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Last Friday, the High Court ruled that phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering (“UIG”) occurred throughout Piers Morgan’s editorship at Mirror Group Newspapers and that Morgan knew about it and published articles he knew came from it.
Below, the Claimants’ legal analyst Dr Evan Harris annotates Morgan’s public statement on the judgement. The court confirmed that unlawful information gathering took place right up to 2011 – including during the Leveson Inquiry.
It resulted in damages for Prince Harry and others. The outcome conflicts with Morgan’s public narrative…
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Piers Morgan’s Statement on Phone Hacking, Unpicked
“I’ve got a short statement for you. A judge in the high court in London has ruled on various cases, including Prince Harry’s claim against Mirror group newspapers [actually part of – a sample of 33 of 148 articles in his claim], where I was an editor (actually the editor of the Daily Mirror from 1995-2004) until 2004.”
The judge found that hacking at Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) started in ..1995.
“The judgement finds there is just one article relating to the prince published in the Daily Mirror during my entire nine year tenure as editor that he thinks may have involved some unlawful information gathering.”
This is misleading. There are still 19 articles from the period of Morgan’s editorship of the Daily Mirror, in the remaining 115 articles in Prince Harrys’ claim which have not yet been ruled on by the Judge.
In addition, there are dozens more claimants with hundreds of contested articles from his period as Editor, and his former employers have previously paid out millions of pounds of damages in hundreds of settlements to previous claimants for unlawfully obtained articles in the Daily Mirror in that period.
“To be clear, I had then and still have zero knowledge of how that particular story was gathered.”
Even if we believe him, which we don’t, this pleaded ignorance (i.e. not knowing the source of any of his scoops) would simply make him the worst Editor ever to have afflicted the newsrooms of Fleet Street.
“All his other claims against the Daily Mirror under my editorship were rejected.”
False. There are 19 other articles in his claim alone and hundreds more articles in dozens more claims still to be ruled on.
“With regard to the judge’s other references [they were excoriating findings, not mere references – paras 330-345 here] to me, in his judgement, I also want to reiterate, as I’ve consistently said for many years now, I’ve never hacked a phone…“
It is about much more than hacking voicemails – it covers other unlawful information gathering – UIG.
“…or told anybody else to hack a phone, and nobody has produced any actual evidence to prove that I did.”
But that is not what is alleged or what the judge found. The allegation – which the judge found proved – is that he knew about voicemail interception (VMI) and UIG, and knowingly published articles based on it.
‘News Corp Was Out to Get Me’: Chris Huhne Condemns Murdoch Empire after Settlement for Phone-Hacking and Intrusion
The media company has now paid to settle a claim that alleges the involvement in, or at least the knowledge of, illegal activities by senior executives
Withering Verdict
This is some of what the Judge said, firstly in relation to an Ulrika-Sven story in 2002 that Morgan dined off:
Judge: “Melanie Cantor, who worked as an agent and publicist at the time, gave evidence about Mr Morgan. Her evidence was not challenged by MGN. She said that she had a close and trusting professional relationship with Mr Morgan and was aware that he had obtained confidential information about her client, Ulrika Jonsson. She said that Mr Morgan always seemed to be the first person to know about events that had recently happened, on a repeated basis.
“She later discovered that there were PI invoices naming her and her associates and over 400 calls to her mobile phone from Ms Weaver, Mr Scott, Mr Buckley and others who have been convicted or found to have been involved in phone hacking. Her name was in Mr Scott’s and Mr Buckley’s Palm Pilots.”
The judge adds: “The inference is an obvious one: Ms Cantor’s phone and the phones of her associates were hacked and the obviously confidential and sensitive information obtained was passed to Mr Morgan, who must have known how it had been obtained and made use of it.”
The Judge then summarises what the evidence shows. It is worthy of note that while the civil standard of proof is “more likely than not”, the Judge states “there is no doubt” which amounts to the criminal standard of proof of “beyond all reasonable doubt”.
He says: “There can be no doubt, therefore, that the editors of the newspapers knew about the VMI and UIG and were in a position to tell Ms Bailey or the board about it, but they obviously did not do so.”
The Judge reiterates this later on: “As I have said, no adverse inference is necessary to resolve the question of whether the editors knew about phone hacking and related UIG. It is clear that they did, and it would have been astonishing if they did not, given the scale on which it was being carried on in the 2000s and the remarkable story lines that it produced. It is also clear that the senior editorial management were fully aware of the fact that PIs were being used at great expense to conduct illegal searches and of the extent of such use.”
However, Morgan’s earlier denials (including sworn denials at the Leveson Inquiry) did include that he did not know about hacking and did not publish articles he knew came from hacking but he has now “reverse-ferreted” on that, but has tried to deceive his audience that his position is the same. It’s too late though. The Judge’s findings make clear that his evidence to Leveson was incorrect and knowingly so. There is a word for that.
Three MPs Investigating Phone Hacking Hacked During Their Investigation: ‘An Organised Attack on the Democratic Process’
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Misleading Beyond Belief
“I wasn’t called as a witness – it’s important for people to know this – by either side in the case. Nor was I asked to provide any statement. I would have very happily agreed to do either or both of those things had I been asked.”
Only MGN could call him as a witness, as whoever calls him (voluntarily or by compulsion) is not allowed to cross-examine him, so the Claimants could never call him – and he knows that.
So it seems he either refused a request from MGN or – as he claims – his erstwhile employer did not ask him. This can only be because they did not want him to testify in their defence. They knew if he gave truthful evidence it would not be helpful to their case. And ethically the lawyers could not take and serve a statement that they knew to be false.
Instead, MGN had no c