Leveson Inquiry

Established by an announcement by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, on 6th July 2011, the Leveson Inquiry was a, founded under the authority granted by the , tasked with exploring the culture, practices and ethics of the British press, following further revelations in regards to the News International phone hacking scandal. was appointed as the Chairman of the Inquiry on the 13th July 2011 with a specific remit to look into the claims of phone hacking at the News of the World. Lord Justice Leveson was also required to look at the initial police inquiry and allegations of illicit payments to police by the press. These specific areas of inquiry would be in addition to examining culture, ethics and practises of the press.

The inquiry proved highly critical of the press, but there were few lasting consequences. The existing press regulator, the Press Complaints Commission, was replaced by a new regulator IPSO, which had similar powers but even fewer newspapers were willing to submit to it, and it failed to meet Leveson's recommendations for a how a press regulator should operate. Another, more stringent regulator was established, called Impress, but none of the big news companies were interested. Libel law reforms that were designed to encourage newspapers to sign up to an effective regulator were dropped. There were plans for a second part of the inquiry to look at the relationship between newspapers and the police, but this never happened.

History and background to the setting up of the public inquiry
Original allegations of illegal information and data gathering techniques occurred in 2005 when the News of the World published an article about Prince William containing details that were known by only two people, neither of which had given that information to anyone else. It was determined by Prince William that the most likely explanation was that both his, and others', voicemails were being illegally accessed.

Following this, the Metropolitan Police opened an investigation into the allegations. The investigation led to the News of the World offices being searched, and the material gathered led the investigative team to conclude that the voicemail accounts of Prince William's aides had been illegally accessed. This led to Clive Goodman, News of the World Royal Editor and author of the original article that started the investigation, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator paid by the News of the World, being arrested in August 2006. Both Goodman and Mulcaire were charged under section 79 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and, on 26th January 2007, both pled guilty to the charges. Clive Goodman received a sentence of six-months imprisonment, whilst Glenn Mulcaire was gaoled for four months.

In addition to the evidence gathered in regards to the hacking of Royal aide's voicemails, evidence was also gathered that others had also had their voicemails illegally accessed. These people included Sky Andrew, Sienna Miller, Steve Coogan, Chris Tarrant, and Andy Gray. However, no new criminal prosecutions were made on the basis of this evidence and so these people, along with others, began civil litigation against the News of the World.

In response to the gaoling of Goodman and Mulcaire, both the Press Complaints Commission (or PCC) and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, launched investigations into how widespread phone hacking was at the News of the World. The PCC, a non-regulatory, voluntary, self-proclaimed regulatory body for those bits of the press that could be bothered with it, and pretty much run and controlled by the very editors that were supposed to be regulated by it, came to the extraordinarily contrary conclusion that there was "no evidence" that nobody else at the News of the World was aware of, or took part in, phone hacking. . Given the haphazard way that the PCC went about gathering evidence certain members of the press, media, politicians and the public greeted this conclusion with a certain amount of sceptiscism. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee also came to the conclusion that phone hacking was not widespread at the News of the World, based on non-sworn evidence from those people who were willing, but not compelled, to appear in front of the committee.

The Guardian puts on its steel toe cap boots
Starting July 2009 The Guardian released a series of articles that contained allegations that the hacking of voicemail accounts was much more widespread than the News of the World was admitting, that a number of staff, including the then editor Andy Coulson, knew that phone hacking went on, and that the hacking of voicemails went beyond the Royal household. The News of the World denied these claims, clinging to the line they had been using ever since Goodman had pled guilty - that the phone hacking activities were restricted to one rogue reporter at the paper, and Andy Coulson, now director of Conservative Party communications and planning, also refuted these allegations, with some within the political establishment claiming that the allegations and articles by The Guardian were politically motivated. Both the Conservative Party and David Cameron stood by Andy Coulson.

Amongst the allegations made by The Guardian, were the allegations that the phones of John Prescott, Alex Ferguson, Tessa Jowell, Boris 'BoJo' Johnson, Max Clifford, and Brooks. The Guardian further reported that, in addition to this, the News of the World's parent company paid out more than £1m in out-of-court settlements to end legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of News of the World journalists using criminal methods to obtain stories, and that staff used private investigators to access several thousand mobile phone accounts. .

