The Leveson Inquiry spent more than a year gathering evidence and hearing witnesses. It examined media law, regulation, and freedom of expression. It probed the relations journalists have with politicians, with celebrities, with the police, with the people who own the media and with the general public. The result was a huge resource shedding light on the whole industry.
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The trigger for the Inquiry was the revelation that News of the World reporters hacked the phone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler, and that case was examined closely in evidence. Phone hacking began in the late 1990s and the first arrest was made in 2007, but the matter was addressed mainly in general terms because criminal proceedings were under way.
Other events of the early 21st century to be examined included the McCann case and the data theft operations referred to under the general heading of Operation Motorman. The Inquiry considered the actions of journalists and editors, and also of the Press Complaints Commission, the Information Commissioner, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Inquiry also examined the history of journalism regulation going back to the 1940s, including the record of the PCC and of the Calcutt inquiries of 1990-1994. In its scrutiny of relations between politicians and the press evidence was heard from four prime ministers (or five, if you include Theresa May, who subsequently became PM) and there was also discussion of Rupert Murdoch’s relations with Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s.
The Inquiry Recommendations in relation to regulation, once published, were considered in cross-party negotiations which led to agreement on, and Parliamentary approval of the Royal Charter on self-regulation of the Press, closely following the terms of the Recommendations. This in turn led to the establishment of the Press Recognition Panel, which in October 2016 formally recognised its first regulator, IMPRESS.
Parliament also passed measures in the Crime and Courts Act 2013 giving effect to Recommendations on costs, arbitration and access to justice, but in 2015 the Culture Secretary John Whittingdale declined to give these effect. Their future remains uncertain. Most of the press industry rejected the Charter and instead set up IPSO, a self-regulator closely following the proposals put to the Inquiry by Lord Black and Lord Hunt, proposals rejected in the Report.
The Recommendations relating to data protection were not implemented. Although Sir Brian Leveson asserted that Part 2 of the Inquiry should go ahead, in February 2018 the Culture Secretary, Matt Hancock, cancelled It, and in May 2018 an attempt to overturn the cancellation in the House of Commons failed by nine votes.
