Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story of the Phone Hacking Trial

by Peter Jukes, Martin Rowson (Artist)

Overview

'A must read for anyone who wants to understand not only our media, but power in Britain'– OWEN JONES, author The Establishment

'Top court reporting' – NICK DAVIES, THE GUARDIAN

Go behind the doors of Court 12 of the Old Bailey for what was billed as 'the trial of the century' – the phone hacking trial of journalists from Rupert Murdoch's two biggest British tabloid newspapers.

Every twist and turn of the longest-running criminal trial in English legal history is covered by Peter Jukes in this edition, crowdfunded by members of the public.

Heard in London in 2013 and 2014, the phone hacking trial had a heady brew of criminal eavesdropping, media rights, political intrigue, and Hollywood stardust. Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were accused of phone hacking and corrupting public officials while editing the Sun and the News of the World newspapers respectively. Brooks and her husband Charlie and her former PA, Cheryl Carter, were also accused of perverting the course of justice in an attempt to thwart detectives investigating the hacking.

The trial took place after years of cover up of phone hacking at Britain's biggest newspaper group News International (now News UK), the country's biggest police force, the Metropolitan Police, and the Conservative government led by David Cameron, who employed Coulson as his director of communications. After they were sworn in, the judge, Justice Saunders, told the jury: "British justice is on trial".

The long-running trial laid bare the intense illegal surveillance of individuals carried out by the politically-connected News of the World. Employing an array of private detectives, pried deeply into the private lives of anyone who mattered to them at the time: a Hollywood actress, a missing schoolgirl, a Cabinet minister. Sometimes the surveillance was based on well-founded intelligence that revealed a legitimate story, sometimes it was on a whim or the result of a malicious tip-off.

The trial pitted London's most extravagantly paid barristers against each other. Rupert Murdoch's millions hired top Queens Counsel to represent the seven defendants. The £5,000-a-day barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw, for instance, represented Rebekah Brooks. The multi-million pound case tottered on the brink of collapse several times as a result media misbehaviour, illness and delay.

Drawing on verbatim court exchanges and exhibits, Jukes reveals the daily reality and grand strategies of this major criminal case. He reveals a secret about Rebekah Brooks' 14 days in the witness box. He explains why a defence lawyer gave him a wry smile during a cigarette break. And he discloses the failings of the Crown Prosecution Service which contribute to the verdicts.

Like Dial M for Murdoch by Tom Watson and Martin Hickman and Hack Attack by Nick Davies, this book will fascinate anyone wanting to know about the phone hacking scandal. It is also ideal for anyone who wants to know the twists and turns of a major criminal trial.

 REVIEWS 

'Remarkable. I feel I now know all the key players and why some defendants were found guilty and some not, despite never having spent a minute at the trial.'

– PROFESSOR STEWART PURVIS, FORMER ITN EDITOR

'Written in a chatty, gossipy style that brings the courtroom drama alive.'

– NIGEL PAULEY, DAILY STAR JOURNALIST

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780993040771
Publisher:	Canbury
Publication date:	02/20/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	474 KB

About the Author

Peter Jukes is a British journalist, author and screenwriter. He is editor in chief of Byline Times and a director of the Byline Festival, both of which he co-founded with Stephen Colegrave.

Since 2016, Peter Jukes collaborated with Deeivya Meir on the podcast series Untold - The Daniel Morgan Murder. He also co-hosted the podcast Dial M for Mueller with journalist Carole Cadwalladr. He is co-author of  Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Exposed  .  His 2012 book, The Fall of the House of Murdoch, was described by the former editor of the Sunday Times, Sir Harold Evans, as "a roaring great read." His account of living in the modern city, A Shout in the Street (Faber & Faber, 1990), was called "a dream of a book" by John Berger.

Jukes reported every day of the trial for phone hacking of journalists from Rupert Murdoch's newspaper in London, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in British history. He revealed previously unpublished material about the case in his book Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story of the Phone Hacking Trial (Canbury Press, 2015).

His television credits include devising and writing In Deep (subsequently developed with Paul Haggis for the USA network), the first two episodes of the first series of the Emmy award winning Waking the Dead, BAFTA award winning Sea of Souls, and the first episodes of Inspector Lynley with original storylines.

