14 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, Mr Jay.
15 MR JAY: Sir, the next witness is Mr Neville Thurlbeck,
16 please.
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Can we confirm, please, that we are
18 back online visually?
19 THE TECHNICIAN: We're told we are, sir.
20 MR NEVILLE THURLBECK (sworn)
21 Questions by MR JAY
22 MR JAY: Mr Thurlbeck, please sit down and make yourself
23 comfortable. There's a glass of water there for you.
24 Could you please confirm your full name?
25 A. Neville Thurlbeck.
58
1 Q. You have provided the Inquiry with a witness statement
2 which is currently in draft. Would you confirm, please,
3 subject to one change I know you wish to make, that that
4 statement is both truthful and the evidence you would
5 like to give to this Inquiry?
6 A. It is.
7 Q. The change you would like to make -- the statement is
8 not paginated, but it relates to a decision in the
9 French jurisdiction in October of this year where you
10 say in your statement as currently constituted --
11 I think it's the fifth page. You say:
12 "In October this year, the French courts appeared to
13 disagree with him [the 'him' in is that sentence is
14 Mr Justice Eady]. Although he has accepted his privacy
15 had been invaded, they ruled that I did not defame him,
16 thereby supporting the truth of the article."
17 First of all, have you now read a translation of the
18 judgment of French court?
19 A. Yes, I have.
20 Q. Had you read a translation of the judgment of the French
21 court when you gave that draft witness statement?
22 A. No, I'd requested it but hadn't received it from
23 Farrers.
24 Q. What is your position now, Mr Thurlbeck, in relation to
25 the French judgment?
59
1 A. My position is that the defamation matter -- although
2 I was acquitted of defaming Mr Mosley, this was on the
3 basis that I hadn't been responsible for distributing
4 the newspapers in France.
5 Q. That's correct. The French courts, if I can put it in
6 these terms, were loyal to the findings of
7 Mr Justice Eady, but the defamation claim against you
8 was rejected on grounds of jurisdiction?
9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. May I deal, first of all, with your career in
11 journalism. You cover this in your witness statement of
12 course. You started off at the News of the World as
13 a crime correspondent, I think, and your career
14 culminated as chief reporter between 2003 and 2011; is
15 that right?
16 A. Almost. I started off as a general news reporter,
17 a senior news reporter.
18 Q. Yes. Now, chief reporter, 2003 and 2011 -- can you tell
19 us a bit about that? What were the range of things you
20 were reporting on?
21 A. I wasn't a specialist anymore, so it would cover the
22 whole spectrum of news events.
23 Q. News events? Does that cover or exclude features,
24 showbiz? Could you be more specific?
25 A. Yes. Well, it would include investigations, it would
60
1 include interviews, it would include showbiz stories,
2 crime stories. Right across the spectrum, really.
3 There was no specific specialisation for me.
4 Q. Thank you. Two other matters by way of context to your
5 evidence. Is it right that you are in litigation with
6 News International over employment issues before
7 an employment tribunal?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. Is it also right that you have been arrested in
10 connection with Operation Weeting?
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. And it follows from that that you are not going to give
13 evidence to this Inquiry about phone hacking issues;
14 have I understood that correctly? As is your
15 entitlement.
16 A. Yes. I've requested specifically that the Leveson
17 Inquiry does not question me on any matters concerning
18 phone hacking, and I've received an assurance from your
19 team of solicitors, to use their words, that phone
20 hacking is off limits.
21 Q. Yes.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: The position is very simple,
23 Mr Thurlbeck. I am determined not to prejudice any
24 investigation being conducted by the Metropolitan Police
25 or any possible prosecution that might follow. You have
61
1 an absolute right to claim privilege against
2 self-incrimination where you know that you are under
3 investigation, and I am not going to allow the Inquiry
4 to ask a series of questions which require you to claim
5 privilege so that it might be suggested that in some way
6 you shouldn't be doing that. You are entitled to claim
7 privilege, you have that privilege, and it would be
8 quite wrong for anybody to draw any conclusion or
9 inference about the fact that you wish to exercise it,
10 and therefore I have decided that the better course is
11 that on the topic of phone hacking, there should be no
12 questions at all of those who are under investigation.
13 So you are correct, but I want to put the context
14 quite clearly in the public domain.
15 A. Thank you.
16 MR JAY: Mr Thurlbeck, if I may go back to your witness
17 statement at the bottom of the first page, where you
18 identify your awards and nominations. The 2005 British
19 Press Awards for scoop of the year, was that for the
20 Rebecca Loos story?
21 A. 2005?
22 Q. Yes?
23 A. Yes, it was, yes, sir.
24 Q. In your statement, you cover a range of investigations
25 you undertook which led to the jailing of criminals and
62
1 you list those. You also say that those investigations
2 often placed you a in a position of personal danger.
3 Would you like to tell us more about that in your own
4 words, Mr Thurlbeck?
5 A. Well, any undercover investigation involving criminals
6 had its inherent dangers. In the 1990s and the early
7 2000s, my main job was as an undercover reporter and
8 specifically crime. So the people I was exposing would
9 be gun runners, paedophiles, drug dealers, and in order
10 to expose them, you would have to equip yourself,
11 obviously, with recording devices to record their
12 admissions and write about it in the newspaper without
13 fear of being sued for libel. But there was always the
14 ever-present risk that you would reveal yourself as
15 a journalist to the person you were exposing and
16 thereby, you know, confront possible danger.
17 Q. Yes. You deal with one or two close shaves in your
18 statement, don't you?
19 A. Well, I don't really want to go into too much detail --
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, all Mr Jay was saying was that
21 you mentioned them. You answered yes, then fine. We'll
22 move on.
23 MR JAY: We're moving on to the next question. Something
24 rather different, actually. It's kiss-and-tell stories.
25 A. Yes.
63
1 Q. Were you involved in the arrangement, if I can so
2 describe it, of writing such stories?
3 A. The journalists had to get pigeonholed quite early in
4 their careers. My pigeonhole, if you like, was
5 undercover work, originally, and that stayed with me
6 right throughout my career there. I wasn't really
7 pigeonholed as a kiss-and-tell journalist. That's not
8 to say that I didn't do some kiss-and-tell stories, but
9 by and large, they sort of passed me by and went
10 elsewhere.
11 Q. You did some; is that your evidence?
12 A. I did some, yes.
13 Q. Can you give us some idea of the costs? I mean,
14 kiss-and-tell, there's always a financial incentive for
15 the kisser, as it were, to provide the story; that is
16 correct, isn't it?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Give us an idea of how much these stories cost, please?
19 A. Well, it would vary. It depends, really, on where in
20 the newspaper the article would be placed. So, for
21 example, a front-page lead -- what we in industry call
22 a splash or front page splash -- would cost
23 significantly more than a page 45 lead, for example, so
24 there would be a kind of a sliding scale, and then the
25 story would be then judged on its merits as to how much
64
1 of an impact it would make, how important we thought the
2 story was to the newspaper and then a figure would be
3 arrived at.
