q. What might prompt you to ask that question?
A. We just do that as a matter of course now.
Q. Do you do it with all 400 photographs?
A. No, not all 400 photographs are paparazzi pictures. The paparazzi pictures, if there are any that day, may only form just a very small number, maybe half a dozen, maybe a dozen. So we're not dealing with 400 pictures.
Q. Thank you. Is this right, that these are the questions you ask specifically in relation only to the paparazzi pictures which you get on a particular day?
A. Yes.
Q. Are they the questions therefore that you will always ask in relation to the paparazzi pictures?
A. Yes, we do, yes.
Q. As you explain later in your statement, by going to the agency and making an express enquiry?
A. Yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Before you pass on, let me just pick up that question, Mr Silva. What difference would it make, if I go back to my example of the subject walking out of his house, and I accept your evidence that once they get on the street that's public, what's the difference if the photographer's been waiting there two minutes, 20 minutes, three hours or all day?
A. It depends what the story is sometimes. Sometimes if they're there two minutes, we think that's fine, we don't think there's any harassment. If somebody's been there all day long, they would need to be able to justify being there for that amount of time. There would have to be a special reason for them being there for that long period of time. MR JAY I'll come back to that one with a specific example
A. Yes.
Q. which is dealt with later in your statement, Mr Grant's case. 2.7: "Was the subject aware they were being photographed?" In order to know the answer to that question, it may be obvious from the photograph itself because the subject is looking in such a way that you would be able to deduce that. You need to know something about the lens used, which is 12.9, is that right?
A. Yes, we do, yes.
Q. The lenses these days often are quite powerful telephoto lenses, are they?
A. Yes, but they are not used on every occasion.
Q. No, of course not.
A. No.
Q. Just if we had a flavour of it, some witnesses have spoken of long lenses and have used a verb "long-lensed". What sort of range are we talking about?
A. 500 onwards. 500 ml camera onwards.
Q. Sorry, that doesn't mean much to me. In terms of distance, please, from
A. It could be the distance of a football pitch, say, that's what you could be talking about there. But with regard to lens, we would also ask were they shooting on a short lens, because that's also quite important, because if you're shooting on a short lens, it means you're very close to the subject and you're right in their face, so you need to know that as well. It's not just about long lens, it's about the use of lens all round.
Q. Of course, with a short lens, you would be more likely to deduce the subject's demeanour and get the answers by inference to 12.7 and possibly some of the other questions; is that right?
A. That's right. As I say now, with regard to paparazzi pictures, these questions are now asked automatically on every story, irrespective of what the subject is.
Q. Thank you. I'm asking a technical question here, but you can get a good quality photograph, can you, of someone's face from a distance the length of a football pitch; is that right?
A. Yeah, with the right lens. With the right lens you can, yes.
Q. The last one, 12.10, "How many photographers were involved in taking the photographs?", is this to deal with the media pack point?
A. Yes, absolutely.
Q. That if you have a number of paparazzi
A. Yeah, has there been a scrum when somebody's come out their house? We need to know that.
Q. Although some of the paparazzi would not be sending photographs on this occasion to you, they would be sending photographs to someone else, is that so?
A. It's possible, but by and large you find the paparazzi send their pictures to all papers, all organisations.
Q. But in a paparazzi scrum sort of situation we're always getting close, aren't we, to 12.5, "Was the subject harassed in any way"?
A. Yes, we are.
Q. How long would you say would these questions be systematically asked of photographic agencies who engage paparazzi? Are we talking about the last year, the last five years?
A. I'd say about the last three or four years, I would say.
Q. What is it that has prompted that?
A. There's obviously been a change in the way we operate. From when I started 23 years ago, I don't think we asked any questions of photographers when they put pictures in, and clearly times have changed and we've had to change accordingly. As a result of that, we come up with these questions on every occasion when we deal with paparazzi pictures.
Q. I think it's obvious that there's been a change, but the question is really directed to why has been there been a change. Is it because of some editorial direction? Is it because you've received legal advice? Or is it because you have simply reacted to what you perceive to be a change in culture and attitude?
A. I think it's the latter, to be honest with you. We've reacted to the change in culture at the moment.
Q. Can you be a little bit more precise about that? Is it because you feel yourself that maybe photographs previously were taken too oppressively and that you feel that you needed to adapt your practices or the practices of those who you engage to reflect that?
A. No. I think it's primarily to satisfy myself that whatever pictures I put forward for publication in the Daily Mail, I am satisfied as best I can that they are taken in the proper way. That is my prime consideration. That is the reason why we do this on every occasion.
Q. I understand all of that, Mr Silva, and that's laudable, but what I don't quite understand is what is it which caused you to adopt this practice three or four years ago?
A. I can't explain that. That's my explanation. My explanation, as picture editor, I want to be satisfied that the pictures I put forward for publication are taken properly, and in accordance with the PCC rules and guidelines as best as possible. Once that's happened, I'm happy to put them over for selection in the newspaper.
Q. I think that's as far as I can press that point. I'll now move on to paragraphs 14 and 15. You explain there that there are circumstances where paparazzi take photographs and there is a reasonable expectation that people, the celebrities, whoever, will be photographed. You mention film premieres, you mention circumstances in which members of the Royal Family or whoever are at sporting events, and in paragraph 16, there are certain restaurants, which are well known about, where you would have a reasonable expectation of being photographed, is that so?
A. That is correct, yes.
Q. Is it the case that celebrities go to these restaurants in the hope that they're going to be photographed?
A. I think that is true, yes.
Q. Why do you say that?
A. You see the same people going around the circuit. You'll see them at the restaurant one night, you'll see them at the nightclub the next night. They know photographers are going to be there, they know that there's a good chance that by being there you are going to get your photograph in a newspaper or a magazine or on a website, and it's just part of the celebrity circuit.
Q. That wouldn't necessarily demonstrate that the celebrity would hope to be photographed. It might be that the celebrity would resignedly expect to be photographed there. Do you see the difference?
A. Yes, I appreciate that.
Q. Human nature being as it is, some celebrities, it might be said, would want to be photographed at a particular occasion, but my question was directed to whether you do deduce that merely because they were going to particular nightclubs or particular restaurants?
A. No, it's just a feeling you have, a hunch you have. It's no stronger than that.
Q. Okay. And then paragraph 17, you identify the contentious area, don't you Mr Silva, when celebrities are photographed away from these situations, that's to say near their home I think we've touched on that point, haven't we, already: walking, for example, from the driveway to the car on holiday, and while they're out with their family or visiting a park or museum.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. "It is on these occasions when I will always quiz a photographer or agency as to how the photographs were taken." So in those circumstances, you would ask the paragraph 12 questions; is that correct?
A. Yes, I would do, yes.
Q. Can I just ask what general rules you might apply? Near their home, we may already have covered the general rule, but I think your evidence is that as soon as the subject leaves his or her driveway, which is private property, and moves on to public property, the highway, then really almost as an absolute rule that person can be photographed; is that your position?
A. At the moment, yes.
Q. By which you mean: unless someone says otherwise?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Can I just understand, I know each case might turn on its own facts, but can I just understand a bit more about the holiday example, please?
A. Mm.
Q. What rules or principles are you applying to that?
A. Well, the main principle is that: is it a public beach or a public place where they are on holiday? It has to be taken in a public place. Is it a public beach or a public place? We wouldn't take it on hotel grounds, anything like that, that would be private, but if it's on a public beach, that would be okay.
Q. So to go back to one example we heard about, a beach on a tropical island which is part of a hotel and therefore private, you wouldn't be taking photographs in that situation?
A. No, we wouldn't.
Q. Is that your position?
A. That's correct, yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON But if they walked on the main street, then that would be fair game?
A. Well, for example, if you were in somewhere like the Maldives, you'd have to go way out of your way to get there. No, the answer would still be no on that. MR JAY Okay. Can I deal with the last category at this stage: out with their family or visiting a park or museum. Can I understand what your evidence is in relation to out with their family?
A. They're out with their children
Q. I understand what it means, but what is your policy with regard to the taking of photographs?
A. On that, well, very careful on that one because we're very careful with regards to people's children, so in most cases we don't use them. We would most probably ask their agent are they okay with them? And in extreme cases, if we were desperate to use the picture, we would pixelate the pictures of the children or crop them out of the picture in some cases.
Q. I'm a bit troubled by that. Couldn't it be said that however famous someone is, when they're out with their family then they're really out of bounds and you shouldn't be taking photographs of them at all, should you?
A. Possibly, yes.
Q. Possibly or probably?
A. Possibly. You have a situation, for example, we have the Beckhams. They're out with David and Victoria Beckham are out with their children quite a lot, photographs are taken of them with their children, both in America and England, and there's never ever been a complaint, as far as I can recall, from the Beckhams on that particular issue.
Q. I understand that you may well be right that there hasn't been a complaint, but the presence or absence of a complaint is not the only litmus test. It's whether there's a standard here. The Beckhams are not taking their children out as some sort of protection against being photographed, because after all they are being photographed, but couldn't it be said on their behalf they're out with their children, out with their family, you should really keep off them? Wouldn't you agree with that?
A. I don't know what to say. No, I can't answer that.
Q. The last one, visiting a park or museum, by which you mean any sort of recreational activity
A. Oh, any
Q. what's the policy there, Mr Silva?
A. By and large, no, we wouldn't touch them if they were in a park or going to the cinema or any recreational facilities, we would try and avoid it, if we could.
Q. Whether or not they're out with their family; is that right?
A. Yeah. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON They have to walk along the street to get there. MR JAY That was the next question. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I'm just concerned about the situation of somebody who is concerned about their privacy. We heard some witnesses who were very concerned about the impact of photographers on their children, and whether you pixelate them out or not, actually they're bothered about that. You probably know the witness that I have in mind when I'm talking about that. What's your view about that?
A. About what, sorry? LORD JUSTICE LEVESON About those who are concerned to protect the privacy of their children and therefore don't want to be photographed when they're walking down the street with their children, even if you're going to pixelate their children's faces?
A. As a family man, I agree with them. I hear their concerns and I would comply with whatever they ask. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON So should there be a system and I have to be careful about making any suggestions these days but should there be a system that if those who are in the public eye and who do not court publicity wish to protect themselves and their privacy, they should be able to go to somebody and say, "I'm just not interested in any of this", and so all the press can understand that their privacy is sufficiently important that in the normal run of situations they should just be left alone?
A. Yes, I would agree with that, yes. MR JAY We've found a couple of very recent examples, and such is the power of modern technology, I'm going to have to ask you about those. There's a slight technical hitch.
A. From the Daily Mail newspaper?
Q. Yes. I'll ask some further questions and when we have them, I must ask you about them. This other general question, though: are there certain celebrities who you, as it were, keep off because of either actions they've brought, injunctions they've obtained or because you know they're difficult?