Of particular annoyance to many of those who discovered that their phones may have been hacked were the revelations that the Metropolitan Police did have evidence that other voicemail accounts had been hacked, but had made no effort to contact the victims. Prescott was particularly aggrieved by this, but the former Assistant Commissioner John Yates stated that there was no actual evidence that Prescott's, or other people's phones had been tapped, beyond the information that had already been made public.

As a result of these allegations the Metropolitan Police Service commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson asked the assistant commissioner John Yates to review the original 2006 investigation for new evidence. In a single 8-hour meeting, Yates reviewed the investigation and decided not to take any further action. Yates, after this cursory re-examining of the evidence, stated that he "found [the original investigation] to be satisfactory." In specific response to John Prescott, Yates stated "that there was no material evidence that Prescott's phone had been hacked." Determining that no further action need be taken, Yates declared that the case need not be re-opened. Following on from that recommendation, the Metropolitan Police declined to re-open their hacking inquiry, stating that "no additional evidence has come to light" and it "therefore consider[ed] that no further investigation is required".

Later that year, Private Eye revealed that, to "avoid all-out-war" with the News of the World, it had chosen to to tell the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that £700,000 had been paid to Gordon Taylor in an out-of-court settlement in regards to phone hacking, and this settlement was signed off by the directors of News Group Newspapers. This agreement to the settlement showed awareness that phone hacking wasn't just confined to Clive Goodman at the highest levels of News Group and, by extension, News International. In response to these new allegations the PCC reopened the original investigation into the phone-hacking scandal, as did the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Although the Culture, Media and Sport Committee's investigation would run into 2010, the PCC's investigations were concluded a lot quicker, working on a basis that they weren't going to bother overly much with that annoying evidence and witness stuff, because it wasn't going to be necessary. Reporting in November 2009 the PCC reiterated its earlier position, that there was no evidence that phone-hacking was the work of more than one person at the News of the World and, bizarrely, attacking The Guardian for the articles it had released detailing the findings of the investigations that the journalists working on the story had discovered for themselves. In response to this report the International Federation of Journalists launched its own investigation into the conduct and role of the PCC during its inquiry into the phone hacking affair.

In January, 2010 The Guardian broke the story that Clive Goodman had a received an out-of-court settlement from News International to settle an unfair dismissal claim. Glenn Mulcaire also received a payment from News International in exchange for stopping employment tribunal proceedings against the News of the World. As a result of this article and other follow on articles, the Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport sent further written questions to both News International and its executives.

In February, 2010 The Guardian then broke the news that three mobile phone companies had discovered that over a hundred of their customers had had their voicemails hacked whilst the police had obtained 91 PIN codes through their investigations into the phone hacking affair, and that, although the police had only named eight victims when giving testimony in court, there was in fact 4,000 names or partial names and nearly 3,000 full or partial telephone numbers that had been obtained from the materials seized from Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire. The Guardian also revealed that, whilst Coulson was Editor at the News of the World, the News of the World had rehired Jonathan Rees, a private investigator, shortly after his release from a seven-year prison sentence for blackmail.

At the same time as The Guardian was breaking the news regarding the amount of evidence the police had at their fingertips the Culture, Media and Sport Committee issued their report, condemning the testimony of the News of the World witnesses, referring to "collective amnesia" and "deliberate obfuscation", and noted News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks' refusal to appear at all. The Committee concluded:

A few months later The Guardian revealed that in 2009 the Home Office had planned to ask Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to review the police investigation into the phone hacking scandal, but those plans were cancelled "after intense internal lobbying", with a senior Home Office official warning that the Metropolitan Police would "deeply resent" an inquiry. The Guardian then went on to reveal comments by former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan that revealed how widespread phone hacking had been under Coulson

At the same time as The Guardian was revealing the internal pressure used to drop a review of the police investigation, The New York Times published the results of an investigation it had begun in March which revealed further details about the extent of the News of the World's phone hacking. This investigation also alleged that Coulson not only knew of the practice, but also knew the depth of the practice, citing Sean Hoare as saying that Coulson had "actively encouraged" phone hacking.

As a result of these allegations the Home Affairs Select Committee started a new inquiry into phone hacking. Two days later the voted to refer allegations of hacking against politicians to the Standards and Privileges Committee, who would have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence.