4 Q. So it would be a question of calibrating the value of
5 the story to the newspaper in terms, perhaps, of
6 increased circulation or similar matters, wouldn't?
7 A. Obviously, circulation would be an issue, but then you
8 have to match the price with the person's expectations.
9 They might come in with a completely unrealistic set of
10 financial expectations, which may sort of play our hand
11 a bit higher and the stakes would be raised. It wasn't
12 a precise science.
13 Q. Market forces then; is that it?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. What's the most, to your knowledge, that the
16 News of the World has ever paid for such a story?
17 A. I wasn't privy to how much we would be paying on
18 a weekly basis. I can only speak from my own
19 experience. There were six figure sums paid, but
20 rarely. I would say the average would be -- for a front
21 page story, an average price I would say would be about
22 £15,000. £15-20,000. Less, sometimes, depending how
23 the negotiations had gone.
24 Q. Given that money was changing hands and therefore there
25 was, at the lowest, a risk of elaboration, if not a risk
65
1 of fabrication, what steps, if any, did you take to
2 verify the accuracy of such stories?
3 A. What stories are we talking about?
4 Q. Kiss-and-tell stories.
5 A. Kiss-and-tell stories? A great deal of activity went
6 into establishing the truth of what people were telling
7 us. There was a -- there was always a myth attached to
8 News of the World stories and the myth was that we made
9 it all up. That still prevails, I think.
10 We didn't. We went to enormous lengths to satisfy
11 our team of lawyers that what we had was factually
12 correct, but most importantly, demonstrably correct, and
13 we would verify people's claims in all sorts of ways.
14 We would ask them to provide documentary evidence,
15 photographic evidence, perhaps a message left, you know,
16 on a post card or a birthday card or some sort of gift.
17 A telephone call made to the person in question would
18 often verify their claim. Without these, we couldn't
19 run a story.
20 For every kiss-and-tell that made the
21 News of the World, because it was prudent to be accurate
22 and correct, I would estimate there would be another
23 six, ten that fell by the wayside because that standard
24 of proof wasn't obtained. Even if we believed their
25 story, it wasn't sufficient. We had to persuade our
66
1 legal manager, a barrister, and his team, that what we
2 had was true.
3 Q. But what weight, if any, was given to privacy issues
4 before such stories were published?
5 A. Well, as we know, privacy has become a huge matter over
6 the last three years, and I would say the kiss-and-tell
7 story now is largely dead as a genre.
8 So I would say in the last three years we'd taken
9 great note of privacy matters and that was almost the
10 first question after "Is it true?" The second question
11 would always be, "Buts are we intruding into privacy?
12 Is there any justification for it?"
13 There would be lengthy debates about this. There
14 would be lengthy conversations with the editor. The
15 editor would demand to know what level of public
16 interest there was in order to, you know, avoid any
17 possible privacy issues. Colin Myler was absolutely
18 fastidious about this. It was something that we talked
19 about literally every day. It was an important matter
20 that we had to get right and we did everything we could
21 to ensure that we didn't step over those boundary marks.
22 Q. Can I just explore that last remark and ask two
23 follow-up questions. Does one fairly deduce from your
24 evidence that this is something which you say has
25 happened for punctiliously over the last three years,
67
1 but before, say, 2008, a different principle applied,
2 perhaps a laxer principle; is that correct?
3 A. I have to be honest and say the answer to that is yes.
4 This is industry-wide, where -- I don't think we were
5 unique in this position. Before the privacy ruling on
6 Mr Mosley came into place and various other injunctions
7 taken out by celebrities and so forth, there was less
8 regard to privacy, more regard to whether the story was
9 true or not. There's always been that regard. The
10 facts were always important to establish. But then it
11 became very important to establish whether or not
12 privacy issues were at stake.
13 Q. The discussions which you had described in general terms
14 with the editor at the time, what sort of considerations
15 went into the balance in deciding whether or not to
16 publish a story on public interest grounds?
17 A. Well, one would look at exposing potential hypocrisy or
18 lies. I can give an example of how that occurred
19 recently. I exposed a politician for having an affair.
20 I don't particularly want to name that politician now in
21 fairness, but it made a very big story in our newspaper
22 last year. We thought long and hard about whether or
23 not we should run this story. It became apparent that
24 there was a public interest justification because the
25 man in question had used his family and his happy
68
1 marriage in his election literature, so we felt that we
2 had an important justification to run the story. But
3 without matters such as that, stories would fall by the
4 wayside on a regular basis.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So does that mean that you do not
6 consider now, whatever you might have considered before,
7 that there would be a public interest in exposing an
8 extramarital affair simply because somebody was
9 a politician?
10 A. There was less regard to the privacy issues. You know,
11 we were always aware that we hadn't to be gratuitous
12 about these things because as a newspaper you wouldn't
13 want to be in the middle of a public backlash because
14 you were seen to be too gratuitous about these things.
15 There had to be an element of justification behind it
16 and it was, generally speaking, hypocrisy, that we could
17 demonstrate on behalf of a politician, for example. Or
18 a celebrity.
19 I can give you a classic example of this -- and this
20 is going back before the privacy matters became so
21 relevant to us. That was in 2005, when I exposed David
22 Beckham's extramarital affair. We decided there was
23 huge public interest in that matter because the Beckhams
24 had been using their marriage in order to endorse
25 products. They were openly presenting themselves as
69
1 a very happy, married, a very close-knit family, and
2 were making millions of pounds on the back of that
3 image, promoting themselves as a fairy tale marriage.
4 They even got married on thrones.
5 We thought it was important that we exposed that the
6 fairy tale was a sham, and therefore we decided there
7 was huge public interest in that kiss-and-tell and
8 I don't think anybody has sort of disputed that.
9 So even before privacy issues came in, we did look
10 very carefully -- very, very carefully -- as to whether
11 or not there was a justification there, and we did in
12 that case.
13 Q. What sort of products do you say the Beckhams sold on
14 the basis of this particular image? Can you be more
15 specific, please, Mr Thurlbeck?
16 A. Yes. He was a leading -- he was promoting Brylcreem at
17 the time. He had a host of other products. I don't
18 have the list here but he was sponsored left, right and
19 centre. He was always promoting himself in front o his
20 family as a happily married man. It was a wholesome
21 image that he cultivated, that the family cultivated and
22 the public bought into on a massive scale and we exposed
23 that to be a sham. I don't have a list of the products
24 in front of me at the moment, of course, but it's fairly
25 well documented that that is what the brand Beckham was
70
1 all about.
2 Q. I might be wrong -- of course I'm not an expert,
3 Mr Thurlbeck -- but the individual products you're
4 talking about, Brylcreem, usually there's an image of
5 Mr Beckham and that is associated with the product.
6 Where is the image of the Beckhams en famille producing
7 or fostering a particular product?