He lives in London.

Martin Rowson is a cartoonist and writer. His cartoons appear frequently in The Guardian and the Daily Mirror. He also contributes freelance cartoons to other publications, such as Tribune, Index on Censorship and the Morning Star. His genre is political satire and his style is scathing and graphic. He characterises his work as "visual journalism." He is chair of the British Cartoonists' Association. He drew the cartoon on the front cover of Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story of the Phone Hacking Trial (Canbury Press, 2015)

 

Peter Jukes is a British journalist and screenwriter. His television credits include devising and writing In Deep (subsequently developed with Paul Haggis for the USA network), the first two episodes of the the first series of the Emmy award winning Waking the Dead, BAFTA award winning Sea of Souls, and the first episodes of Inspector Lynley with original storylines.

As a journalist he has written regularly for various newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, New Statesman, The Daily Beast, Politico, The New Republic and was nominated for several awards for his coverage of the phone hacking trial in London, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in British history, recounted in his book Beyond Contempt.

He is co-author of   Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Exposed   and director of the Byline Festival.  His 2012 book, The Fall of the House of Murdoch, was described by the former Sunday Times editor Sir Harold Evans as “a roaring great read.” His account of living in the modern city, A Shout in the Street (Faber & Faber, 1990), was called “a dream of a book” by John Berger. He lives in London.

Read an Excerpt

PREFACE: The Untold Story

‘There has never been any trial like this,’ a defence barrister told me during a smoking break outside the main doors of the Old Bailey – a place where a surprising number of journalists, lawyers and detectives congregated. He added: ‘There will never be another trial like this.’

Weeks before the phone hacking trial began in October 2013 the Daily Telegraph commentator Peter Oborne billed it as ‘the trial of the century.’ Yet it had taken almost the whole of the century so far to arrive. Two years had already passed since the News of the World closed in 2011 and eleven years since the newspaper had hacked the mobile phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler.

In a sense it was, as one prosecutor described it, ‘the trial nobody wanted.’ In 2006, the Metropolitan Police had limited its inquiries into hacking to avoid a high-profile trial, partly to spare the Royal Family embarrassment. Neither the defendants nor their employer, News International (since re-branded News UK) wanted an Old Bailey showdown. And for all the glamour of some of the targets of hacking, compared to other famous murder or terrorism trials, the stakes could seem small: there were no dead bodies, no violent attacks against other individuals, or attempts to overturn the state.

Yet, the state was, somehow, at risk. Two of Britain’s most senior police officers had resigned in the wake of the hacking scandal in 2011. Rebekah Brooks, former Murdoch protégé and not so long ago arguably the most powerful woman in Britain, had achieved the extraordinary feat of being friend to three successive prime ministers. Andy Coulson, her deputy and successor as News of the World editor, had been the Prime Minister’s director of communications at Number 10. Meanwhile the News of the World’s hacking victims ranged from actors and footballers to Cabinet ministers and princes. The tabloid had a reputation for exposing the private secrets of the rich and famous, without fear or favour; the trial promised to be as sensational as its front pages. When the judge, Mr Justice Saunders, warned in his opening remarks that not only the defendants but also ‘British justice is on trial,’ he might well have been concerned that intense media interest in such high-profile defendants could generate coverage that would improperly influence the jury.

The trial was unique in other ways. Normally the state in the form of the police and prosecutors holds the balance of power. Much of our legal system has evolved to help to redress that imbalance. But at the hacking trial the financial might of Rupert Murdoch’s media companies News UK and News Corp reversed the situation. Privately funded criminal defences are rare: to have six of them (all the final defendants, bar Goodman) was unprecedented.