Interlude: When celebrity turns journalist aka The Worm Turns
Following an encounter with Paul McMullan, Hugh Grant (who, for some strange, unknown reason, doesn't have a huge amount of respect for tabloid papers) managed to secretly record McMullan stating that editors at the Daily Mail and News of the World, including Coulson, had ordered journalists to engage in phone hacking. McMullan also claimed that every Prime Minister from Thatcher onwards had deliberately gone out of their way to form a close relationship with Rupert Murdoch and his senior executives. McMullan stressed the friendship between David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks, and agreed that both of them must have been aware of illegal phone tapping. McMullan went on to claim that Cameron's inaction, especially in regards to Coulson's position within the Conservative Party, could be explained by self-interest:

McMullan also asserted that Cameron had encouraged the Metropolitan Police to "drag their feet" on investigating illegal activities by journalists employed in Murdock owned newspapers. McMullan but also stated that the police themselves had taken bribes from tabloid journalists, so had a motive to be less than enthusiastic about any investigation:

Hugh Grant published this in an article in the New Statesman.

Milly Dowler's voicemail
On the 4th July 2011, The Guardian reported that the police had evidence that Glenn Mulcaire had hacked the phone messages of the murdered schoolgirl, before the discovery of her body six months after her disappearance. The Guardian alleged that during the process of hacking her voicemail the private investigators deleted Milly Dowler's existing voice messages to free up room so more could be left. As both the police and Milly Dowler's family had been actively monitoring the voice message service they took the deletion of messages as a sign that Milly Dowler was still alive and, as the investigation was still active, the deletion of the messages could have been the deletion of potentially crucial evidence. The Guardian also commented that the News of the World, in an article on 14th April, 2002, hadn't concealed from its readers that it had intercepted Milly Dowler's telephone messages and had informed Surrey Police of this fact on 27th March, 2002.

In response to this report David Cameron said that "the alleged hacking, if true, was truly dreadful" and that the police needed to undertake a "vigorous investigation" to determine what had happened. The Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband called on Rebekah Brooks to "consider her conscience and consider her position". Meanwhile, many other politicians began to openly discuss and ask for the then ongoing takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation to be blocked from going ahead. Questions were also raised about whether the Murdochs now met the 'fit and proper persons' test to hold a broadcast license in the UK, with Lord Prescott raising the matter with Ofcom.

In addition to the furore within the Westminster Village, the Media Standards Trust formed the pressure group Hacked Off to campaign for a public inquiry. The campaign gained the support of Hugh Grant, who during appearances on Question Time and Newsnight became a public spokesperson about phone hacking and the need for an independent public inquiry into the matter. The end result was the formation of the Leveson inquiry.

In a rather shocking admission during January 2012 it was revealed that Surrey Police, and other police forces, knew soon after Milly Dowler's death that News of the World staff had accessed her voicemail messages, but did not take issue with this. Instead a senior Surrey officer invited News of the World staff to a meeting to discuss the case.

Divisions and terms of reference
The Leveson Inquiry has been divided into two parts. Part 1 of the inquiry would explore and address:

whilst Part 2 would explore and address:

Part 1 - Module 1: The press and the public
In total 226 witness statements were taken for Module 1, out of which 184 witnesses gave oral evidence to the inquiry.


 * Monday 21st November, 2011 - Bob Dowler, Sally Dowler,, Graham Shear,


 * Tuesday 22 November -, Mary-Ellen Field, , Margaret Watson
 * Wednesday 23 November -, Mark Lewis, , Tom Rowland
 * Thursday 24 November - HJK,, , , Mark Thomson


 * Monday 28 November -, , Ian Hurst, Chris Jefferies, Jane Winter
 * Tuesday 29 November - Richard Peppiatt, ,
 * Wednesday 30 November -, Alex Owens


 * Monday 5 December - Alex Owens, Francis Aldhouse, Peter Burden
 * Tuesday 6 December - Charlotte Harris,, Steven Nott, Chris Atkins
 * Thursday 8 December - Professor Steven Barnett,, Professor Brian Cathcart, Angela Phillips, , Professor Julian Petley, Dr Daithí Mac Síthigh
 * Friday 9 December -


 * Monday 12 December -, ,
 * Tuesday 13 December - Lawrence Abramson, Julian Pike,
 * Wednesday 14 December - Tom Crone (continued), Jonathan Chapman,
 * Thursday 15 December - Colin Myler (continued), Daniel Sanderson, Derek Webb