A. Quite possibly, yes. I can't think of any specifically at the moment, but I would say yes. If we know there's a problem with a celebrity, they may be involved in legal proceedings against the paper on another matter, we would avoid them for that moment, or we would certainly refer it to our legal department for guidance before doing anything at all.
Q. Because we heard evidence I think from Mr Edwards a couple of days ago in relation to Sienna Miller, whether she's someone who you keep off?
A. We're not as fascinated with Sienna Miller as other papers are, for the main newspaper.
Q. Because?
A. I can't explain that, we just aren't. She's not we have certain celebrities that we like and we do a lot of in the paper. We have done stuff on Sienna Miller in the past but not quite as much as, say, Kate Winslet or people like that.
Q. This isn't anything personal, of course, Mr Silva.
A. No, no, no, no, no.
Q. What you're saying is because of the Mail brand and because of the Mail readership, there are certain people who are of more interest than others. That's all you're saying?
A. That's correct, yes. That's what I should have said, yes.
Q. Okay. I'm going to ask you about paragraph 19, the musician who was suffering from cancer, attending a cancer clinic. When you saw the photograph in the first instance, was it clear to you that the person was attending a cancer clinic?
A. No, because he was just walking from left to right, basically. It was in the caption said he was going to his clinic.
Q. Right. Sorry, the caption provided by the agency?
A. By the photographer saying, "This is him arriving at his cancer clinic".
Q. But as soon as you knew that, why didn't you immediately put the photograph in the notional bin?
A. The photographer rings up and says, "I've just put in a set of pictures to you", I ask him to describe it, he describes it, we then ask how he took the pictures, he explains how he did it. He said "He's all very happy". We said, "How did you know he was going to this cancer clinic?" and it was then that it transpired that they'd followed him from his home to the clinic. On that basis, the photographs went straight in the bin.
Q. But once you know the simple fact that the subject, the musician, is attending a cancer clinic, which you are warned about on the caption, that's enough, isn't it
A. As I said, this all happens in a matter of minutes. Pictures come in, he's on the phone, you deal with it there and then and it was all over very shortly.
Q. This is a picture I'm looking at on the Mail Online. Do you provide photographs to the Mail Online?
A. I don't. I'm picture editor for the Daily Mail newspaper. They have a separate editor for the Mail Online.
Q. Oh, right. Maybe I could ask you to comment nonetheless. It's Simon Cowell on board his yacht. It's on the Mail Online for today. The yacht, of course, is a private place. Do you know about this photograph?
A. No, I don't. Because of this, I wasn't on desk yesterday, I was off desk, so
Q. Fair enough. The caption or the copyright is matrixpictures.co.uk. Who are they?
A. I've mentioned them as one of the paparazzi agencies who are in my
Q. Yes. You're the expert. Would you be able to say, looking at a photograph, whether it is a long lens photograph? It probably is, given the circumstances. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Unless he's in a scuba diving suit MR JAY It might be the yacht is by a
A. Is it moored up? I've not seen the picture, so I don't know.
Q. Okay. I think there's another one of someone in a park which we're going to find in a moment. Paragraph 20, you give an example, the wife of the Prime Minister, where her specific consent was obtained; is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Then you give examples in paragraph 21 of photographs which were rejected.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. Example, a member of the Royal Family who is shopping rejected because she may have been followed to get the picture. Without knowing more about the circumstances, you're not necessarily providing all the reasons here, but you're providing the main reason?
A. The main reason, yes.
Q. Okay. Paragraph 21.5: "Member of Royal Family on holiday in a yacht and kissing a woman in the sea rejected as the picture is considered intrusive."
A. Mm-hm.
Q. Certainly. I think we could probably all agree with your reasons there. Let's see if I can work out the second example. Again it's the Mail Online, 21 March last year. A picture of Sandra Bullock, so it may well have been taken, probably was, in the States.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. She's playing with her son, Louis, and a friend of Louis', in a park. By your standards I know you weren't responsible for this photograph at all that would be out of bounds, wouldn't it?
A. I'd have to see the picture. We didn't put it in the paper. It's not one that I can recall, so without knowing the full circumstances, I can't really comment.
Q. One of the photographs is from Splash, which we know is one of the
A. Is another agency, yes.
Q. And the other is from Fame/Barcroft Media, I think.
A. Yes.
Q. Is that a similar
A. It's a similar operation, yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON You presumably need the consent not only of the mother of the child, but the mother of the friend of the child, the parent of the friend of the child?
A. Possibly, sir, yeah. MR JAY What's disturbing about those photographs I mean, I don't want to overplay this is that the faces of the children haven't been pixelated. Do you want to have a look at these photographs?
A. Yes, I'll happily do that.
Q. I hope this machine isn't going to go dead on me. It needs to be tapped every now and again. Has it come up on your screen?
A. No, not yet.
Q. Okay, we're going to give you the tablet. I know these aren't your photographs, you're not the Mail Online, but you can still help us, please. Sir, have they come up on your screen? LORD JUSTICE LEVESON That doesn't fit with a couple of your rules.
A. I can't really comment on that. I don't know what circumstances the pictures were taken, I don't know if Sandra Bullock was okay with the pictures taken, did she say to photographers, "I don't mind, you can take these pictures"? I don't know. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I understand the problem. But on the face of it, if it came to you, you would be asking lots of questions?
A. If that was a British celebrity taken in a British park, just for argument's sake, yes, we would be asking a lot of questions. We would be asking was the mother aware? All the questions I listed in paragraph 12 would all be asked with regards to those pictures. MR JAY It might be said that and of course I appreciate you're not speaking for the Mail Online, you're the Daily Mail, it's an American celebrity, obviously, and therefore there's no risk of any comeback. Is that fair?
A. I suppose so, yeah.
Q. We also have Sandra Bullock who in one of the photographs we can scroll it down is, at least from my inference, is now aware that her photograph is being taken and is trying to shield the friend's child. It's her child, pardon me. It's this one here. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON All right, let's have a look at that. And let the witness see it.
A. Thank you. MR JAY We can draw our own conclusions from that. Who is the picture editor of Mail Online?
A. Elliot Wagland.
Q. Does he apply the same standards as you or different standards?
A. No, he applies the same standards as us.
Q. Okay. Can I move on through your statement, please, Mr Silva. Ethical conduct by photographers, paragraph 24 and following. Can I ask you about the strict guidelines you refer to in paragraph 25? Can you be precise about the guidelines you give out to your photographers, please?
A. Well, the guidelines are given out to my photographers, always very much the points that I raise in paragraph 12. They have to make sure that when they're out on the job, they conduct themselves in a proper manner, there's no harassment of anybody concerned and that when they're representing the paper and the integrity of our paper, that they do their best not to do anything wrong. That's basically it.
Q. It may be that the fair interpretation of the evidence the Inquiry has received to date is that problems aren't arising in relation to the staff photographers of any title; the problems are arising in relation to the so-called paparazzi, who are engaged by the agencies you mention.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. Of course, we've asked some questions and they'll be giving evidence in due course, but you don't know, and this is self-evident, whether they, the agencies, are instructing their paparazzi in the same way as you are in relation to the paragraph 12 questions?
A. No, I don't know that, no.
Q. Thank you. Can I ask you another specific example, paragraph 27, resignation of Dr Fox.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. Wasn't the very fact in those circumstances of sending a photographer to his home address arguably oppressive?
A. No, it was a major story, this was a major government scandal. He'd just resigned, and we needed a picture of him on that day to go with the current story, so, no, I don't think so.
Q. Do you know where the photograph was taken?
A. Where it was taken from?
Q. Mm.
A. Yeah, from a street, from a public street.
Q. So is this a situation where Dr Fox had left the precincts of his home, entered a public street and then a photograph was taken; is that right?
A. That would be correct, yes.
Q. Paragraph 28, though, another case of a photographer being sent to a politician's home, this time it's the Deputy Prime Minister's home.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. The circumstances were a disagreement in relation to the recent Euro summit veto. Your photographer was asked to leave, you say, by Mr Clegg's press officer and he duly did so.
A. Mm.
Q. And then the press office rang your picture desk to thank him. Wasn't it entirely foreseeable, though, that the press officer, if available, would ask your photographer to leave?
A. I don't understand the question, sorry.
Q. Wasn't it obvious that if a press officer was made aware that your photographer was outside Mr Clegg's home, that there would be immediate call for the photographer to leave?
A. Not necessarily. No, not necessarily, no.
Q. But the
A. But this was a major political story. Nick Clegg hadn't turned up in the Commons during the debate on the European situation. We hadn't found Nick Clegg at that point. We needed to get a picture of him, David Cameron in the Commons, Nick Clegg doing whatever he was doing. He may have gone home. We went to his home, the press officer said "Look, could you leave", and we left and that was the end of it.
Q. The reason the call came was that the press officer rightly thought that Mr Clegg's home was out of bounds
A. No, no, no, he wasn't going to be there he wasn't going back to the house. He said, "There's no point you being here, he's not going to come back to the house" and on that basis we moved on.
Q. So it was an entirely pragmatic decision, there was no point you being there, rather than it wasn't right for you to be there?
A. Correct; correct.
Q. Okay. Paragraph 30, please, Mr Silva. Is this right, that there is a policy now in relation to Pippa Middleton that photographs of her are not taken when she's going about her ordinary business?
A. Yes.
Q. For how long has there been that policy at the Mail?
A. Since the royal wedding. It's certainly come to the fore since the royal wedding.
Q. Why has there been such a policy?
A. There's no reason to photograph her when she's out and about doing her own thing. At the moment, we have a situation where there must be nine or 10 agencies outside her door every day. She goes to get a coffee or she goes back into her house, you get about 3 to 400 pictures on that a day. There's no need for it. There's no reason to use them, there's no justification for using them.
Q. Is this a policy which is just the Daily Mail's or does it apply more widely?
A. No, I think it applies to all papers. I've not seen the pictures used anywhere in any British newspaper publication.
Q. Why is she different from any other celebrity when she's doing her own thing? Why is she rightly one may say immune from being photographed where other celebrities might be photographed?
A. I don't think she is, no. I don't think she is. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON You don't think she's a celebrity?
A. No, I think the rules apply to both her and the celebrities. MR JAY I'm not sure I follow that answer, because you told us earlier that you feel that provided someone is off private land, for example their driveway
A. The argument I'm trying to make there is it's about the idea I was trying to get across is as long as the picture was taken in a public place, that's the general principle of that, that's what I'm trying to get across, we don't want to take pictures on people's private property.
Q. But the way I read paragraph 30 and the way I interpreted your evidence is that you have a stricter policy in relation to Pippa Middleton?