8 A. The Beckhams were always very keen to encourage
9 publicity of their happy marriage. It was part of their
10 sort of -- one of the building bricks of their business
11 was their happy family marriage. They talked about it,
12 they had photographs taken at their wedding, they
13 introduced their children to us. It was one of great
14 wholesomeness. They were always saying what a happily
15 married family they were and they were making an awful
16 lot of money because they were considered to be
17 a perfect wholesome family unit. And what we saw
18 happening outside of the marriage was in direct contrast
19 to the image they were cultivating and we said they were
20 making millions of pounds on the back of that wholesome
21 image and we thought it very important at the time to
22 expose that as being a sham.
23 Q. But wasn't it an example, though, of what the lawyers
24 might choose to call an implied representation? The
25 example of a politician who platforms on the basis of
71
1 family values and makes that an explicit part of his or
2 her political image one can understand. That's an
3 express representation. But in relation to the
4 particular case we're discussing now, isn't it all about
5 implied representation, Mr Thurlbeck?
6 A. We thought there was as very strong justification for
7 running it on the basis of what I've just said.
8 Q. I'm not sure that quite couples with the point I'm
9 making. Do you understand the distinction I'm trying
10 to --
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. -- draw between something being made explicit?
13 A. Well, it was explicit to us, and I suspect it was
14 explicit to all the people who had bought into that
15 image of the Beckhams being, you know, a wholesome
16 family unit.
17 Q. Okay. Did you take steps to verify the accuracy of
18 Ms Loos's story?
19 A. I did, yes. I spent five months on the story in total.
20 I spent six weeks in Australia and five or weeks in
21 Spain and it was very hard to prove, you know, the
22 validity of what the girl was saying to me.
23 We established it eventually by --
24 Q. I'm not sure I need ask you how you proved it. The
25 question was confined to: did you take steps?
72
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And your answer, I think, was yes.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Are we talking about a six-figure sum here for Ms Loos?
5 A. I don't think we've ever declared exactly how much we
6 paid Ms loos.
7 Q. No, but the question was: are we talking about
8 a six-figure sum?
9 A. I'm trying to think of a good reason why I shouldn't
10 tell you how much we paid her. There may be issues of
11 confidentiality that we had with Ms Loos at the time --
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm not really concerned, I don't
13 think, about your issues of confidentiality with
14 Ms Loos. I don't want to the know the precise sum, but
15 I am interested in the order of magnitude, I think,
16 following Mr Jay's question. Unless somebody wants to
17 suggest I shouldn't be? No. Right, order of magnitude,
18 please.
19 A. Okay. We are talking about a six-figure sum. It was
20 the most I think I've ever paid for a story. We're
21 talking about a six-figure sum, just.
22 MR JAY: Not quite seven figures, Mr Thurlbeck --
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right, all right, we've got the
24 message. Move on.
25 MR JAY: Move on to Mr Mosley's case. Would you agree,
73
1 Mr Thurlbeck, that without the Nazi theme allegation
2 there wasn't a public interest in publishing the story?
3 A. Yes, I would agree with that.
4 Q. Would you also agree that it follows from that that it
5 was important to demonstrate that there was a Nazi
6 theme?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. When you started on the story after, I believe, an
9 initial approach, you, of course, knew from your general
10 knowledge about Mr Mosley's father, Sir Oswald Mosley;
11 am I correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. The initial tipster, he was a man named Jason; is that
14 correct?
15 A. That's correct.
16 Q. Can I just deal with some of the evidence there? It's
17 not my task or purpose to relitigate this litigation
18 since it's a matter of record and we simply can't in any
19 way undermine the findings of Mr Justice Eady, nor do we
20 wish to, since his findings were not appealed, but if
21 I could just look at a document which is number 31344.
22 I hope in the bundle you have, Mr Thurlbeck, it's
23 underneath tab 4. It's part of your witness statement
24 in the High Court proceedings. It's paragraph 23, where
25 you deal with the issue of payment for the story, that
74
1 Jason asked for, £25,000.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. "I agreed to this amount on the condition that this
4 story was selected to be the splash."
5 That's the front page; is that right?
6 A. That's correct.
7 Q. "I told Jason that if this was not the case, I would
8 only be able to offer him less money and an inside story
9 would be £6,000."
10 In the result, I think, Woman E got £12,000; is that
11 correct?
12 A. I think so, yes.
13 Q. In paragraph 24:
14 "I explained to Jason that I would need to meet with
15 Michelle to arrange for her clothes to be fitted with
16 a hidden camera and show her how to operate it. It was
17 important for Michelle to video the orgy to ensure that
18 we had sufficient evidence should Mr Mosley threaten to
19 sue the News of the World for libel."
20 That suggests, rather, that the purpose of the video
21 was only to obtain evidence in order to defeat
22 a possible libel claim; is that correct?
23 A. Normally that would be the case. But in recent years,
24 with the development of the News of the World website,
25 there was always the possibility there that the video
75
1 could be used on the website.
2 Q. Why was the video ever put on the website, Mr Thurlbeck?
3 A. I can't answer that question because I don't know.
4 I had no involvement ever with the uploading of videos
5 onto the website.
6 Q. Were you not aware, given your close participation in
7 the assembly of this story, that the video was going to
8 be placed on the News of the World website?
9 A. It was always going to be a possibility, yes.
10 Q. When did you know that it was going to happen?
11 A. I can't remember.
12 Q. We know that the story itself was published on 28 March
13 2008, I believe. Sorry, it's 30 March 2008.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. In relation to that date, how long before was the
16 decision made to publish the video on the website?
17 A. I really don't know. In fact, the first I probably,
18 probably knew about it going on the website I think
19 would be when I saw it myself the following day.
20 I think, from memory. I had -- my recollection is that
21 there were no discussions with me about, you know, it
22 being uploaded to the website. That was a completely
23 different department. It was literally in another
24 office somewhere. They'd get the video and up it would
25 go.
76
1 Q. Who took the decision?
2 A. To upload it? It would always be the editor's decision.
3 Q. Of course, you were handing over the film --
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. -- to the relevant person. Wasn't there some sort of
6 discussion as to what would happen to it?
7 A. I didn't hand it over. I left the video in the office.
8 It was there to be looked at by our barrister, our
9 editor, our news editor, deputy news editor; all the
10 people who were deciding the validity of the story,
11 where it was going to go in the newspaper and whether
12 the words I had written corresponded to what they'd seen
13 on the video. So I kind of relinquished control of the
14 video when I brought it to the office.
15 Q. You didn't relinquish control of the story, since you
16 wrote it on 30 March.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Are you saying that at the time you wrote the story --
19 and you must have, as it were, perfected it probably on
20 the Saturday; is that right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. -- you were unaware that there would be an associated
23 video? Is that your evidence?