There are already several books about the phone hacking scandal. My publisher, Martin Hickman, co-wrote one, Dial M for Murdoch, exploring the origins of the scandal and the legal and political campaign in Parliament to expose it. Another, Hack Attack, tells of the long battle waged by the Guardian’s Nick Davies to uncover the truth. Also published this summer was The News Machine, by the Independent on Sunday’s deputy editor, James Hanning, with Glenn Mulcaire, the infamous private investigator whose notebooks provided the bulk of the trial evidence. There are therefore many things I won’t cover in this book because they are or will be covered elsewhere: the role of Mulcaire and the origins of phone hacking at the News of the World. Or its cover-up. Or the cover-up of the cover-up. Or the role of media in politics. Or Rupert Murdoch’s global empire. Or David Cameron’s decision to appoint Andy Coulson as his press spokesman. Or Europe’s largest planned media acquisition, the BSkyB takeover.

Beyond Contempt is not even primarily about the evidence heard at the Old Bailey. I’m not going to replicate what is already in the public domain; my crowd funding supporters could rightly claim their money back. This book is all about what couldn’t be reported at the time: the documents and legal arguments embargoed till the verdict; behind the scenes activities by lawyers, police and journalists; and the backstage colour and comment which, given our stringent rules about prejudicing a jury, could have landed me in deep trouble if it had been expressed during the case.

This is partly a story about what it’s like to report a long trial. While the reporters were sequestered in the Old Bailey, one gained a husband, another nearly lost his life (but in the end, only his appendix). There was friendship, hilarity, tension, and – in the last few weeks – some contention. There was also, as Brooks once alleged in an email to Will Lewis, suggestions of an ‘old-fashioned Guardian-BBC hit job’: but not against News International. A rather curt copper was rude to a female journalist in Court 12 when he tripped over her on the way to the evidence room. Two male reporters, from the Guardian and the BBC, stepped in to her defence. Voices were raised, but no blows traded.

No matter how objective I try to be about Court 12, this is also ultimately my story. Even on days when the evidence was dull and ‘read’ in the dry monotone of a barrister or detective, there was always something new to learn.

Court reporting is, as someone once described policing, 99 per cent boredom and 1 per cent terror. I was a completely inexperi- enced ‘blogger’ roaming around the legal minefields of the Old Bailey. Despite my lack of legal training, I knew that reporting any of the backstage drama, legal argument or comment described above could have been Contempt of Court (telling the jury things they were not supposed to hear), which is punishable by a large fine or imprisonment. One false move therefore could jeopardise the trial and lead straight to jail. Right at the end of the trial, when the jury retired, this book came up in Court 12 in a discussion on reporting restrictions. When I asked a defence barrister why I was singled out, he said: ‘I don’t want to have to visit you in Wandsworth Prison, Peter.’

I’ve also decided to use myself as a character in the drama, not because I want the attention but because my unfamiliarity with the law is a useful (and occasionally amusing) story-telling device for similarly baffled members of the public. Many people have also expressed an interest in how I stumbled into covering the case using social media.

Finally, too, I can answer the thousands of questions that so many people have had, which I could not answer for fear of falling foul of the contempt laws, or because I just didn’t know. I was also constantly asked to comment on the evidence, what I thought of the guilt or innocence of the defendants and how I rated the various prosecution and defence arguments. Having refrained from anything but reporting for over 30 weeks now, at last I can speak out.

Yet in some ways I feel uncomfortable expressing an opinion. The glory of court reporting is this lack of comment. Going through the process of just saying who said what, when, has been completely refreshing. I see the phone hacking scandal and British journalism in a new light. I hope I’ve developed a more sceptical ear for commentary, a sharper eye for fact, and a willingness to present both sides of an argument and to let others come to their own conclusions. Our newspapers tend to mix fact and comment in a way that would perturb many American journalists. Often, many of our newspapers seem to more closely resemble vehicles for provocative comment than fact-finding enterprises. That said, Fleet Street arose in the vicinity of the Inns of Court in the discur- sive tumult of the early coffee shops, where opinionated lawyers argued the toss, scribes penned affidavits and pamphleteers sold scandalsheets. A search for disclosure and judgement in the shadow of the noose.