A. No, we don't. The policy is the same for everyone. The same policy applies to everyone.
Q. So why have you rejected photographs of her when she is just in the street?
A. They're of no interest. There's no reason to be doing her every day, taking pictures of her every day just going to buy a coffee or buy a newspaper or whatever.
Q. Is this simply again a pragmatic decision based on a superfluity of coverage of Ms Middleton, or is there some ethical principle applying here? Can you explain which it is?
A. I would think it's a bit of both, really, to be honest with you.
Q. Why do you say that?
A. Well, I think, as I said to you, I can't see it's just about the justification of photographing everybody one person every day as she walks out of her front door. There are occasions when Pippa Middleton does go to events where photographers are invited, she's been to a couple recently and she's been photographed there and we've been happy to use those, but her just coming out of her door every day, there's no reason to use that.
Q. I'm just trying to understand this is the last question I'll ask on this topic what you mean by "no reason to use it". Aren't you really saying, "We already have enough photographs of her doing precisely this, we don't need more"?
A. No, I'm not saying that, no.
Q. What are you saying?
A. I'm saying that there's no justification for photographing her every day leaving her home.
Q. The issue of digital alteration of photographs you address under paragraph 33. You fairly say and under paragraph 34 it's getting harder to spot this, as the technology improves.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. Are you confronted with situations now where you're suspecting that a photograph may have been digitally altered?
A. Very rarely, very rarely. I can't think of an example off of top of my head.
Q. Do you feel you would have the expertise to be able to tell?
A. You would have to look at these pictures very carefully because software on computers is so good, you would have to look very, very carefully.
Q. Okay. May I move on to a specific case now which you were asked about in the formal notice that was sent to you, and that's Mr Grant's case. I make it clear that Mr Grant, owing to the circumstances in which this statement was made available, has not been able to respond to this, so I'm responding to it without the benefit of any assistance he could give me through Mr Sherborne. I've obviously looked carefully at Mr Grant's evidence and the photographs in question. Paragraph 36. Your photographers were not instructed to and did not take any photographs of her before the birth. But you weren't aware, were you, of the date of the birth or the fact that there would be a birth?
A. Myself personally, no.
Q. No. On 2 November, the day following the announcement of the birth in a US magazine, you sent one of your photographers to the woman's house. Why did you do that?
A. Well, it was a major showbiz story which was of great interest to our readers and that's the reason why we sent.
Q. But you were immediately and automatically dealing with a circumstance, were you not, that unless the mother gave her consent, you would be acting intrusively, wouldn't you?
A. No, the purpose of going to the house was to see if we could get a posed-up picture of Hugh or mother with baby. Now, our response to this story was no different to the reaction that we've done on previous occasions when other celebrities or high profile people have become parents for the first time. For example, when David Cameron or Gordon Brown, they became fathers, we went to the hospital along with other papers and they eventually posed up with their children. Other celebrities, you know, like Jamie Oliver, David Jason, we've gone to the hospital, asked them if they would pose up with their partner and the baby, and they've done so, and the idea was to do exactly same thing here.
Q. So really what you're trying to do is to achieve a situation where you say there would be a posed-up photograph, in other words a photograph which would be taken consensually?
A. Yes, absolutely. In an ideal world, it would be nice if Hugh and his partner and the baby, if they'd issued a picture, we didn't have to take it ourselves, they issue it to every paper, it's a lovely picture. Sometimes what celebrities do, they say, "If you use this picture, money can be donated to charity". It means it's a nice picture which we would like in the paper. Sometimes there's so much doom and gloom in the paper, it just brightens the whole thing up.
Q. Can I just ask two follow-up questions on that? You say an ideal world, but it might be said in an ideal world that sort of photograph, father, mother and child, is really an entirely private matter for the parents of the child. It's none of our business whether they provide such a photograph or indeed whether you seek to engineer a situation whereby you might get such a photograph?
A. I'm not sure it's a private matter
Q. Isn't that right?
A. No, I don't agree with that.
Q. Why not?
A. I have I hope explained to you why. I think the whole thing was brought into the public domain by two things in particular. We had a press release issued by a magazine in America saying that Hugh Grant had just become a father, and we then have a situation where the agent confirms the story a few hours later, okay, and this agent issues a four-line statement confirming it and puts in a curious phrase, "The baby's been born following a fleeting affair". Now, the agent could in that statement have carried on and said, "Look, Hugh Grant and the woman in question will not be giving any interviews, they do not want to pose up, and we would ask people to respect their privacy at this time and not to converge on their respective houses", but there was nothing of that in there, there was no inclination in that statement that there was a privacy matter or there was a problem ahead.
Q. It depends where you start from, though, Mr Silva. Is not the starting point that this is a private situation? So unless the agent or the celebrity says expressly either, "I'm happy to give an interview", or, "I'm happy to give a photograph", the presumption must be that they're not happy to allow themselves to be photographed? Isn't that the true analysis?
A. No, no. As I said, our response is consistent with how we've reacted when other celebrities and high-profile people have become parents for the first time, or become parents. The story breaks, we then go to their home or the hospital, we ask them if they'll pose up, if they say no, you leave and you move away.
Q. But isn't your response engendered more by a wrong analysis of the situation here? The correct analysis, it might be said, and I'm putting it to you certainly on that basis, is that we have a situation of privacy. This is a family matter. Whether or not a photograph is given up is entirely the decision of Mr Grant and the mother of the child. Unless they say yes, the presumption must be no.
A. It became clear
Q. Isn't that the correct analysis?
A. No. It became clear within a day or so that we weren't going to get a photograph, so then we just pulled off.
Q. But didn't you know from your if I can put it crudely in these terms your previous dealings with Mr Grant, that he was bound to say no anyway?
A. No.
Q. Is that really your answer?
A. That is my answer, yes.
Q. In this sort of situation, I know he hasn't been a father before, but it would be obvious that a man like him, who is quite entitled to say, "This is a matter which concerns my privacy, it's none of your business", it's a position he's consistently held, that had you asked him, you were going to get that resounding answer. Didn't you know that?
A. No. Obviously not. We went to his house in the belief and in the hope that if we could speak to someone and say "Look, could you pose up? Is there a chance?" that was the situation, and that's how we approached it.
Q. The other point is why send a photographer to his or rather the woman's home? Why not through the ordinary channels, find out whether they are prepared to give you this posed-up photograph, and if the answer is yes, then by all means take it, but why go to the lengths of sending a photographer to her home, which by its nature amounts to some degree of harassment?
A. Well, no, as I said to you, again, we went there in the hope that if she came out, we could ask her, say do you mind if we take a picture, and if she said yes, we would have taken the picture.
Q. It's not an answer to my question because you sent a photographer out in the hope, which I understand, but my question was why not wait to get the green light from Mr Grant and/or the mother of the child before even sending someone out there?
A. I can't explain that. I've given you my answer and that's the way I approached it.
Q. The reason why you did it in this way is that must be your practise, it must be
A. As I said, it's our normal response
Q. It's your normal response?
A. It's the way we've done it for years. I've never had a situation where anybody's come back and complained when we've gone to the hospital or their home. They normally say, "Look, I don't want the picture taken, go away", we go away. It's a simple question. You ask, you go away.
Q. Okay. I think we understand where you're coming from sufficiently, Mr Silva. I don't press you further on that particular point, if you don't mind. You make it clear in paragraph 37 Mr Grant did visit the house "and we obtained a photograph of him outside the house, which we then used". Of course, that photograph must have been taken without his consent. Would you agree?
A. Well no, he was there talking to photographers.
Q. Probably telling them to go away, wasn't he?
A. Well, it was no, I believe it was taken with his consent. He knew he was being photographed, so I was happy to put the picture in.
Q. Maybe there wasn't much he could do about it, but did you ask the photographer whether Mr Grant had given his consent?
A. No, I did not.
Q. You weren't surprised, were you, when Mr Grant, probably quite rightly, made a fuss about this, were you?
A. No, given the build-up of photographers over the next day or so, it did grow quite quickly, no, I'm not surprised.
Q. I think you also obtained a photograph, is this right, from either a German magazine or a German agency?
A. A German newspaper.
Q. A German newspaper, that's Bild, is that right?
A. Bild-Zeitung, yes.
Q. We've seen that photograph of Mr Grant
A. With a German pop star, German singer, yeah.
Q. Whatever. Can I just ask you about the circumstances of that? Did you make enquiry of the German agency of the circumstances in which that photograph had been taken?
A. I can't remember. I can't remember if we did.
Q. Did you follow the paragraph 12
A. Yeah, we did, we spoke to the agency as best we could.
Q. What answer did you get?
A. I can't recall off the top of my head. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON So you would apply your rules, even if the photograph was taken in a different country?
A. Yes. That's it, irrespective of where it was taken. MR JAY We've seen and we remember the photograph. Could you assist us at all if you would like to see the photograph, it's in the third of our bundles. Maybe we should dig it out. Do you have these files? If not, we'll get one handed up to you. I think it's under tab 42.
A. I don't have anything.
Q. We'll find it for you. Might be tab 43. Yes, it's in two places. Exhibit HG2, which is tab 44, actually. If you go to tab 44 and look first at page 33197, Mr Silva. Do you have it?
A. No. 33
Q. Take your time. 33197. I'm asking you to pass over photographs in the News of the World, because we're not interested in those, to the Daily Mail. 33197. First of all, there's a picture of the burlesque singer, which presumably was an agency picture, it was on the front page but this looks like a posed picture, doesn't it?
A. That's correct.
Q. We're not troubled by that one. But 33198, these are the photographs in question, I think. And you say you would have spoken with the agency in Germany about in particular the photograph on the left, would you?
A. Yes, yes.
Q. I'm no expert. It looks as if it's a public place, we can see that?
A. It's in the street, yes.
Q. We can see the traffic light in the back. It looks as if Mr Grant and Ms Schmidt don't know they're being photographed; is that right?
A. I don't know. I can't remember. I get the impression they do know my impression is they knew they were being photographed, they're walking down the street, they're walking towards the photographer. If I remember from the sequence of photographs, they then get into a cab and I think he photographed them while they were in the cab as well.
Q. We can see that on the right, but I must say, and of course I'm completely the wrong person to give evidence, that the inference I draw, there are two. One, this is taken with a long lens, and certainly at the time this photograph was taken, the probabilities are that the subjects don't know they're being photographed. Would you agree with that?
A. I can't comment on that at the moment.
Q. Just by looking at the photograph.
A. You can't tell from that photograph. You can't tell from that photocopy.
Q. It's true, it's not the best quality. You can't assist us with the answers you may have received to the questions: was the subject followed? Was the subject harassed in any way, for example?
A. My impression from these, from what I can recall at the time, there was no suggestion that he was harassed, he looked comfortable in the pictures, they were taken in a public place, they'd just come out of a restaurant, walked a short way down and got in a cab and drove away, as best I can recall.