24 A. No, I can't -- I'm not going to be gauche about this.
25 I was always aware there with a was a direct possibility
77
1 of that being uploaded onto the website, providing, you
2 know, it was visible. Sometimes these things are poor
3 quality and may be evidential but not sort of
4 broadcastable.
5 Q. I need to look again at the story itself. I don't have
6 it immediately available, but did not the story say, "If
7 you want to look at the details, go to our website", or
8 words to that effect?
9 A. Yes, it probably would, yes.
10 Q. So you put that in the story, did you?
11 A. No. No, I didn't. When the story leaves my computer,
12 it would then go to the subeditors, who would lay it out
13 on the page, maybe change a word here or two and put
14 a headline on it and so on, and they would have put on
15 the -- that sort of information at the bottom. I can
16 never remember ever putting that on the bottom because
17 I wouldn't know that, you know, the video was going on
18 the website. When that decision had been made by the
19 editor, he would then speak to the subeditor or the
20 chief sub, and say, "It's going on the website, can you
21 put a paragraph on the bottom saying that this is so?"
22 Q. Did you not view the video yourself before you wrote the
23 story?
24 A. Yes, I -- no, I viewed it. I did.
25 Q. So you must have known that the video was not merely of
78
1 reasonable quality but that it, as it were, corroborated
2 what you were going to write?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Can I ask you, please, about the setting up of the
5 camera, as it were. This is paragraph 37 of your
6 witness statement.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. At page 31347. This, of course, remains your evidence
9 to Mr Justice Eady. You refer to it in your witness
10 statement. You say:
11 "I did not, at any point, coach Michelle ..."
12 Michelle is Woman E; is that right?
13 A. That's correct.
14 Q. "... as to what she should do during the S&M party.
15 I instructed her on how to use the camera and I told her
16 how she should stand and what would be video'd from
17 a certain distance and how she should turn to ensure
18 that she would be able to obtain footage for us. I did
19 not ask Michelle to perform in any particular way or to
20 say anything in particular at the party. When showing
21 Michelle how to use the hidden camera, I said to her:
22 'When you want to get him doing the Sieg Heil, it's
23 about 2.5 to 3 metres away from him and then you'll get
24 him in no problem.' The video footage of me showing
25 Michelle how to use the hidden camera records this and
79
1 shows me making the Sieg Heil gesture with my arm in the
2 air and showing Michelle the sort of distance needed to
3 film it properly and get it in shot. When I said this
4 to Michelle, I was not in any sense trying to persuade
5 her to make that gesture when she was with the claimant
6 or persuade her to try and get the claimant to make that
7 gesture."
8 The question is, Mr Thurlbeck: weren't you trying to
9 do that?
10 A. No, absolutely not. I'm grateful for the opportunity to
11 correct this, and I did so, actually, at the High Court
12 hearing in 2008. If I could just refer you to what
13 Mr Mosley says in his evidence to you. He said:
14 "It was very clear to me that Thurlbeck was trying
15 to set the whole thing up from the beginning as a Nazi
16 thing."
17 But Mr Mosley misquoted me. What I actually said
18 was:
19 "When you want to get him doing the Sieg Heil, it's
20 about 2.5 to 3 metres away from him and then you'll get
21 him in no problem."
22 And I think it's clear from that statement that the
23 word "get" is a kind of a shorthand for the verb "to
24 video", "to capture". So what I'm saying to Woman E is:
25 when you want to capture him, when you want to video him
80
1 doing the Seig Heil, stand back 2.5 metres, otherwise
2 you won't get him in the frame. And in a rather
3 torturous way, this has now been interpreted as me
4 saying, "Get him to do the Sieg Heil", but an analysis
5 of the words that I use make it clear that that is not
6 my meaning at all.
7 Q. Mr Justice Eady touches on this at paragraph 164 of his
8 judgment at page 31249. It may be fair to say that he
9 doesn't make an express finding either way as to whether
10 that explanation is right.
11 Did Woman E say anything to you which led you to
12 believe expressly that there would a Sieg Heil gesture?
13 A. No. She said there was going to be a Nazi theme.
14 Obviously the most iconic image one would expect to
15 capture would be a Sieg Heil salute. She didn't mention
16 that; nor did I encourage her to make that happen.
17 Q. Woman E did not, of course, give evidence, did they --
18 A. No, she -- she didn't.
19 Q. Can I deal with the run-up to the story a little bit
20 more. Were there discussions with the editor about
21 whether there was a public interest in publishing this
22 story, given the obvious privacy issues?
23 A. We -- it was very clear to all of us that the
24 implication that there was a Nazi theme to this party
25 was sufficient public interest to run a story --
81
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That's not, with respect, an answer
2 to the question. Was there as discussion about the
3 public interest? Because you're making an assumption
4 about the story, which itself requires evaluation.
5 A. Yes.
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So was there a discussion?
7 A. There was a discussion. There was a discussion
8 certainly between myself and the news desk.
9 MR JAY: Did it involve the editor, Mr Myler?
10 A. I didn't speak to Mr Myler, but I'm assuming -- I don't
11 know -- that the news desk did. But I don't know.
12 I can't answer for them.
13 Q. Can I ask you with whom did you have the discussion at
14 the news desk?
15 A. Do you want me to name the individual?
16 Q. Yes.
17 A. It was the deputy news editor, James Mellor.
18 Q. Can you remember when that was?
19 A. No. Not now.
20 Q. Can you remember approximately how long before the
21 publication of the story it was?
22 A. It was probably, I would imagine, the day I commenced
23 the investigation, which from memory -- I can't
24 remember. It was a week or so before publication.
25 Maybe more.
82
1 Q. Can I be clear when you mean by that?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Was this before or after your first meeting with Jason?
4 A. It was before, because Jason -- I have to -- it's an
5 awful long time ago, it's difficult to remember, but
6 I think Jason got in touch with us -- I spoke to him on
7 the phone first and then relayed what he was telling me
8 to the news desk and we had a conversation then about
9 whether or not this would be in the public interest, and
10 it was the suggestion of the Nazi theme which initially
11 persuaded us that it was in the public interest.
12 Q. The first contact which Jason made with the
13 News of the World was on 13 March. You then had
14 a conversation with him on the phone on 14 March and
15 then you met with Jason first of all at Waterloo station
16 on 19 March. Does that jog your memory?
17 A. Yes, that's about right, yeah.
18 Q. So is it your evidence that the discussion about the
19 public interest was likely to have been before at least
20 19 March?
21 A. I think so, but I can't remember, I'm afraid. I really
22 can't remember that.
23 Q. This was before you had much detail about the case in
24 your mind, Mr Thurlbeck, wasn't it?
25 A. No, it was -- I think, from memory, the first
83
1 conversation with Jason indicated that there was a Nazi
2 theme, so it was very firmly in our minds by the time we
3 went down to meet him.
