The News Machine: Hacking, The Untold Story by James Hanning

Author:James Hanning [Hanning, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Gibson Square
Published: 2014-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

As the Brooks-Cameron equestrian bonding proceeded, at about the same time, late 2008, Andy Coulson was asked by a journalist, this book’s author, to clear up what at the time might have been a misapprehension. Coulson had claimed, in a private conversation, that in his resignation statement he had denied knowledge of phone hacking. He was subsequently asked, on the record, to clarify where this denial was to be found, which of course he was unable to do (having done no such thing). Having not demurred when confronted with his non-denial, he was also asked, simply: did he know about the phone hacking? The answer he gave begged more questions about other versions of events. He asked to go off the record, giving an inconsequential reply. He was then asked: ‘Now, on the record, are you saying you knew nothing about the phone hacking at the News of the World?’ There was a long pause, and he said: ‘I really have nothing to add to what I’ve said before.’ He was given another opportunity to answer the question, but he didn’t take it. In other words, he was choosing to continue with his non-denial stance.

This was curious. If he didn’t know about the phone hacking, why not say so? If he did know, he had either come clean to anyone who asked him about it, which presumably would have made him unfit for the job, or he had lied. If the latter, why did he not repeat the same lie to me? Or, with hindsight (the d’Ancona version had not been published at that point), maybe he had only been willing to deny knowing about the fine detail of what Mulcaire and Goodman were up to? In which case, what an interesting conversation that must have been.

It was not until July 2009, by which time his ducking of the issue could no longer be ignored, that Coulson made his first public denial. The Guardian had just revealed that PFA chairman Gordon Taylor had been paid £700,000 by News International to drop his breach of privacy complaint. The obvious question was why was News International so keen to keep him quiet if they had so little to hide? Rebekah, having just married Charlie Brooks and been made chief executive of News International, should have been asked the question then, but wasn’t. And fortunately for Coulson, he was able to say that he had nothing to do with the settlement, having left the paper some time earlier. Privately he was more worried. He spoke to Cameron’s private advisor Ed Llewellyn and told him he understood that the time might have come for him to go.

But Coulson told the House of Commons Media Select Committee ‘my instructions to the staff were clear – we did not use subterfuge of any kind unless there was a clear public interest in doing so. They were to work within the PCC code at all times’.

Matthew d’Ancona has reported how, in preparation for a trip to Afghanistan,

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