Q. So you don't accept that it's more likely that the reason that Mr Grant and his friend looked relaxed is that they simply had no idea they were being photographed? You don't accept that?
A. I can't comment on that at the moment.
Q. Okay. It may be I shouldn't be attempting to give evidence, but it's a matter for others what inference might be drawn. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON It's sufficient to go back to what Mr Grant said and then draw whatever inferences are appropriate. MR JAY We do have the same photograph, a much better quality, actually, in the online edition. You may be able to help us with this. It says "copyright" and then "Exposure". Who are Exposure?
A. They're a paparazzi agency. They're a celebrity agency.
Q. A British one or an international one or
A. They're a British one, but they have photographers around the world who send them their gear and they put it out.
Q. Okay. I can go back to your statement, Mr Silva. Yes, we're back to 3 November. "There were a large number of paparazzi there So there was a bit of a scrum now; is that right?
A. That's correct, yeah.
Q. and it became clear that the mother did not want to pose for an agreed photograph. As a result of this and concerns raised by the PCC, we pulled off the photographer." Can you explain what you meant by "it became clear"?
A. Well, after two days the story had broken on November 1, we're now to November 3 there had been no sign of the mother, Hugh Grant had been there briefly and left, he had made his thoughts known, so it was becoming clear that this wasn't going to work out, it was time to move away.
Q. Yes, but wasn't it more stark than that, that if I can put it in the vernacular, the mother is holed out in her house, she doesn't emerge. One reason why she doesn't emerge, it could be said as a matter of common sense, she doesn't want to be photographed.
A. Mm.
Q. It was pretty obvious particularly didn't want to be photographed with a whole mob of paparazzi there that this was becoming an oppressive and unfortunate situation, wasn't it?
A. Yeah, I would agree with that, yeah. It's fair enough.
Q. This is one of your own photographers, though, not even a paparazzi?
A. We weren't actually directly outside their house. By this point, we're way down the road, we're not near the house.
Q. You say "by this point". Had your photographer moved away from outside the house?
A. I think from the first day we were never directly outside the door of the house.
Q. So where was he or she in relation to the house?
A. Some way down the road.
Q. So is this the impression that we should draw, that it was the paparazzi who were the mob outside the house, but your photographer was more discreetly placed some distance away from the house; is that right?
A. In this case, yes.
Q. Have you spoken to your photographer to confirm that?
A. I spoke to him again yesterday.
Q. And that's what he told you?
A. Yeah, I double-checked it again yesterday.
Q. Okay, thank you. Then in paragraph 39: "I believe we published two pictures of the mother in the period since the birth, both of which were purchased from agencies." We may have those photographs as well. I don't know whether it's the one at 33198, but it's not going to matter much, the exact photograph. Is it your evidence that in both cases you asked the paragraph 12 questions?
A. With regards to the two pictures of
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, we did, yes.
Q. In paragraph 42, to be fair to you, you rejected photographs provided to you by an agency of Hugh Grant going to the hospital to visit the newborn baby?
A. Mm-hm.
Q. And you also say no UK newspaper has used those photographs. Can I deal now with the McCanns, please. If I can taking this quite shortly. In Portugal there was one of your photographers out there and that photographer took photographs really on a consensual basis; is that the position?
A. Yes. I believe that's true.
Q. When they came home, which was in or probably I think before September 2007, there were photographs taken by agencies. You tell us in paragraph 46 what's happened more recently, but in this period, 2007, late 2007, were any of your photographers outside or near to their home?
A. Not that I can recall. Over the last two days I've been going through the picture library to refresh my memory on this to see what has actually been used and most of the pictures were done by agencies like Reuters, Getty PA, and the local agencies like News Team that are based in Birmingham, that I can recall.
Q. You said to the best of your knowledge these photographs were taken with the approval of the McCanns' press officer. Are you saying that you asked your paragraph 12 questions and got that answer?
A. No, I think what was done when they came back, the photographers were allowed to stand in one position near the home. I couldn't say exactly where it was. And they were allowed to stand there and take picture from there and I believe that was all set up with the co-operation of the family and the press officer that they had appointed at that time.
Q. Did you take any photographs or rather did these agencies take any photographs of the McCanns' children which you used?
A. Over that period of time, pictures did come in of the McCanns as they were leaving home with their children. They certainly were taken, yes.
Q. What did you do with those photographs?
A. Those photographs were used in our papers, along with other papers.
Q. I am not interested really with what other papers were doing, but couldn't it be said that such photographs were used in breach of your principles, since they were out with their family, paragraph 17 of your statement?
A. Well, this was a unique situation. This was a unique news story where we'd been allowed to stand there by the family. We had photographed the children with the parents' approval in Portugal. Up to that point, I don't recall any objection from the family about using pictures of the other two children.
Q. I appreciate that on one level this was a uniquely interesting story, but on another level it engaged all the principles, the general principle you've told us about earlier.
A. I appreciate I understand that.
Q. It could be said, could it not, that photographs of the parents, in particular out with their family, out with the children, those photographs should immediately have entered the bin, shouldn't they? Do you agree with that or not?
A. In hindsight, possibly, but as I said, at the time as I said, it's all as it was at the time we had photographed the family with their children, there was no objection raised at the time, and on that basis we were happy to continue using them.
Q. I'm just concerned by your policy that it's the absence of objection which matters, because there are many reasons why people don't object, one of which is that they just get fed up with it and move on. I'm looking here
A. Well, if the press officer or the family had contacted us and said, "Look, as of now we don't want our children photographed or used in the paper", we would adhere to that. There's no way we would ignore that.
Q. But the general rule under the code is that photographs of children aren't taken, or rather should not be used, isn't that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. I just wonder what it is that usurps (a) the general rule in the code, and (b) your policy that people out with their family are not properly the subject of photographs. Apart from the fact that this was seen to be a unique story?
A. Well, it was a unique story. It was the most intense story I've ever worked on. It was one of the most difficult we've ever had to deal with, you know.
Q. In the Mail Online, again it's not you, we can see a photograph of Dr Kate McCann with her two children, unpixelated. The date is 17 September 2007. Do you want to have a look at that one?
A. Yes, please, yes.
Q. It's right that she's looking at the camera, but she's obviously in her car, yes. But we can see her two children. We can draw our own conclusions from her expression. There are other photographs which are pixelated, it's fair to say.
A. I think that particular picture, I do recall it, it was put in by one of the agencies. It was by one of the big national agencies, yes.
Q. It was put in. It wasn't put in
A. It was taken and submitted to us, yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Thank you. MR JAY There's one other picture I've seen which has been pixelated.
A. Mm-hm.
Q. Of course, whatever the digital photograph, however it comes to you from the agency, you have the ability, whether it's online or on the print edition, to pixelate it, don't you?
A. Oh yes, we do, yes, yes.
Q. Going forward, Mr Silva, you have a lot of experience. Are there any suggestions or recommendations you feel you could make to the Inquiry as to how we might go forward?
A. Well, with regards to if you take the McCanns' situation, if we ever unfortunately we're in the same situation again, I think an organisation like the PCC or the MPA should be stepping in when they were back in England to control the number of photographers or cameramen or reporters that were outside their home. They should be controlling that, so it could be done in a much more orderly and better managed way. Moving on to the paparazzi, maybe there is a time that these photographers should be going to some sort of PCC training schemes where they're aware of their responsibilities, aware of the guides, aware of the problems, get them properly trained and also properly accredited as well. I think that's something we should do. I was wondering whether our questions, as a template they can be improved on, I accept whether that should now be issued to agencies and they should be answering these questions when they submit their photographs.
Q. Just wait a minute, please.
A. Okay. (Pause). MR JAY There may be further questions from others, but I've detained you for some considerable time. Those are all the questions I have, Mr Silva. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I'm just noting that last answer.
A. Thank you. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Ultimately I suppose it's right that your paper is responsible for a photograph that appears in it, however it was taken. So if it was taken in breach of the rules, then that's down to you, even though you didn't know about it?
A. Correct, yeah. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON So if there's some penalty attached to that, it's quite important your organisation obtains some comeback from those who have misled you about the photograph, and that's really what you're talking about.
A. Basically yes, basically yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON All right. Thank you. Thank you very much.
A. Thank you very much. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON That's a convenient moment. MR JAY Yes. The time the statement of Mr Silva was put on the system was 10.46 pm on 9 January. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Oh. MR JAY So it wasn't yesterday evening, it was the 9th. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Yes, but those who are concerned with his evidence are entitled to be concerned in the same way that some representatives of the press were concerned when other statements were late. It's important that everybody has the chance to read these statements. MR JAY I appreciate that. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON And consider them, and we'll have to do what is necessary, if it is necessary. MR JAY Thank you. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Thank you. We'll have seven minutes. (11.33 am) (A short break) (11.44 am) MR JAY Sir, the next witness is Mr Peter Wright, please. MR PETER WRIGHT (sworn) Questions by MR JAY MR JAY Your full name, please, Mr Wright.
A. Nigel Peter Glanville Wright.
Q. Thank you. You provided a witness statement to the Inquiry, which under file 1 of the three bundles in front of you will be under tab 5. It's signed and dated by you on 25 October of last year. Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you. You haven't put a statement of truth on your statement, but is your statement true?
A. Yes.
Q. First of all, Mr Wright, you are currently the editor of the Mail on Sunday. You have been since 1998; is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. And before then, you were working at the Daily Mail in a number of capacities since 1979, and before that you were at a local newspaper; is that correct?
A. That's correct, yeah.
Q. So you must be, if you don't mind me putting it in these terms, one of the longest-serving employees of the Mail Group?
A. I think that would be right, yes.
Q. And so are coming to this Inquiry with, as it were, bags of experiences which you can share with us; is that right?
A. I'm very happy to.
Q. Can I ask you one general question? I appreciate we're dealing on the one hand with the Daily Mail and then the Mail on Sunday. Over the years, 32 years, you've been at both papers, how, if at all, has the culture changed?
A. I think the subject matter that newspapers cover has changed enormously. When I joined in 1979, the star reporters on the Daily Mail were the industrial correspondents. These days newspapers don't even employ industrial correspondents. So newspapers change as the political climate changes, as society changes, and as the law and the principles of self-regulation change in regard to news coverage.
Q. Has there been a greater interest in celebrity and some would say gossip, or does that not apply to your paper?
A. Apart from the industrial correspondents, one of the biggest stars on the Daily Mail when I joined was Nigel Dempster, who was the gossip columnist. There has always been interest in celebrities. Where there is probably a difference is that there are a great many more of them today. Proliferation of television channels in particular creates a very large number of people who would claim status celebrity. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON And also those who aren't really celebrities at all but have been on the television programmes not because they're film stars or
A. No, I mean people like reality TV contestants who red top papers in particular, whose readers are enthusiastic watchers of those sort of programmes, and they treat them in terms of news coverage in much the same way they would film stars or footballers. MR JAY Yes. Although your statement doesn't say so, we know that the Mail on Sunday continues to make money; is that right?