4 Q. But you had no detail by that stage?
5 A. No, no great detail.
6 Q. Didn't you think it appropriate, given the importance of
7 this story, once all information had been obtained,
8 including the video, to have a proper discussion with at
9 least the editor about privacy issues in the context of
10 the public interest?
11 A. With the editor? In the normal course of events,
12 I would talk to the news editor.
13 Q. Didn't you think it appropriate to have such
14 a discussion with the news editor at that point?
15 A. Well, we did. We talked about this from the beginning.
16 Q. You've told us that the discussion was before the first
17 meeting with Jason, which was on 19 March. Are you
18 telling us that there was a later discussion?
19 A. There with -- there were many discussions about it.
20 Q. But were there discussions about public interest in the
21 story, in the context of the privacy, or were there
22 discussions simply about the progress of the story and
23 how juicy a story it was go to be?
24 A. I would say it included all those ingredients.
25 Q. Are you sure about that, Mr Thurlbeck?
84
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Were you aware of decisions taken within the
3 News of the World to maintain as much secrecy as
4 possible over the story?
5 A. In what sense?
6 Q. To ensure that it didn't leak out and possibly enable --
7 or certainly enable, I can put it higher than that --
8 Mr Mosley to take out an application for an injunction
9 against the News of the World?
10 A. Those decisions are made only by the editor.
11 Q. That wasn't the question.
12 A. Was I aware that he'd made that decision?
13 Q. Yes.
14 A. In other words, was I aware that we weren't going to go
15 to Mr Mosley and put the allegations to him?
16 Q. Mm.
17 A. All I can say is I would always wait for an instruction
18 from the news desk before revealing our hand, if you
19 like, to anybody who was the subject of an investigation
20 at the News of the World and I didn't receive the go
21 ahead to do that. I would never ask to do it; I would
22 wait to be told to do it, and on this occasion I wasn't
23 told, therefore I assumed that had we weren't putting
24 the allegations to him, but at no time was I told that
25 we weren't.
85
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Did you have a view about that?
2 A. That I wasn't requested to confront Mr Mosley --
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: About whether Mr Mosley should be
4 given the chance to deal with it in whatever way he
5 thought fit?
6 A. Well, my view at the time was that we had a perfectly
7 legitimate story that we needed to run. Therefore,
8 I would have taken the view that we had to protect that
9 story and ensure that Mr Mosley didn't unjustifiably
10 prevent us from running it.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: What do you mean by the word
12 "unjustifiably", please?
13 A. Right. We firmly believed at the time that we had
14 a story that was massively in the public interest. You
15 might find that strange now, that this story has been,
16 you know, rubbished on so many quarters, but all of us
17 at the News of the World at the time, all of us, and
18 many of us still --
19 MR JAY: Do you mind answering the question, Mr Thurlbeck?
20 A. I am answering it, I promise you. We thought we had
21 every justification in running it and I imagine that the
22 editor feared that this story could be prevented from
23 coming out by Mr Mosley if we went to him. But I don't
24 make the decisions. But that's what I imagine happened.
25 MR JAY: It's a bit higher than that, Mr Thurlbeck. You
86
1 well knew that if Mr Mosley was warned in advance of the
2 story (a) he would make an immediate application for an
3 injunction -- that's correct, isn't it?
4 A. Yes, but this wasn't -- I was not part of that
5 decision-making process.
6 Q. You also knew that everybody at the News of the World,
7 especially the editor, feared that the application would
8 be successful; you knew that, didn't you?
9 A. Again, that didn't come across my radar. I was not
10 involved in that part of the decision-making process.
11 Therefore, I didn't really need to consider it. What
12 I had to consider was whether or not I had got what
13 I was writing -- what I was writing in the paper was
14 accurate. That was my task. These decisions as to
15 whether or not it went on the website, whether or not we
16 should confront Mr Mosley with the evidence did not come
17 on my radar.
18 Q. Hold on, Mr Thurlbeck. There was a cloak of secrecy put
19 around this story.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Only a few people within the News of the World knew
22 about it at all; is that correct?
23 A. That is correct, but that wasn't unique. That happened
24 on every story we did.
25 Q. So we're agreed thus far. Are we also agreed that the
87
1 story came out in, I think, the second edition, no the
2 first?
3 A. I think that's correct, yes.
4 Q. So this was all part and parcel of a strategy, is that
5 right, to try and get this below the radar, which radar
6 would include any antennae that Mr Mosley had available
7 to him; are we agreed?
8 A. Right. I will answer this question in this way: you're
9 assuming that I'm part of this strategy, as you call it.
10 I'm not. I'm not part of the strategy to upload the
11 video onto the website, to decide whether or not we go
12 to Mr Mosley with the evidence. I'm not part of that
13 strategy. I am just a person who is writing the
14 story -- investigating it, meeting the contacts, writing
15 it and making sure what I write is accurate. Beyond
16 that, the strategy is not mine.
17 I can only make assumptions about what that strategy
18 was and why, and you're asking me what that strategy
19 was. I was never part of the discussions on that
20 strategy.
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Aren't you being a bit unkind to
22 yourself, Mr Thurlbeck? You weren't just the reporter.
23 You were the chief reporter for the paper, who had been
24 the news editor, who had been the investigation news
25 editor. You weren't party to any of this?
88
1 A. No, I wasn't. This was -- the strategy -- you might
2 find this hard to believe, but this is the way the
3 newspaper worked. I can only tell you what I know to be
4 true and what happened.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That's all I ask.
6 A. And that's what I'm giving you, I promise you. This is
7 the way decisions were made. Decisions on whether or
8 not we'd confront people before we publish never ever --
9 it was an editor's decision, always an editor's
10 decision. Not even the news editor's decision.
11 Especially not the chief reporter's decision. These
12 matters, the strategy, are all taken at the very highest
13 level on our newspaper, and I suspect on every other
14 newspaper in Fleet Street too. The chief reporter and
15 news editor, they're very grand-sounding titles but they
16 don't really call any shots at all. These decisions are
17 made at the very highest levels.
18 MR JAY: Is it your evidence, therefore, to this Inquiry
19 that you weren't even aware of what Mr Myler's decision
20 was?
21 A. In relation to what?
22 Q. The failure or rather the decision not to notify
23 Mr Mosley and get his comment before publication?
24 A. As I said to you before, I assumed that was his decision
25 because I'd been -- I hadn't been instructed to go and
89
1 speaking to Mr Mosley.
2 Q. Okay. Let me ask you about what happened subsequently.
3 I think I can take this up in the judgment of
4 Mr Justice Eady at our page 31228. Still under tab 4.
5 The heading:
6 "Mr Thurlbeck's behaviour following publication on
7 30 March."
8 This, of course, deals with the follow-up story,
9 which I think in your statement you call part 2; is that
10 correct?
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. That's common journalistic phraseology, maybe, in
13 relation to what follows the main story?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. As Mr Justice Eady explains at paragraph 80:
16 "In order to firm up the story, therefore,
17 Mr Thurlbeck decided that he would like to publish an
18 interview with at least one of the participants and, if
19 possible, contributions."