Clearly not all the public’s interest in the criminal justice system is in the public interest. One telling of the hacking trial is that it was an old-fashioned witch-hunt disguised as a modern trial. There’s undoubtedly a lot of prurience in trial coverage. Opposite the Old Bailey is the Magpie and Stump pub. Though housed in a bland modern building, it stands on the same place as an inn which sold special ‘hanging breakfasts’ to those who wanted a comfy upstairs room to watch someone swinging from a tree. In the same pub, court reporters carry on that tradition, discussing the demise of unpopular defendants. Indeed, before the News of the World focused on celebrity and sex, it was famous for court reporting, particularly salacious divorce and libel cases.

For serious and lurid reasons this book is called Beyond Contempt. The title was embargoed until the verdict because the resonance – an echo of ‘beneath contempt’ – could have been unfair to the defendants. As you’ll see, that’s not my intent. More importantly, the book explores some of the limitations of free speech and the law in a world of social media where every individual has become a publisher. In British law, the right to a fair trial outweighs the right to freedom of expression. As the Crown Prosecution Service notes:

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights... the right to freedom of expression, is a qualified right, and inter- ference of it in the form of restrictions may be appropriate where this is necessary and proportionate in pursuit of a legitimate aim such as the protection of the rights of others to a fair trial(Article 6 ECHR), or to privacy (Article 8 ECHR).

I suspect some journalists are rethinking this balance. Even Rebekah Brooks, a powerful newspaper editor who championed the rights of a free press, seemed to grasp the limitations of free expression when she protested about ‘trial by media.’ Before and throughout the trial, many defendants complained about media coverage. Andy Coulson was angered by the Guardian’s exclu- sive on his imminent arrest. Charlie Brooks, Rebekah’s husband, explained that the intensive close protection of his wife (she texted her mother that she had more security than the Prime Minister) was partly because she feared a career-destroying photograph of her arrest. Defendants repeatedly ascribed their ‘no comment’ interviews to police to the fear that their answers would seep into print – an irony, perhaps, given that as journalists most had run stories from police leaks. During the trial this tension between disclosure, open justice and a fair trial was a nail-biting, moment by moment dilemma.

[Continues: buy the book to read more]

Table of Contents

PREFACE: THE UNTOLD STORY. Weeks before the phone hacking trial begins in October 2013 the Daily Telegraph commentator Peter Oborne bills it as 'the trial of the century.' Yet it has taken almost the whole of the century so far to arrive, two years since the closure of the News of the World CHARGES. Full list of the charges and particulars facing IAN EDMONDSON, REBEKAH BROOKS, ANDREW COULSON, STUART KUTTNER, CLIVE GOODMAN, CHERYL CARTER, CHARLES BROOKS and MARK HANNA. The various charges may be summarised as hacking, bribing and hiding evidence LEGAL TEAMS. Prosecution: Andrew Edis QC, Mark Bryant-Heron QC. Rebekah Brook: Jonathan Laidlaw QC. Andrew Coulson: Timothy Langdale QC. Stuart Kuttner: Jonathan Caplan QC. Clive Goodman: David Spens QC. Cheryl Carter: Trevor Burke QC. Charles Brooks: Neil Saunders. Mark Hanna: William Clegg QC 1. NOT WAR AND PEACE. We get the full story about the phone hacking trial, such as the unreported pre-trial hearings at Southwark Crown Court. The defence teams argue that under human rights law, the prosecution should not reveal an affair between two defendants: Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks 2. PASSION AND PREJUDICE. The judge, Justice Saunders, a leading advocate of live coverage of criminal trials and 'open justice', allows reporters to live tweet proceedings. He says: 'In this case in a way not only are the defendants on trial, but British justice is on trial' 3. SEX, LIES AND VOICEMAIL. The jury hears the News of the World hacked Sven-Goran Eriksson, Faria Alam, Andy Gilchrist, David Blunkett, Kimberly Quinn, Delia Smith, Wayne Rooney, Patricia Tierney, Laura Rooney, Tessa Jowell, David Mills, Lord Prescott, Mark Oaten, Paul McCartney, Heather Mills 4. DEMOLITION JOB. The trial is taken deep inside the machinery of the News of the World: the paper paid private investigator and phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire £100,000 a year. Court 12 hears from witness Andy Gadd, another private investigator or 'trace agent' employed by News of the World 5. MISTRIAL OF THE CENTURY. The long trial is under strain. Jurors take time off for doctor appointments and funerals. Stuart Kuttner, who has suffered a heart attack and a brain stem stroke since the hacking scandal broke, is rarely in the dock. Clive Goodman suffers from heart problems 6. I'LL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT. The judge overturns defence objections to rule the jury can hear from News of the World reporter turned prosecution witness, Dan Evans. Hollywood actors Jude Law and Sienna Miller will testify about the impact of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers 7. HOSTILE WITNESS. The courts hears how Wapping was rife with hacking. Among the many victims of Glenn Mulcaire, police found evidence in his logs and notebooks that he had gone after the phone call voicemails of senior editors at News International, including Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks 8. THE OFFICE CAT. After months of anticipation among defendants and journalists, Daniel Evans, phone hacking star reporter at the Sunday Mirror then News of the World steps into the witness box on 27 January 2014. He says even the office cat at Rupert Murdoch's Sunday newspaper knew about its hacking 9. INTERLUDE: THE TRIAL THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. After the prosecution rests its case on 5 February after 13 weeks of evidence. Unbeknownst to the jury who are sent home, the defence teams begin a concerted attempt to throw out the trial, arguing that there is no case to answer. They fail 10. HOLDING COURT. Rebekah Brooks, former News of the World and Sun editor, now chief executive of News International, gives evidence. She is flawless. Jukes says: 'If it was a carefully scripted performance (as Andrew Edis QC later implied) it was the performance of her life.' 11. ROGUE MALE. Wracked by ill-health, Clive Goodman enters the witness box to deny allegations he corrupted public officials while Royal Editor of the News of the World.