A. Yes. It's become harder in recent years, but we do still make money.
Q. Thank you. Are you involved at all with the online editions, or is that someone else's responsibility?
A. The Mail Online has its own editor and its own journalistic staff. It takes our content, but it also produces a lot of its own content.
Q. You are obviously a long-serving editor, 13 years. Some of the papers we've seen the editors move on more quickly. Is there a reason for that, apart from the obvious one, that you're good at what you do?
A. Well, I hope I'm good at what I do, but the Mail on Sunday is a large and successful newspaper, and on the whole, successful newspapers don't change their editors very often.
Q. Thank you. And the other general point about the Mail on Sunday, this is paragraph 3 of your statement, that you're not so much as other papers under pressure to produce big exclusive stories; the emphasis is less on that and more on the need to maintain a spread and balance throughout the paper that will appeal to your readers; is that right?
A. Yes. We are both a newspaper and we publish two very successful magazines. Of course we want to publish groundbreaking exclusive stories, but readers buy us for many other things: columnists, puzzles, human interest interviews, financial coverage. We're a very, very broad church newspaper.
Q. And that's what you mean by spread and balance?
A. Mm.
Q. The paper's managing editor, Mr John Wellington, he's been there for how long?
A. He's been managing editor for about 10 years. Prior to that he was deputy managing editor.
Q. Thank you. And one other general point about the Mail on Sunday that's in common with other Sunday papers, you tell us this in paragraph 4: there's usually more time available to investigate stories?
A. Yes. Sunday newspapers operate in a rather different way to daily newspapers. Daily newspapers have to tackle a very large daily agenda of news, and the editing job is more a matter of what you select, what you don't put in. The Sunday newspapers don't have that. As far as on-the-day news is concerned, Saturday is the quietest day of the week. You have a large newspaper to fill, and you are looking for stories that the daily papers haven't covered and won't cover, but will set the agenda for the following week. So you have to look beyond what is hitting the news editor in the face, and that involves finding stories which require more work, but at the same time you have more time to look at them.
Q. Yes. Can I ask you, please, about paragraph 6? I'm going to pass over paragraph 5. Six lines down: "Equally, editorial judgments have to be made quickly and often on partial information. Sometimes in matters of judgment, as with matters of accuracy, we do not get it absolutely right." What do you mean by "partial information" in that context, Mr Wright?
A. Well, editing a newspaper is not like hearing a case in a court of law. You very often have certain pieces of information of which you are certain, other pieces of information which are the subject of dispute. You have person A claiming a certain thing, person B denying that that certain thing is true. And then areas of a story where you would like to have information, but you simply don't have it. And even if you have been working on a story all week, the judgment normally has to be made on a Saturday afternoon and the full array of information on which you're going to base that judgment is not normally in your hands until that point.
Q. I think by "partial information" you really mean that the strength of the evidence supporting a particular proposition is going to vary between very strong evidence, evidence which is disputed and then evidence which is more speculative, and the editor's job, confronted with such a situation, is to make a judgment as to whether the story has properly been stood up or not; is that right?
A. Well, there may be areas in which you simply don't have evidence. So you may have a story where you know certain things for a fact, and you would like to know other elements of it, but you simply don't have them. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON What makes you think that isn't exactly what happened in court?
A. Maybe it is but I've never had that experience. But if you are a newspaper or a journalist, you don't have the benefit of being able to question people under oath, and very often people will either not answer your questions or give you an answer which is not an answer to the question you've asked. MR JAY That does happen in court. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON But there is the oath, and I understand the point. There's a limit to how far we'll take that. Yes. MR JAY Thank you. You've given us a flavour.
A. To take another analogy, if you're a scientist, you would hope to have absolutely conclusive proof of something you want to publish, and you then subject it to peer review. I mean, we don't, I'm afraid, have that luxury.
Q. No. You touch on the PCC in paragraph 6. Is it the policy at the Mail, and that includes the Sunday Mail, the Mail on Sunday, to settle complaints immediately so they don't get to the PCC?
A. As far as we possibly can, yes.
Q. Thank you. And how do you do that?
A. Well, John Wellington is our managing editor. If we have a complaint, normally it would either come to me or to him, but sometimes it comes to the journalist who wrote the story, we pass it to Mr Wellington, he gets in contact with the complainant, he speaks to the journalist involved, he tries to establish the strength of the complaint. And if we have simply got it wrong, and that does happen, we publish a correction or a clarification straight away.
Q. Is it the policy to publish that just online or in the print edition?
A. Oh no, we always publish them in the print edition, but we've within the last few months introduced a regular corrections and clarifications column, which appears on page 2 of the paper.
Q. And that's in line with your sister paper, the Mail, isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. So the corrections page is page 2?
A. 2.
Q. Regardless, really, of where the original article lay; is that right?
A. We changed our policy. It was our policy for many years to carry corrections and clarifications on the page on which the original article appeared, or close to it. This would sometimes lead to disputes, and we were aware that other newspapers had introduced corrections and clarifications columns, and we decided that the time had come to introduce the same policy ourselves, and I have to say I think it helps to correct things quickly.
Q. May I ask where this is in relation to page 2? Is it in the middle of the page, at the top of the page; how does it work?
A. It's at the bottom of the page.
Q. The bottom middle or the bottom left or right?
A. Bottom middle.
Q. Bottom middle of the page. What is the banner, if anything, which tops the correction?
A. "Corrections and clarifications".
Q. Okay. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON This was a policy that you introduced, it was announced, indeed, at the seminar?
A. Yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Yes. MR JAY Just to give us a flavour, how many of these on average do we see in an edition of the Mail on Sunday?
A. It does vary. I think the most we've carried was in the first week when there were about four or five. Last week we didn't have any. The average week there may be two or three. I mean, it's fair to say a lot of them are things that you might regard as trivial, but they're important to somebody.
Q. Do you tend to negotiate the wording with the complainant or is it your decision?
A. We negotiate the wording with the complainant unless it is and we do get quite a lot of these it's somebody writing in to say that we got the score line wrong in a football match, or but if there's anything contentious, we agree it.
Q. Thank you. Paragraph 9, please, Mr Wright, "Sources of information". LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Just before you pass on from that, you said you think that this is a good idea?
A. Yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Why have you reached the conclusion it's a good idea?
A. Well, we found that previously you would have a debate about where the correction was going to appear, what sort of prominence it would have, and this delayed it often delayed really quite unreasonably the amount of time it took to get the correction in the newspaper. The advantage of having a corrections and clarifications column is you can say, "Look at last week's paper, that's where it will go", and so far everybody we've dealt with has been very happy to see is it in that slot. They feel it's given prominence, taken seriously, and it seems to work. MR JAY Thank you. Paragraph 9 you deal with the issue of sources. And your evidence is not dissimilar from many others'. But can I ask you this general question: how often are stories published on the basis of only one source?
A. You mean one anonymous source?
Q. Yes.
A. If it is somebody who's given you a story about themselves, I would not have great problem with that. That quite often happens with political stories and sometimes with showbusiness stories. If you have a source and they're giving you a story about somebody else, then I would be uneasy about publishing a story based on one source, and you would certainly want to go to whoever it is the story is about and discuss it with them and get their reaction.
Q. Yes. That was really my next question. Is it the policy of the Mail on Sunday to give the subject of stories prior notification of the story you're going to publish about them?
A. Yes. I am not completely happy with the term "prior notification".
Q. Modify it as you see fit.
A. I mean the news room term is "put it to people". I believe very firmly that if you're writing a story about somebody which is in any way contentious, that you should go to them and put whatever matters of concern to them, seek their reaction, and make a judgment on what you're proposing to publish on the basis of what they tell you.
Q. Thank you. And as with all policies, there may be exceptions. What, if any, are the exceptions to the principle that the story is put to the person?
A. A lot of what we publish is completely uncontentious, and you may you may publish a story which is about person A, but includes background which concerns person B, which has been published before and which hasn't been challenged. In those circumstances, you wouldn't go back to person B and put to them again matters that would have been put to them in the past, either by our newspaper or another newspaper, unless you had reason to think that the previous story you were basing your background on was for some reason had been challenged or was inaccurate.
Q. Yes. Thank you. Stories are, of course, read by the legal department. As a general rule, do you follow the advice of lawyers or not?
A. Yes, but not always.
Q. I know it's difficult to speak in generalities. What are the sort of situations which might arise where you don't follow legal advice?
A. We employ our legal director, Liz Hartley, who you'll be talking to this afternoon, and a number of senior in-house lawyers whose advice I would nearly always follow. We also, on a Friday and a Saturday, we have two duty lawyers who read every story in the paper. They take slightly different attitudes, because they're different people coming in. Sometimes they are overcautious, and in particularly on celebrity stories, you have to take a view to we're talking about libel here there are certain individuals who are very likely to sue and other individuals who, for whatever reason, are very unlikely to sue, and because I've been doing this job for a very long time, I may have a better knowledge of that than the duty lawyer. The duty lawyer will point out to me, "Look, this could be there could be a risk here", and it's their job to point out the risk. It's my job to take the decision. Equally, I sometimes, not infrequently, go to duty lawyers and say, "Have you read this story?" "Yes," they say, "it's fine". And I say, "I'm very worried about this bit, can I go through it again?" So sometimes I take a more cautious view than duty lawyers.
Q. Paragraph 10, please, Mr Wright. It's really the second sentence. I'll ask you to explain or clarify that: "The rule on the Mail on Sunday is that journalists must reveal their sources to the editor if asked." That's a bit more bullish on one level than evidence we've heard from other editors. Would you like to explain that, please?
A. Well, I am well aware that if you run a story based on anonymous sources and you as editor don't know who those sources are, you can find yourself in a very difficult position, post-publication, where you have nobody to go back to. It's important to me to know that because I'm thinking here probably particularly about political stories the source may well have their own agenda, and if I'm going to make a judgment on a story, I need to know where it's coming from and where the person who's giving it to us is coming from. I may also need to know whether the person who has given us the story in the event of a libel action is going to be prepared to go to court and give evidence. It's not uncommon for people who give you stories not to want to be identified in the story as the source of the story, but who feels strongly about the issues concerned and would be prepared to give evidence were the story to be challenged.
Q. Thank you. This is a related question, but it doesn't quite bite on the issue of sources. Will you tend to know from your journalists the means which they used to obtain a story?
A. Yes. The question I often ask in our news coverage is, "How did this come to our attention?"
Q. Yes.
A. And particularly since the phone hacking scandal, I will quite often want to know what means were used to obtain information in the first instance.