20 Then he says:
21 "In pursuit of this objective, therefore, he sent
22 a number of emails."
23 And the emails went tout to Women A v B in these
24 terms:
25 "Hope you're well. I'm Neville Thurlbeck, the chief
90
1 reporter of the News of the World, the journalist who
2 wrote the story about Max Mosley's party with you and
3 your girls on Friday. Please take a breath before you
4 get angry with me!"
5 Do you know why that sentence was in the email?
6 A. I can't remember why. Now.
7 Q. Maybe it's obvious from what follows:
8 "I did ensure that all your faces were blocked out
9 to spare you any grief and soon the story will become
10 history, as life and the news agenda move on very
11 quickly. There is a substantial sum of money available
12 to you or any of the girls in return for an exclusive
13 interview with us. The interview can be done
14 anonymously and your face can be blacked out too. So
15 it's pretty straightforward. Shall we meet/talk?"
16 Then the following day another email:
17 "I'm just about to send you a series of pictures
18 which will form the basis of our article this week. We
19 want to reveal the identities of the girls involved in
20 the orgy with Max, as this is the only follow up we have
21 to the story. Our preferred story, however, would be
22 you speaking to us directly about your dealings with Max
23 and for that we would be extremely grateful. In return
24 for this, we would grant you full anonymity, pixelate
25 your faces in all photographs and secure a substantial
91
1 sum of money for you. This puts you firmly in the
2 driving seat and allows you much greater control ..."
3 Et cetera. So it's pretty clear that there were two
4 choices available to the women. Either they agreed your
5 terms, which would involve anonymity, pixelation and
6 a sum of money, or they wouldn't be in the driving seat
7 and you would publish photographs with their faces; is
8 that correct?
9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. Can I understand, please, what your evidence to this
11 Inquiry is about these emails? Is it your evidence that
12 you didn't draft the emails?
13 A. That's true, yes.
14 Q. Who did?
15 A. The -- it was somebody on the news desk who had been on
16 holiday when the part 1 story was broken. When he
17 returned from holiday, he realised that he'd been on
18 holiday when, at that time, we believed we had one of
19 the biggest stories we'd broken for many years. He was
20 determined that in week two he would get a better story
21 than the part 1, and therefore we had to get the girls
22 on side to help us and to give us their testimony.
23 So it's true to say that those emails were dictated
24 to me. However, they were sent by me, and willingly,
25 and in my name. That was the process that we got to,
92
1 but ultimately I sent those emails, yes.
2 Q. You had continuing carriage of the story?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And you were going to meet or talk with the women if
5 they agreed to your terms; is that correct?
6 A. That's correct.
7 Q. So why would someone else have to draft emails for you
8 as chief reporter, Mr Thurlbeck?
9 A. No. I'm not -- I'm giving you the process that arrived
10 at these emails being sent and I'm telling you exactly
11 how it happened.
12 Now, as to why it happened that way, you'd have to
13 ask the person who dictated those emails to me.
14 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Who is ...?
15 A. He was a man on the news desk and I don't see that
16 there's any benefit, surely, to me naming him, is there?
17 MR JAY: You see, we could always ask him or require him to
18 give evidence. Do you understand, Mr Thurlbeck, where
19 this might be leading?
20 A. All right. It was the news editor, who at the time was
21 Ian Edmondson.
22 Q. Okay. One theme which is coming strongly across, if
23 I may say so, preparing for this week's evidence, is
24 that he's getting blamed for everything, Mr Thurlbeck.
25 The buck doesn't stop with Mr A -- in this case, you.
93
1 It's being passed to Mr Edmondson. Are you sure about
2 this?
3 A. What I'm saying to you -- this is the process that was
4 involved in these emails being sent. But I did say --
5 and I take full responsibility for this, and I did say
6 to you just a minute ago that it was me who sent them,
7 and I sent them in my name. I could have said no, and
8 I didn't. I sent them. So I'm prepared to accept full
9 responsibility for those emails being sent. I hope
10 I make myself clear on that. I am not blaming anybody
11 for these emails being sent. I am merely outlining the
12 process involved.
13 Q. Right, and it's a process which wasn't adumbrated to or
14 in front of Mr Justice Eady when you gave your evidence,
15 was it?
16 A. No, no, it wasn't.
17 Q. Why not, if it was the truth?
18 A. I don't see any point -- I didn't see any point then in
19 basically, you know, going into elaborate detail as to
20 how these emails were sent, and perhaps I -- perhaps
21 even now it's an irrelevance. I'm just giving you the
22 benefit --
23 Q. Can I ask what's the point now?
24 A. I'm just giving you the process. If you don't want to
25 know the process, then --
94
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I do, and it is relevant, isn't it,
2 because if I am looking, as you well know, at the
3 culture, practices and ethics of the press -- these
4 aren't unthought-out approaches. These are clearly
5 approaches that have been thought about.
6 A. Yes.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And it's not just somebody who's
8 knocked off an email. Did you discuss them with
9 Mr Edmondson before --
10 A. We had a brief conversation on the telephone about them
11 and that was it.
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So you decided with him -- I'm only
13 trying to understand it.
14 A. Yes.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And therefore I welcome your
16 explaining the process because it's very important --
17 that this was an appropriate approach to follow up the
18 story?
19 A. Yes, and I'm quite happy to accept for responsibility
20 for this.
21 MR JAY: Did you say to Mr Edmondson: "This comes close to
22 threatening the women"?
23 A. Um ... you see, what we were doing here is we were
24 offering them -- in the course of normal journalistic
25 practice, if you have a very good story and you want to
95
1 follow it up, you would seek to get more evidence about
2 the story that you published the week before. On this
3 particular week, it was, we believed, imperative to
4 speak to the girls who were involved. We found out who
5 they were, we identified them, and we were offering them
6 an opportunity, if you like, to remove their identities
7 from what would be a natural part 2. A natural part 2
8 would be "Here are the girls, this is who they are", and
9 in return for withholding their identities, we hoped to
10 get a more detailed testimony from them. We didn't see
11 it as a threat. We saw it as an offer -- a deal to do
12 with the girls. In order for them to help us, we would
13 respond by helping them too by removing that you are
14 identities.
15 Q. Two follow-up questions to that. Was this done in the
16 course of normal journalistic practice, to use your own
17 term?
18 A. Was what done, sorry?
19 Q. This sort of offer to the women concerned?
20 A. Very seldom. I can't remember many occasions, but, you
21 know, people would often be reluctant to help
22 a newspaper because of their identities coming out, and
23 often deals would be done to protect their identities.