Editorial Reviews

Peter Jukes has written a fascinating account of the News Corp hacking trials, which he had live tweeted throughout.

Independent Australia - Rodney E lever

'Remarkable. I feel I now know all the key players and why some defendants were found guilty and some not, despite never having spent a minute at the trial.'

FORMER ITN EDITOR - PROFESSOR STEWART PURVIS

'Absorbing and highly revealing... What's striking is how the mass of cash Rupert Murdoch threw at the defence disrupted, disturbed and thwarted the prosecution.'

EX-REDTOP REPORTER - DAN WADDELL

This is perhaps one of the most absorbing books to do with journalism that I have read; for the duration that I was reading it, I did not want to do anything else.

I would read it on the train, then as I got home, as soon as everything had been dealt with, I would be reading. It’s the perfect book for a trainee journalist, or anyone who wants to know more about the trial, and its subsequent impact.

Mademoiselle Women

'Written in a chatty, gossipy style that brings the courtroom drama alive.'

DAILY STAR JOURNALIST - NIGEL PAULEY

'This book is that rare beast a ground-breaking volume that's also entertaining and informative... There's a little of Dickens sharp observational eye in his accounts of the David v Goliath battle that took place in Court 12. Naturally, this being the underlings of billionaire Rupert Murdoch versus The Crown, the normal rules were suspended.'

PRESS GANG - PADDY FRENCH

'Top court reporting.'

THE GUARDIAN - NICK DAVIES

Top court reporting(Nick Davies, The Guardian)Remarkable. I feel I now know all the key players and why some defendants were found guilty and some not, despite never having spent a minute at the trial(Professor Stewart Purvis, former ITN editor)Written in a chatty, gossipy style that brings the courtroom drama alive.(Nigel Pauley, Daily Star journalist)Absorbing and highly revealing... What's striking is how the mass of cash Rupert Murdoch threw at the defence disrupted, disturbed and thwarted the prosecution(Dan Waddell, ex-redtop reporter)This book is that rare beast a ground-breaking volume that's also entertaining and informative... There's a little of Dickens sharp observational eye in his accounts of the David v Goliath battle that took place in Court 12. Naturally, this being the underlings of billionaire Rupert Murdoch versus The Crown, the normal rules were suspended.(Paddy French, Press Gang)A must read for anyone who wants to understand not only our media, but power in Britain(Owen Jones, The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It)

From the Publisher

This book, based on the half a million words tweeted during the trial, is Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story Of The Phone Hacking Trial

Counsel - Alistair Kelman