Q. Thank you. I think I may be entitled to ask this question, that if phone hacking had occurred at the Mail on Sunday, would this follow, that you would have known about it, assuming that you weren't lied to by your journalists?
A. Yes. I mean, it's a little bit difficult for me to answer that question because I have absolutely no evidence that phone hacking ever did occur, but I would hope that if phone hacking was going on, it would have come to my attention.
Q. That may be one deduction to be drawn from the answer you've given, which is: yes, phone hacking did not occur.
A. Mm.
Q. I follow that. Can I ask you about paragraph 11 and your reference to, four lines down, a hypothesis or a gut feeling about a set of events?
A. Mm-hm.
Q. It might be said in relation to some, if not many, stories that the tendency is to start off with a presumption as to what happened, because it feels right or meets with a particular world view, and then the temptation is to go and get evidence which supports that preconceived position. Is that a failing which you would accept or reject?
A. I would reject that. I mean, I do often there can be an assumption on news desks that newspapers or editors are looking for certain sorts of stories, and I sometimes have to tell our news desk, "Look, I appreciate this looks as though it's a certain sort of story, but you must approach it with an open mind". You do have to in choosing what sort of stories you're going after, you begin with very partial information and you then have to go and look for further information. Now, something has to guide you as to what information to look for, so you have to have unless it's just a breaking story that, you know, a plane has crashed on a Saturday afternoon, but even then you have a hypothesis. And if, for instance, God forbid one of the new super jumbo jets crashed, one of the things I would ask my reporter is, "You must check for engine failure because we know there has been a problem a year or so ago with one of these planes that had an engine problem, so will you ask, make sure you ask the people investigating, the air traffic control, the airline, whoever, were engines a problem". It's fairly straightforward.
Q. But you would repudiate the suggestion that you start off with a working hypothesis which fits in with a particular world view and then you move on to establish it? That's something which you, as it were, drum out of your reporters, is it?
A. I think you have to tell reporters sometimes, "I want you to you must go and look at this with an open mind", and if circumstances are not as they appear to be, I want to know that. But it doesn't mean that it's not a story. It may well be a better story.
Q. Or a different story.
A. Or a different story.
Q. Thank you. I'll move on to paragraph 12, inquiry agents. Paragraph 12, you tell us a number of things which you pick up later. The banning of inquiry agents we know was in 2007. The last sentence: "In respect of payments for information, we have a checklist that department heads are required to fill in before authorising a payment." Are there still cash payments made to sources of information at the Mail on Sunday?
A. Yes, in limited circumstances.
Q. And in what circumstances?
A. There are sometimes people for various reasons who have information which is useful to a story who want to be paid in cash. Sometimes they don't have bank accounts. Some people just like being paid in cash.
Q. What sort of levels of payments are we talking about here, Mr Wright?
A. I think it could be anything I think the biggest cash payment we've made in the last year was ?3,500, but they would mostly be a lot less than that.
Q. What's the largest payment that's been made to a source?
A. Well, I've given you the answer.
Q. Yes, but it would be a non-cash payment then.
A. I'd have I don't have that information with me. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON You don't have a recollection of a super-duper story for which you really had to pay a lot of money?
A. It depends what you mean by a payment to a source. I mean, would you include a payment for an interview with somebody? MR JAY Well, I think I would, but I'm assuming that those payments might be a bit less, but I may be wrong.
A. No, they would be more.
Q. They would be more? Okay. Just give us a feel for sort of the top end of the range.
A. In the last year I'm a bit reluctant without checking, but off the top of my head, the top payment for a major interview would be about ?50,000, or a big book serialisation.
Q. The Lord Triesman case which you mention later on in your statement, we can turn it up at this stage, how much did you pay to the woman concerned? Can you remember?
A. I can't recall, but it would be of that order. I mean, I can come back to you with that.
Q. So approximately 50,000? The precise amount is not going to matter much.
A. It would be something of that order, yeah, certainly.
Q. The use of inquiry agents, you start on this theme under paragraph 13 of your statement. You were unaware of the use of inquiry agents until we heard of the Information Commissioner's investigation. You make it clear later on that that was in 2004; is that right?
A. I
Q. First sentence paragraph 14.
A. Yes. It was around the end of 2003, beginning of 2004.
Q. How did you come to learn of the Operation Motorman inquiry?
A. The Operation Motorman prosecution concerned a story or part of it concerned a story that we had run, and we heard that the police were making enquiries about that story.
Q. Can you tell us, please, about the story? What was the nature of the story?
A. It was a story about Bob Crow, the General Secretary of the RMT Union. There was some sort of industrial dispute going on, I can't quite remember what, and he was getting a ride to work on a motor scooter.
Q. How did that story lock in with the circumstances of Operation Motorman?
A. When the Operation Motorman investigation went through Steven Whittamore's log books, he had logged in his log books that the name of the owner of this motor scooter had been supplied to us by Whittamore.
Q. So the name of the owner of the motor scooter had been supplied to you by Mr Whittamore?
A. Yes.
Q. It follows, therefore, that the information obtained from Mr Whittamore was used to source a story, wasn't it?
A. No, it was used to no. I think we had the story that he was riding on this motor scooter, and we had a picture of him on the motor scooter, but we didn't know who the motor scooter belonged to. Then Whittamore supplied that information.
Q. Did that information, namely the identity of the owner of the motor scooter, find its way into the story?
A. Yes.
Q. So it might be said it wasn't quite to source a story?
A. No.
Q. But to provide information which entered a story?
A. Yes. Whittamore didn't supply stories. He was used primarily to find names and addresses of people who we needed to speak to in the course of trying to research stories.
Q. Yes. I'm going to come back to that, but you've just given us an example of Mr Whittamore providing information which led you to know an important fact which could be used in a story, namely the identity of the owner of the motor scooter; is that correct?
A. Yes. But I want to get the sequence correct. He didn't volunteer that information to us. I mean, I have to be slightly careful here because we know what was in his log books. We don't actually know who, if anyone, on the newspaper asked him for this information. We know he'd logged that he had supplied it to us, but we don't actually know that anybody on the paper asked him for it. It would be a simple assumption that they did, but I want to give you very accurate answers.
Q. Can I unpick that answer, Mr Wright, that Mr Whittamore, of course, didn't volunteer information to the Mail on Sunday, he always responded to
A. That's not quite accurate either. He would as I now know, some years after the event and after many conversations about this subject he didn't ring up and offer stories, he simply offered a service where he would trace, as I say, in most cases names and addresses and telephone numbers. But reporters would ring him up and say, "Can you supply me with an address for so-and-so?"
Q. Certainly.
A. And he then might offer other similar information. So if you ring up and ask for an address, he might offer you a telephone number as well.
Q. Yes.
A. But he didn't, as far as I know, and I've never spoken to the man, he didn't offer stories.
Q. No.
A. No.
Q. We're agreed about that. But he had a range of an array of information at his disposal, didn't he?
A. Yes.
Q. Which might range from names and addresses to ex-directory numbers, to vehicle registration numbers, to friends and family numbers to criminal record checks; is that so?
A. It appears so, yes.
Q. When did you know all of that, though, Mr Wright?
A. All of the latter, in August this last year, 2011.
Q. Okay. I'm still on the first sentence of paragraph 14. You told us the circumstances in which you discovered from the Motorman inquiry that "we were regularly using the services of the iinquiry agent". What we've established so far is one case, namely Mr Crow on the back of a motor scooter.
A. Mm.
Q. Did it follow from the revelation to you of that one case that you then carried out further enquiries which showed that the Mail on Sunday was regularly using Mr Whittamore's services? What happened?
A. I asked whether we were regularly using this man and I was told that we were. I asked our managing editor to check the invoices and see how regularly he was being used.
Q. Yes.
A. And I was uncomfortable that it appeared that he might be using methods of which we wouldn't approve, with or without the knowledge of people who had commissioned him. So we as I say in my witness statement early in 2004 we issued an instruction to staff that he wasn't to be used unless department heads were consulted, there was an extremely good reason to use him, and other means of finding out the information had all been exhausted.
Q. Yes. Thank you, Mr Wright. Can we again just analyse that? The analysis of payments which you refer to is dealt with under paragraph 13 of your statement.
A. Yes.
Q. I think what you're telling us is that you smelt a bit of a rat, and so you therefore caused certain enquiries to be undertaken, and those included enquiries of payments made. You say in the penultimate sentence of paragraph 13: "Payments to inquiry agencies for research and information were classed with payments for taxis, flights, accommodation, et cetera, and were monitored by our managing editor." Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. What do you mean precisely by the term "classed with payments"?
A. We have, in my view, a rather complex and a very thorough accounts system, which lists payments and analyses them under all sorts of headings. The payments to journalists this is probably slightly unusual for editors, but when I first became editor we had difficulties with our editorial budget, which was overspent, and I felt that the information that I was getting about our budget was coming too late and not in a form that I could monitor properly, so I set up a system whereby I would get weekly sheets of information on what the accounts department would regard as direct editorial expenditure, which would be payments to journalists, photographers, which is where the budget overruns were mostly accrued. But, like all newspapers, there are a lot of other incidental expenses, taxis for reporters, flights, hotels.
Q. Yes.
A. And payments to Mr Whittamore, because he wasn't a journalist, fell into that category, which I didn't exercise personal control over.
Q. Once you discovered this, am I right in saying that you discovered this in early 2004?
A. Yes.
Q. Was it clear what the payments were for, even though they were located in, as it were, the wrong place or a slightly misleading place?
A. No, the invoices were very vague.
Q. But what could you deduce by looking at the invoices?
A. By looking at the invoices, really only the sums of money paid to him.
Q. How did you know that they were being paid to Mr Whittamore? I mean, I suppose there was his company, JJ Services?
A. Yes, his name was on them.
Q. Did you then make enquiries as to the extent to which these payments were being made to Mr Whittamore's company?
A. Yes. It seemed to me that we were asking him to do things that should be done by reporters themselves.
Q. Can I just run through this? When we talk about extent, was it clear to you that substantial sums of money were being paid to him?
A. Yes.
Q. In relation, for example, to the transactions which the Information Commissioner identified positively as being illegal transactions, the sum he gave was at least ?20,000. Does that sound right?
A. That would be over it's a global sum over several years, I think, but yes, it would be about right, probably.
Q. I'm not putting to you a precise sum of all the transactions involving Mr Whittamore because they went much wider than the positively identified illegal ones, but I think we're agreed we're talking about a substantial sum of money, are we?
A. Yes. You are using the phrase "positively identified as illegal". I think I would modify that and say "might be illegal".
Q. At this stage I'm not going to argue about the terminology; we might come back to that. Was it clear to you what Mr Whittamore was doing?