24 We would say, "Look, if you talk to us anonymously, then
25 we can write a story about this." This happens all the
96
1 time. The broadsheet newspapers do this as well, you
2 know. I know -- they've spoken to me. They want to
3 speak to me and get my story and, you know, "We'll do it
4 off the record", and all the rest of it. TV stations
5 have done the same. This is the course of a normal
6 journalistic practice, if you like, offering people
7 a degree of anonymity in return for evidence that could
8 support a story.
9 Q. Can I just explore, then, the value of the story if you
10 just printed the women's faces, if you'd just had their
11 photographs but no interview?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. It was a useless story, wasn't it?
14 A. Well, it wouldn't be as good, but it wouldn't be
15 entirely useless.
16 Q. But you didn't in fact proceed down that road because
17 when the women concerned, to use the language of
18 Mr Justice Eady, resisted these blandishments, did you
19 publish a story with their faces exposed?
20 A. No, we didn't, but again, that wouldn't be my decision.
21 That would be the editor's decision.
22 Q. Because it was a useless story, wasn't it?
23 A. I don't know what the reason was behind him not printing
24 the story.
25 Q. It's pretty obvious it was a useless story and that's
97
1 why it wasn't published. What you wanted was the much
2 better story, which it's true would involve pixelation
3 and an interview. That's what you really wanted?
4 A. That's true, yes.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Choose a convenient moment, Mr Jay.
6 MR JAY: Yes. I think we'll take it now.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right. 2 o'clock, please.
8 (1.00 pm)
9 (The luncheon adjournment)
10
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13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
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98
1
2 (2.00 pm)
3 MR JAY: Mr Thurlbeck, may I take you back quickly to
4 paragraph 81 of the judgment of Mr Justice Eady, which
5 is page 31228 of our bundle. It might be easier if you
6 turn it up in the file.
7 A. I have it on the screen here.
8 Q. Just in the email five lines down, the sentence:
9 "Please take a breath before you get angry with me!"
10 It's quite a sort of personal touch. That's not
11 your language, is it, rather than Mr Edmondson's?
12 A. I can't remember. I can't remember now this particular
13 phrase.
14 Q. Okay.
15 A. I can't remember why it was put in.
16 Q. It might be because you were striving to find a degree
17 of apparent empathy as part and parcel of an email which
18 was all yours. Would you accept that possibility?
19 A. I can't remember the precise circumstances of the
20 wording, how the email became to be worded.
21 Q. But you were telling us before lunch, I thought, that it
22 was Mr Edmondson's --
23 A. Yes, well, you know, I'm telling you the process by
24 which we arrived at the email. Ultimately, as I've
25 said, I accept responsibility for sending it. I accept
1
1 responsibility for discussing how it should be phrased.
2 I accept that. So going forward from that, I put my
3 name to it and I'm quite prepared to hold my hands up to
4 it.
5 Q. Okay. You were asked questions about the email and the
6 surrounding circumstances by leading counsel for
7 Mr Mosley and they're recorded in the judgment at
8 paragraph 87, page 31231. You probably remember this
9 part of the judgment, Mr Thurlbeck, but the answer you
10 gave Mr Justice Eady in answer to cross-examination is,
11 perhaps unsurprisingly, similar if not identical in
12 purport to the answer you've given this Inquiry about
13 the choices you were giving the women. Do you see that?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. At the end of the citation at page 31232,
16 Mr Justice Eady says:
17 "It seems that Mr Thurlbeck genuinely did not see
18 the point that it is elementary that blackmail can be
19 committed by the threat to do something which would not
20 in itself be unlawful."
21 So Mr Justice Eady is making it clear here that his
22 interpretation of the email -- and perhaps it was,
23 frankly, the only reasonable interpretation -- is that
24 this was blackmail. You didn't follow that at the time
25 when Mr Price, Queen's Counsel, was asking you
2
1 questions, but do you see it now?
2 A. Look, I've explained before the break precisely what the
3 logical reasoning was behind sending that email. It was
4 offering the girls a choice. A decision had been made,
5 not by me but by others, that the part 2 was going to be
6 the girls' testimony. We knew who they were, we had
7 photographs of them, and at that time, even though it
8 wasn't published ultimately, at that time, the intention
9 was to publish that story. However poor story that
10 might have been, that was the intention.
11 So to that end I was asked to communicate with the
12 girls and draw to their attention the fact that this
13 would be the story, they would be named, they would be
14 pictured. However, my newspaper wanted to give them the
15 opportunity of giving us full testimony and in return we
16 would be willing to grant them anonymity. That was the
17 reason behind it.
18 Now, Mr Justice Eady and others might indeed
19 interpret that as being a blackmail attempt.
20 Q. Mm.
21 A. We didn't feel it was that at all. We were offering
22 them a way of presenting us with their testimony in an
23 anonymous fashion.
24 Q. I think what you're saying is you still don't genuinely
25 see the point; is that right?
3
1 A. The point that Mr Justice Eady makes is that it could be
2 interpreted as being blackmail. I don't interpret it
3 that way, and we didn't at the News of the World.
4 Nobody at the News of the World -- nobody, from the
5 editor down -- has discussed or accused me of
6 blackmailing these girls. Now, if I had, I would have
7 expected Mr Myler, who was a very fair-minded man, to
8 have reprimanded me severely. We didn't have
9 a conversation about it because it simply was not the
10 case.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: This may be very, very important
12 evidence about custom, practice and approach to ethics.
13 Did anybody or did you give any thought to the Article 8
14 rights of the women?
15 A. As I say, we -- the newspaper --
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, no, Mr Thurlbeck, I'm sure that
17 question can be answered "yes" or "no".
18 A. There was no discussion about that.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm sorry. Did you personally give
20 any thought to the Article 8 rights of the women?
21 A. We didn't -- we were offering them a choice. The
22 Article 8 rights were never discussed, were never
23 mentioned in any discussions that I had. I was asked to
24 communicate with them, ask them to come on board, give
25 us a testimony in return for anonymity. That is what
4
1 I did.
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And you intended -- this was the
3 idea -- you were going to publish the names, the faces,
4 all the detail about these women? That's what you
5 intended?
6 A. You're saying it's what I intended. I didn't intend to
7 publish. It is not my decision to publish. I am asked
8 to report, and in reporting, I was asked to communicate
9 with the girls to get their testimony in return for
10 anonymity. But it wasn't my intention to publish, but
11 my intention was to speak to them and write an article.
12 There is a big distinction.
13 MR JAY: You had to do all the necessary legwork and
14 additional work to set in chain a process without which
15 no one could publish; isn't that right?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. The general attitude in News of the World, if one is
18 trying to identify culture, practice and ethics, was
19 that following the judgment of Mr Justice Eady, there
20 was nothing wrong with what you did or anybody else did;
21 is that correct?