 * Monday 19 December - Stuart Hoare, James Hanning, Matthew Driscoll
 * Tuesday 20 December - Julian Pike,, , Matthew Bell, Christopher Johnson, Piers Morgan
 * Wednesday 21 December -, David Pilditch, Nick Fagge, Padriac Flanagan


 * 2012:
 * Monday 9 January - John Edwards, Duncan Larcombe,, , and Justin Walford
 * Tuesday 10 January -, , , , , Manish Malhotra, Andrew Mullins, Finbarr Ronayne
 * Wednesday 11 January - William Lewis (continued), Paul Silva,
 * Thursday 12 January - Paul Ashford,, , , Nicole Patterson,


 * Monday 16 January -, , Andrew Penman, ,
 * Tuesday 17 January -, Thomas Mockridge, Susan Panuccio, , , , Chris Elliott,
 * Wednesday 18 January - Rosie Nixon, Lisa Byrne,, Peter Charlton, Noel Doran, Spencer Feeney, Mike Gilson, Marie McGeoghan, John McLellan, Nigel Pickover, Jonathan Russell


 * Monday 23 January -, , Jim Gray, John Battle
 * Tuesday 24 January -, , Jacqui Hunt, Marai Larasi, Anna Van Heeswijk, Heather Harvey, , , Ryan Parry, Gary O'Shea, Stephen Waring
 * Wednesday 25 January - (recalled),, , Jonathan Grun
 * Thursday 26 January -, Daphne Keller, David-John Collins, ,


 * Monday 30 January - Tim Toulmin, Stephen Abell
 * Tuesday 31 January -, ,
 * Wednesday 1 February - Collette Bowe,, , Guy Parker
 * Thursday 2 February - Adrian Graham, David Palmer, James Blendis, Mark Hughes, Tony Imossi, Tony Smith,


 * Monday 6 February -, Dan Wooton, Nick Owens,
 * Tuesday 7 February - Ronald Zink,, , Neil Turner, (recalled),  (recalled), Gary Morgan
 * Wednesday 8 February - Martin Moore, Will Moy, Carla Buzasi,, , Helen Belcher, Pam Surphlis
 * Thursday 9 February -, , , Michelle Stanistreet, , (recalled)
 * Wednesday 9 May - DCI Brendan Gilmour, Temporary Assistant Chief Constable (T/ACC) Russell Middleton, Martin Clarke

The Beginning of the End. No, the End of the Middle. No, the Beginning of the End of the Middle, with a lot more to come
As required under Rule 13 of the Inquiry Rules 2006 Lord Justice Leveson published a letter detailing his criticisms as findings of the inquiry to all those facing criticism, giving each party a right to reply to the criticisms before publication of the report pertaining to Part 1 of the inquiry. The letter, over a hundred pages long, and in theory being confidential has, nonetheless, had various details about it leaked. Amongst these details are:

and that:

A number of arrests have also been made in regards to the phone hacking scandal, with 25 alone being made in relation to Operation Weeting.

Press regulation after Leveson
Since the 1990s, the British press was in theory regulated by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), which was funded and had its terms of operation decided by the newspaper industry. In the wake of Leveson, this was closed down and replaced by a new press industry regulator, IPSO. The PCC had some authority to criticise the press, particularly in the area of intrusive and unethical behaviour by reporters, but some newspapers (notably Richard Desmond's Daily Express and Daily Star) had refused to acknowledge its authority - which in any case didn't extend beyond producing critical judgments to anything like fines or other interference with selling papers.

In theory an effective regulator would be good for everyone. Newspapers wouldn't have to defend lots of expensive libel actions, and members of the public would be able to get corrections without spending huge sums of money on a lawyer. And the public would benefit from a press that was more accurate and fairer. The Leveson inquiry had set out criteria for a press regulator, which both the PCC and IPSO failed to meet. Leveson proposed that a newspaper which did not have an approved regulator would be at a serious disadvantage when it came to assessing legal costs for libel cases, being forced to pay all the fees of complainants regardless of who won the case. To avoid this, a newspaper would need a regulator compliant with Leveson's recommendations. IPSO failed on several grounds: lack of independence, lack of transparency, failure to allow equal membership to all would-be members, not following the Leveson definition of public interest reporting, and more. Leveson initially proposed that OFCOM, the state media regulator with power over areas including commercial television, would approve a regulator, but in a compromise it was agreed that a panel appointed by the Privy Council (a group of politicians which advises the Queen) would instead judge if a regulator was "Leveson compliant" and award it a Royal Charter.