A. His main use to us and the reason that our news desk had been keen to use him was that at this point in time a lot of information that previously you had had to laboriously go to places like Somerset House or to town halls where electoral rolls were kept, he had on databases, which meant that if you were a reporter and you were out of town on a story bearing in mind at this point the laptops we issued reporters with didn't have Internet access, people didn't have BlackBerries they could ring up Whittamore and he was very good and very quick at cross-referencing electoral rolls, phone books, and supplying reporters with basic information they need to do their job, which is where to find people.
Q. Is that last answer based on what you've learnt recently or is it based on investigations you carried out in 2004?
A. That's what I was told then.
Q. That's what who told you that?
A. The managing editor and the then news editor.
Q. How did they know?
A. Well, the managing editors spoke to reporters and asked them why they were using him.
Q. Did you know how many reporters were involved in the use of Mr Whittamore's services?
A. At that time, I can't honestly remember, but I know that a number of reporters used him.
Q. You say that the information you received, mainly from the managing editor but also the news editor, was that Mr Whittamore was using what might be thought to be legitimate sources
A. Yes.
Q. for his information, but how did they know that?
A. Well, that's what they believed to be the case, and this is why I was alarmed when I heard about the investigation into the Bob Crow incident, because it suggested he might be using sources that weren't legitimate.
Q. Yes. But didn't you have the sense then, once you knew about the Operation Motorman inquiry, that whatever you were being told by the managing editor, there might be a problem here, namely that Mr Whittamore was indulging in illegal practices, either part of the time or the whole of the time, and therefore the Mail on Sunday shouldn't be dealing with him at all?
A. Yes.
Q. Possibly you were also alerted to the slightly unusual nature of all of this by the payment system or practice which had been deployed, namely that these payments were classed with payments for taxis and accommodation, because they were, as it were, being or possibly being concealed in some way. Isn't that fair?
A. No, I don't think that was the case. I think that was just administratively how they had been classed. I don't think there was any deliberate attempt to conceal them.
Q. Okay, but if you were concerned, as you've just told me, that the Mail on Sunday might be associating itself with someone who used illegal practices, what further enquiry did you undertake then to satisfy yourself that your journalists weren't using illegal practices?
A. Well, I issued or got my managing editor to issue an instruction that enormous care was to be taken when commissioning Whittamore, and that he was only to be used in a closely defined set of circumstances, which I've already explained to you.
Q. I think there must be some misunderstanding here, because the instruction given in February 2004 was well after Operation Motorman started.
A. Mm.
Q. I think that Mr Whittamore was arrested in March 2003, and I've seen no evidence that the Mail on Sunday was still using his services in 2004. Your instruction must have related to other inquiry agents, don't you think?
A. No. No, I think you've got your sequence of events slightly wrong there.
Q. I'm sure I haven't, actually. Indeed, I'm positive I haven't. But it may be and tell me if I'm wrong that you were using Mr Whittamore, even in 2004. Is that really the case, though?
A. The instruction from the Bob Crow story was published in February 2003. The instruction from the managing editor was February 2004. From that point onwards, Whittamore was rarely used. We stopped using him altogether in September 2004, apart from two payments which nobody can quite explain, but effectively he was used only on very rare occasions from February 2004, and virtually stopped altogether in September 2004.
Q. If you were using him as late as 2004, weren't you running a risk here, Mr Wright, since we know that Mr Whittamore had been arrested and, I think, charged with offences by then, hadn't he?
A. You're asking me questions that I can't entirely answer, but I know that we became you know, our action dated from the point at which we became aware that Whittamore was going to be prosecuted. Whether that was after he was charged, I simply can't recall, but it was around the turn of the year 2003/2004, and in February that year we took steps to stop the use of Whittamore or at least only use him when we were extremely sure that what he was doing was legitimate and there was a good reason to do it.
Q. Given the scale or possible scale of the unlawful activity involving the Mail on Sunday here, why didn't you take steps to identify the journalists who were using Mr Whittamore's services and make enquiry of them as to whether or not they might have been committing offences?
A. Well, I thought the most important thing to do at that stage was to ensure I mean, what had happened in the past had happened, and you talk about illegal enquiries, but there is a public interest defence under the Data Protection Act, and I would very much hope that had Whittamore made illegal possibly illegal enquiries on our behalf, that there would be a public interest defence. But I was concerned that it had become apparent we were dealing with somebody who was acting in ways of which we were not completely aware, that this was a situation which put our staff at risk and that we needed to take steps to stop that situation as soon as possible.
Q. Okay, but you didn't know one way or another, did you, particularly without asking the journalists, whether there was a public interest defence?
A. I mean, I suppose what we would have had to have done is hold some sort of star chamber court and call in every journalist on the paper and ask them whether they'd ever used Mr Whittamore and give us all the circumstances in which they'd done so. I'm not sure that was entirely practical. The thing that was uppermost in my mind was to make sure, once we were in possession of this knowledge, that going forward we were acting in a way that was not going to put any of our staff at risk of possible prosecution.
Q. Yes, but were you aware that the Mail on Sunday had commissioned criminal record checks from Mr Whittamore?
A. No, I wasn't.
Q. In those circumstances, the strength or otherwise of the public interest defence was at best highly debatable, wasn't it?
A. Well, without knowing the full details of the circumstances, it's impossible to tell, but I mean that information we didn't have at that time. It only became available in August this year.
Q. It might be said that you didn't have the information because you didn't try and seek it out, did you, Mr Wright?
A. Well, at that point nobody had suggested to us that Mr Whittamore was able to do or had done criminal records checks.
Q. But you could have found that out, couldn't you?
A. But why would I go and look for something that hadn't been suggested to me? I mean, I could begin from the assumption that every single enquiry that we make involves illegal activity of some sort, but I can't do that.
Q. Okay, but certainly by the date of the first Information Commissioner's report, which I think is May or June 2006, did you read the report then?
A. Yes.
Q. You could see the sort of things which were going on, namely criminal record checks, couldn't you?
A. There were according to the Information Commissioner, there were some criminal record checks. But by this time we had effectively stopped using Whittamore two years previously.
Q. I appreciate there may not have been any risk of future wrongdoing, because as it were Mr Whittamore had been closed down, but this goes in relation to journalists who might still have been employed by the Mail on Sunday having carried out unlawful activities, namely breaches of Section 55 of the Data Protection Act. It was within your power to find out whether that was the case, wasn't it?
A. I think, you know, you have to apply a rule of proportionality in these things. I can only repeat that I was concerned for the good reputation and the proper function of the paper going forward. I was aware by the time "What price privacy?" came out that the appropriate authorities, ie the Information Commissioner and the police, had conducted an investigation into this, that in I think two or three cases they had found evidence that they thought warranted a prosecution, which resulted in a conditional discharge. I didn't see the need to go over ground that they had gone over themselves, bearing in mind also that we didn't have and weren't shown the evidence, Whittamore's log books, on which the Information Commissioner based his research.
Q. Okay, there are two follow-up questions from that. The first is that the second report, "What price privacy now?", which came out in December 2006 had the Mail on Sunday high up in the list, didn't it, of what the ICO called "positively identified transactions", which in their view were in breach of the Data Protection Act. We're talking there of a considerable number of transactions, and I think 33 of your journalists, isn't that right?
A. You're conflating two things there. I think 33 journalists is the number who used Whittamore, isn't it?
Q. No, it's 33 journalists, 266 positively identified transactions. I think that is correct, Mr Wright.
A. Yes, but
Q. The precise number might not matter much.
A. isn't that the total number of transactions?
Q. The total number of transactions involving the Mail on Sunday was a higher number than that.
A. Was it?
Q. But the table was concerned with a slightly more limited cohort. I think we heard somewhere in the region of 3,700 transactions. This was in questions asked by Mr Davies. But at that point you were aware that I think the Mail on Sunday was second from the top, with the Mail at the top.
A. Fourth, I think.
Q. Oh fourth, okay. Whatever precisely it was, the finger was being pointed firmly in your direction, wasn't it? LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I think the point here, Mr Wright, is this. It's not merely a retrospective on Mr Whittamore, which I understand what you've said about, but that something was going on in your newsroom which you clearly hadn't been aware of.
A. No. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON You may have given some instructions, but that something might have been going on might give you rise to be worried that you had to get to grips with it. I think that's the point that Mr Jay is trying to get at.
A. Yes. That's why we issued instructions to stop using Whittamore. MR JAY Okay. When these two reports came out in 2006, did the Mail on Sunday take any steps then to query the ICO's findings and conclusions?
A. To query them with the ICO or
Q. Yes.
A. I think we accepted his overall findings. We not me personally, but the managing editor's office of the Daily Mail asked on behalf of the group whether we could see the evidence on which this report was based, and we were told that we couldn't, because it was covered itself by the Data Protection Act.
Q. I think the Freedom of Information Act would enable you to see the information if you'd sought it, but is it your evidence that you did expressly seek out this information but were refused by the ICO?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Rather than accepted their findings and decided to move on? Is that the position?
A. Well, we asked to see I mean, I didn't personally ask, but the group asked, because, you know, this covered the Daily Mail and a lot of other newspapers, magazines and so on. But, overall, we accepted the findings of this report. I mean, if I may say so, there was something of a learning process at this period. We were coming to terms with very rapidly changing technology, and reporters and other writers in our newsroom were finding ways of or were adapting to technology more rapidly than editors were aware that that they were doing so, and rightly or wrongly, it took us a time to catch up with what had taken place.
Q. But the banning of all external search agencies, you tell us, took place in April 2007 with immediate effect; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Can I ask you this: you are aware that in August of this year a number of individuals referred to in Ms Hartley's statement went up to the Information Commissioner's office to carry out further investigations?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you aware of that at the time?
A. Yes.
Q. Whose decision was it to initiate those investigations?
A. Whose decision was it to send people to the Information Commissioner's office? It was taken jointly by me and the editor of the Daily Mail.
Q. And why was that decision made?
A. We were offered the opportunity to go and look at this evidence, which we'd never seen, and we felt we should go and look at it.
Q. Was it a unilateral offer by the ICO or was it pursuant to a request that you made?
A. To be perfectly honest, I can't remember the complete circumstances of it. I think it came via the Society of Editors, but I'd have to refresh my memory.
Q. I think there is some reference to that. Were you party to the decision as to who should go up?
A. Yes.
Q. And why was the managing editor, Mr Wellington, I think, why did he go up?
A. He went up because prior to becoming managing editor, as deputy managing editor, part of his responsibility was for what we call systems, which is information technology. He had a particular skill at looking at payment systems and finding and generally finding things in our computer records.
Q. You tell us in paragraph 13, the final sentence, that he was the man who you rebuked for failing to alert you to the practice of employing inquiry agents; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Might it not be said that he might not be altogether objective, therefore, given the rebuke you had given him?