IPSO had slightly greater powers than the old PCC but not much. It had been largely conceived before the Leveson inquiry reported, in the wake of the growing scandal over press behaviour, and therefore did not meet the needs of Leveson. Although slightly more independent, with the theoretical power to launch its own investigations and even to fine papers, since its launch IPSO has shown little inclination to use any of its powers. It refused to launch any meaningful action against the major newspaper groups that were the subject of most of its upheld complaints: News UK (The Times and The Sun), Associated (The Daily Mail), Reach (The Mirror and a lot of local newspapers), and (much smaller in circulation but equal in number of complaints) the Jewish Chronicle.

In addition to Ipso, another regulator was set up, called Impress, which did comply with the Leveson findings and was awarded the Royal Charter. It was funded not by the newspapers but largely by donors, including press privacy campaigner author J.K. Rowling, and a charitable trust, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. However it proved much less popular with the newspaper industry, only regulating a few small, independent publishers, including investigative publications Belingcat and The Ferret, but none of the major national newspapers.

Other newspapers chose their own systems of regulation: the Guardian has a Readers' Editor, appointed by the paper's owners but supposed to be independent; the Financial Times and Independent also set up their own complaints procedures, while others like Private Eye did nothing.

The "Section 40" provisions, which would force newspapers to pay costs in a libel case even if they won unless they signed up to an approved regulator, proved very controversial. In theory this would encourage newspapers to sign up to a regulator, but organisations including Index on Censorship complained, saying that the rules would allow malicious libel actions to bankrupt newspapers. While it was passed in parliament, the rule was never brought into force, and the Conservative Party decided they would rather do without it. Those of a conspiratorial bent have noted that the government minister in charge of press regulation at this critical period was the Culture Secretary John Whittingdale (previously chair of the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee), a man who had for some time been dating a professional dominatrix, a fact which was known to all the major newspaper groups but which they were curiously reluctant to reveal. You might hypothesize that Whittingdale was being blackmailed by the press in exchange for the cover-up, but we will never know.

Leveson part 2
There was supposed to be a separate part 2 of Leveson, looking at the relationship between the press and the police, such as sharing of information and payments by newspapers to the police. However successive Conservative Governments decided they didn't want to proceed with this, and it never happened.

Dramatis personæ
{|

Chairman
The

Assessors
A panel of six people who will work alongside the Chairman on the inquiry:

Counsel to inquiry

 * Robert Jay
 * David Barr
 * Toby Fisher
 * Carine Patry Hoskins
 * William Irwin
 * Josephine Norris

Core participants

 * Associated Newspapers Ltd
 * Guardian News and Media Ltd
 * The Metropolitan Police
 * National Union of Journalists.
 * News International
 * Northern and Shell Network Ltd
 * Victims
 * Telegraph Media Group
 * Trinity Mirror

In January 2012 Surrey Police were added to the list of Core Participants.

Victims

 * , sports agent
 * , model and celebrity
 * MP
 * , singer
 * , parasite publicist
 * , television presenter
 * , mother of Milly Dowler
 * , father of Milly Dowler
 * , sister of Milly Dowler
 * , professional jockey
 * , former advisor to
 * Gary Flitcroft, former footballer
 * , former footballer
 * , ex-wife of Paul Gascoigne
 * , actor
 * , actress, writer
 * , former police officer and presenter
 * HJK, anonymous witness
 * , TV executive
 * MP
 * Ian Hurst (aka ) former army intelligence officer
 * Ben Jackson, personal assistant to
 * Christopher Jefferies, former landlord of
 * , television presenter
 * , MP
 * , solicitor
 * , MP
 * , father of
 * , mother of Madeleine McCann
 * , theatrical agent
 * , estranged husband of former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell
 * , actress
 * , former president of the
 * , former Liberal Democrat MP
 * , Liberal Democrat politician and former senior police officer
 * , publicist
 * , former deputy prime minister
 * , freelance journalist
 * , author
 * , artist
 * , former Air India chief executive
 * , lawyer
 * , son of the late
 * , journalist
 * , celebrity & video star
 * Mark Thomson, lawyer
 * James Watson, father of stabbing victim Diane Watson
 * Margaret Watson, mother of Diane Watson
 * , Northern Ireland human rights charity boss
 * , former Labour MP
 * }
 * , Northern Ireland human rights charity boss
 * , former Labour MP
 * }
 * }