A. Well, that was many years previously, and I would take the opposite view. I think he was very anxious to show that he was doing a proper job.
Q. But it might be said precisely that, that he was overanxious to demonstrate that he'd done nothing wrong in the past, because
A. No.
Q. part and parcel of that was that you'd rebuked him. Is that not fair?
A. Yes, I mean, the reason I rebuked him was over the cost of employing Mr Whittamore, and that was a conversation we had at the time. He didn't you're reading something into this which I don't intend. He didn't cover up the use of these people; he simply didn't alert me to them. There's a difference.
Q. But wasn't it part and parcel of your concern that there might have been illegal activity going on which you were unaware of?
A. Yes, but the managing editor didn't it hadn't occurred to him that there might be illegal activity, which is why he hadn't alerted me. He had taken the activities of Whittamore at face value. In fact, I don't think it had occurred to anybody that he might be doing illegal things. But over the years between 2004 and 2011, our managing editor had done a lot of work on this subject and, you know, I have to give you my assessment of an individual who I work with. He's not somebody who deliberately hides things from me. He's somebody who sometimes doesn't mention things to me because he doesn't see that there's a possible risk in them.
Q. The last question on this theme: was the timing, though, of the visit to Cheshire and the ICA's office in August 2011 not more to do with the announcement of this Inquiry?
A. No. I mean, it's not totally unrelated, but I think we had only recently received the offer to go and look at this. I mean, clearly the fact that this Inquiry was taking place was a matter that was in our minds, but as far as timing was concerned, I think that was governed by and it may well be that the Information Commissioner decided to make this information available because of this Inquiry. I don't know.
Q. Is this right, that you would have sent four people up to Cheshire to carry out this investigation even had there not been this Inquiry?
A. I can't answer that question. I mean, the circumstances are what they were and we took the decision we did.
Q. Okay. May I move on, please, Mr Wright, from that topic. Payment of public officials, paragraph 15. Can you just identify, please you make it clear you've never paid a police officer, have paid public officials on occasion in the past. What sort of public officials are we referring to there?
A. I want to be a little bit careful about how I answer this, because I don't necessarily want to identify the individuals. I think the most common cases would be people in the armed forces who have played a part in or been party to something that has happened in a war zone which they think needs to be brought to public attention. They're very because people don't serve in the armed forces for very long, they often find themselves in a situation where they're coming back to Britain, they're going to be leaving the armed forces, they're short of money, they have witnessed something very interesting, and they want to tell you about it.
Q. Okay. So that's the standard situation you're referring to?
A. That would be, I think, in the majority of circumstances which I can think of.
Q. Okay. Paragraph 17, balancing private interest against public interest. You list there a whole range of factors which you weigh in the balance. Many of them are derived from the PCC code, but one or two of them may be your add-ons. Is this right, without going through these factors, these are factors which have built up in your mind and in your thinking over many years of experience; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. I don't think you've included a public interest in freedom of expression itself, have you?
A. Um LORD JUSTICE LEVESON You have in the free press.
A. Yeah. MR JAY Yes, sorry.
A. But I would include that.
Q. Of course, without looking at particular cases where the balance falls, it cannot be discussed in isolation, but you have given us three cases. I'd just like to discuss, if I may, two of the three, probably before lunch. It's (b) and (c), Lord Triesman's case. This is where a woman approaches you, she's had a relationship with Lord Triesman, she wants to talk about that relationship, and had already made a recording of a conversation with him on her mobile phone, in which he had made a series of allegations about bribery in the World Cup; is that correct?
A. That's right.
Q. And the price for the story was financial consideration. Just can I understand this: why was it necessary for the Mail on Sunday to publish anything about the woman's relationship with Lord Triesman, given that you had the hard evidence on the mobile phone of what he said?
A. Well, the simple logic of the story demanded that you had to explain why Lord Triesman was in a restaurant with a woman 30 years younger than him, who wasn't then in his employ, and why they would be discussing these sort of matters.
Q. Thank you. So a certain amount of information had to be given out, otherwise the story made little or no sense, is that what you're saying?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you also saying that some of the private detail, as it were, was not included in the story?
A. Quite a lot.
Q. This is an example of you weighing up the public against the private?
A. Yes.
Q. Because I think it's obvious from the story that the underlying facts, as it were, that Lord Triesman had made a series of allegations about bribery in the World Cup, those allegations, whether or not they were true, were clearly in the public interest?
A. Yes, absolutely.
Q. Then you explain what happened, that there was litigation over this but the
A. Yes, I'm sorry, he began with a legal complaint, which he then didn't pursue.
Q. Yes. There was then a complaint to the PCC and a resolution of the complaint on the basis that certain information was removed from the online version of the article; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Presumably that information, without going into it, since it would agitate, arguably at least, the breach of privacy, these were private matters which you excised, did you?
A. They were matters which he felt were private. I'm in a difficult situation. If I tell you what they were
Q. Of course. Then we'll move on to the Lord Mandelson story.
A. Yes.
Q. This was the story of Lord Mandelson buying an expensive house, ?8 million house in an exclusive area of London. Can you define to us, please, what was the public interest in that story?
A. I think there's a public interest in knowing how somebody who until a year previously had been a government minister on a generous but not overgenerous salary was able to afford an ?8 million house.
Q. Certainly. And what was Lord Mandelson's argument?
A. His argument was that as he was no longer a government minister, this was a private matter and nobody had any business knowing about it.
Q. The information you published, was all of that in the public domain, namely the value of the house in particular and the fact that he had purchased it?
A. At this point he hadn't actually purchased it, I don't think. Oh, I've said he had.
Q. Your witness statement suggests he had.
A. I think, to be honest, he'd made an offer on it. The amount of money was supplied to us by the person who gave us the story. We put that to Lord Mandelson and that aspect of the story he didn't query.
Q. I'd assume reading this, Mr Wright, that you had got all the information from the public domain because had he purchased the house, you would know from a publicly available source how much he'd paid for it and it would be in the Land Registry somewhere, but is it the position that this came from a source?
A. This came from a member of the public, yes.
Q. Right. Do you know how that member of the public had obtained the information?
A. I do, but it would be putting them in a difficult position if but it was by proper means.
Q. So it didn't involve any subterfuge, did it?
A. No.
Q. Do we know the outcome of the PCC complaint?
A. There isn't an outcome. As far as I'm aware, the complaint hasn't been pursued.
Q. Does the complaint encompass the photograph?
A. I think it was simply on the fact of the story. As far as I recall, there wasn't a particular issue about the photograph. MR JAY I'm about to move on LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Just let me understand. It's only just so that I understand how the system works rather than anything else, Mr Wright.
A. Mm. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON He makes a complaint to the PCC. On 25 October 2011 you say, "We will fight the case vigorously"?
A. Yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON That's in paragraph 18(c). So since then, two and a half months have elapsed, and you say it's not being pursued. Does that mean it's been withdrawn? Does that mean it's just gone into abeyance? How does it work?
A. Yes. It's not uncommon for people to make complaints to the PCC and then not pursue them. They just lose interest. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON But what would they have to do to pursue it? Do you mean that he's not responded to correspondence? I'm just quite keen to understand, because this is I think probably the first occasion we've really talked in detail about one of these.
A. Yes, yes. I mean, I it might have been helpful if I'd rung the PCC before coming here to ask them what the state of play was, but we've had no communication on this for some months now. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I see.
A. What LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Certainly in October you were expecting it to fight, because that's what you said.
A. Yes, yes. Well, I wrote this witness statement earlier than that. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON All right.
A. We certainly would fight it, if he pursued it. And maybe as a result of hearing me give evidence today he decides he will, but LORD JUSTICE LEVESON No, no, I'm not encouraging him or you or anyone. I'm just keen to understand how the system works.
A. Yeah. How the system works with the PCC is exchanges of letters, sometimes phone calls. If somebody makes a complaint about the story, the PCC will talk to them. They sometimes help them in formulating the complaint. They will then write to us and say that "So-and-so has complained under section whatever it is of the code; could you please explain why you've run this story and why you believe it is not in breach of the code". You are obliged to respond within seven days. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Even quicker than court! Yes.
A. And you do so, and sometimes that's the last you hear of it, because you've explained your reasons and the complainant has looked at your explanation and looked at the code and decided that perhaps it's not in breach of the code after all. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON But isn't it rather important that you're told that?
A. What, that he hasn't LORD JUSTICE LEVESON Yes. That it's not pursued. I mean, I give an analogy not infrequently that the only way one gets better is by being able to look at the answer at the back of the book, and therefore knowing the outcome is itself significant.
A. Yes. I mean, this happens with legal complaints as well. I mean, people often don't pursue complaints. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I understand in relation to litigation, because as the bills start to ratchet up, interest diminishes and therefore they just drift off and are eventually struck out. But somebody who is mediating for the industry I don't say regulating, I say mediating
A. Yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON one would have thought would be quite keen to keep everybody informed. More particularly, obviously, the complainant knows what's going on, but that you should be able to close the file, that you should know, well, actually, that letter, our explanation's been accepted, or, well, we've not heard, therefore we're not taking any more action.
A. If we're going to break for lunch, I could check whether we have heard anything. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON I'm sure that's right, and that would be quite interesting, because I've not merely got an editor in front of me, I've got a commissioner, as I understand it.
A. Yes, yes. LORD JUSTICE LEVESON So I'm quite keen on knowing how all this operates. I think that's probably a convenient moment. (1.08 pm)

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Witnesses

Paul Silva

Journalist & Media

Gave a statement at the hearing on 11 January 2012 (AM) ; and submitted 1 pieces of evidence

Had worked as picture editor at the Daily Mail for 23 years at time of giving evidence. Told the Inquiry how the PCC Code applied to photographs. There was at all times an up-to-date version of the Code on the picture desk, he said, and members of the desk attended seminars on its guidelines. He could not think of a PCC ruling against the picture desk but all complaints were investigated with a view to resolving, he said.

Peter Wright

Journalist & Media

Gave statements at the hearings on 11 January 2012 (AM) and 11 January 2012 (PM) ; and submitted 5 pieces of evidence

Editor of the Mail on Sunday at the time of the Inquiry. Wright joined the Daily Mail in 1979, working on various desks before becoming Deputy Editor and then Editor of the Mail on Sunday in 1995. He told the Inquiry that there was strict demarcation between the editorial and commercial functions of the Mail on Sunday and that he felt no commercial pressure. He also said that he would ask a reporter for the source of any story likely to be contentious and that he learnt during the Operation Motorman inquiry that MoS staff were using "inquiry agents", a practice that was subsequently banned.

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Morning Hearing on 11 January 2012

Hearing Transcript

Witnesses

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Understand all the key topics and the context behind the Inquiry's findings