22 A. We analysed the story. We wondered whether we'd missed
23 something. We looked at the evidence again. We saw
24 what we believed then and many believe now to have been
25 very strong Nazi overtones in the evidence that we were
5
1 provided with. So during our sort of post-mortem, if
2 you like -- unofficial post-mortem -- we were still
3 convinced, not in a spirit of self-righteousness but in
4 a spirit of what the evidence presented to us, and the
5 evidence was -- the facts spoke for themselves, we
6 thought then and we think now. There was a lice
7 inspection. There was simulated rape. There was
8 beatings of the prisoners. There was the chanting of
9 "We are the Arian blondes". These things, then and now,
10 led to believe that this was strongly influenced by
11 a Nazi theme.
12 Q. Mr Thurlbeck, I've allowed you to give that answer
13 without interrupting, but I must say you haven't
14 answered the question. The question was:
15 "The general attitude in News of the World, if one
16 is trying to identify culture, practice and ethics, is
17 that following the judgment of Mr Justice Eady, there
18 was nothing wrong with what you did or anybody else did;
19 is that correct?"
20 A. It is correct, yes, and nobody questioned me about what
21 I did or how I did it.
22 Q. The attitude, really, was that Mr Justice Eady does not
23 represent a sensible, right-thinking view of the common
24 man, he is out on a limb, we can ignore his judgment.
25 Is that also true?
6
1 A. No, that wasn't the case. We didn't ignore his judgment
2 and we didn't appeal against it. We took his judgment
3 on board.
4 It's fair to say, however, that there was a feeling
5 at the News of the World and there was and is a feeling
6 even across a cross-section of the media that -- and
7 certainly the journalists -- all the journalists that
8 I've spoken to on rival newspapers, broadsheet or
9 tabloid, as well as the man in the street, they've all
10 concluded that there was, in their opinions, a strong
11 Nazi theme.
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Mr Thurlbeck, Mr Justice Eady reached
13 a conclusion.
14 A. Yes.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You, your paper, whether you were
16 involved in the decision or not, decided not to appeal
17 it.
18 A. Yes.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You could have appealed it.
20 A. Yes.
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: The Court of Appeal would have
22 reviewed the facts and would have examined the law.
23 That was open to you.
24 A. Yes.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right.
7
1 A. I accept that.
2 MR JAY: Instead, there was an application by the
3 News of the World for scoop of the year, wasn't there?
4 A. I understand Mr Myler put the story forward for that
5 award, yes.
6 Q. But as you were the chief reporter and you'd penned the
7 story, he must have raised it with you before he made
8 the application, didn't he?
9 A. Actually, he didn't.
10 Q. He didn't?
11 A. No.
12 Q. It was another decision he made without reference to
13 you?
14 A. No, he didn't consult me on it. The editor decides what
15 stories he's putting forward for awards and he didn't
16 mention it.
17 Q. But maybe it doesn't or didn't surprise you that he made
18 such an application because, from what you're saying,
19 you remain quite proud of this story; is that fair?
20 A. I make no comment on whether I'm proud of it or not.
21 All I say is this: I think we got the facts correct.
22 The facts are indisputable, and I think therefore they
23 speak for themselves.
24 Q. Let's look a little bit more at what Mr Justice Eady
25 said about the facts being correct, because he
8
1 criticises you not merely in relation to those emails
2 I refer to, but also in relation to a transcript of an
3 interview which you asked Woman E to sign. This is
4 paragraph 88 of the judgment at 31232, please,
5 Mr Thurlbeck.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. The circumstances here is that there was a meeting with
8 Woman E in Milton Keynes on the day before publication
9 of the follow-up article. So that, I think, takes us to
10 5 April 2008; is that right? It's a Saturday, anyway,
11 is it not?
12 A. I believe so.
13 Q. And you presented her with what purported to be
14 a transcript of an interview which you asked her to
15 sign?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Didn't you?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Had there been an interview?
20 A. There had been numerous sort of conversations over the
21 course of a week or so, which had been -- hadn't been
22 recorded because they were done sort of ad hoc as and
23 when. Perhaps in a haphazard unexpected way, she would
24 reveal facts. So I correlated all these facts that
25 I could from memory, put them into a memo and asked her
9
1 if this was a true and accurate reflection of what she'd
2 been telling me, and if so, would she sign it, and she
3 agreed and she did.
4 Q. She signed it, is this right, as Mr Justice Eady
5 records, making no adjustments or corrections?
6 A. I can't remember if she made any corrections.
7 Q. That's what the judgment says. Do you see it? About
8 six lines into paragraph 88?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Then Mr Justice Eady continues:
11 "He [that's you] then subsequently added further
12 material to it, some of which was attributed to Woman E
13 on the article. When challenged by Mr Price about this,
14 he responded that it was all based on telephone
15 exchanges with her over several days and that the
16 interview represented a genuine reflection of what she
17 had told him."
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. "There are unhappily no written notes to confirm this
20 claim, which may be thought surprising for a journalist
21 of Mr Thurlbeck's experience."
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. That's true, isn't it?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Paragraph 89:
10
1 "The interview contained one sentence, however,
2 which was demonstrably false. He attributed to her the
3 following remarks: 'It wasn't a one-off. Max has been
4 hiring us to do this for years. He's addicted to
5 sado-masochistic sex involving Nazis and beatings." This
6 contrasts [I'm reading Mr Justice Eady again] with the
7 contents of paragraph 38 of Mr Thurlbeck's witness
8 statement, in which he said:
9 "'It was clear to me from speaking to Woman E on
10 27 March that the party the next day was the first time
11 she herself was involved with the claimant in a party
12 with any Nazi or military theme.'"
13 So there was a massive discrepancy there, wasn't
14 there?
15 A. I think this is what Woman E told me when I first met
16 her and I'm not quite certain about the second part.
17 I think I'm incorrect, that it wasn't the first time,
18 because she had referred to it before. I think my
19 second statement there is inaccurate.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: The witness statement?
21 A. I think the witness statement is inaccurate. My
22 statement there -- it should not have been "the first
23 time", because she had mentioned to me before that this
24 had happened in the past.
25 MR JAY: One shouldn't overlook, and maybe you are
11
1 overlooking, paragraph 90 of the judgment, 31233, where
2 Mr Justice Eady deals with all of this very carefully,
3 as one would expect an experienced High Court judge to
4 do and that's precisely what he's done.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. "Mr Thurlbeck explained this by saying that Woman E had
7 changed her story between 27 March and the signing of
8 this draft article on Saturday, 5 April."
9 So pausing there, do you remember giving that
10 explanation in court?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. "Such a fundamental shift would surely have rung loud
13 warning bells as to her reliability as a source.
14 Whether this was so or not, he undoubtedly knew that she
15 had known the claimant only for a very short time
16 (a matter of months). It could not, therefore, possibly
17 be true that 'Max has been hiring us to do this for
18 years'. Mr Thurlbeck thought it would be wrong to
19 construe the word 'us' as including Woman E. He thought
20 it should be taken only to convey the impression that
21 the claimant had been employing the group as a whole for
22 years. This seems, in me, to be a disingenuous
23 interpretation of the words. The allegation was plainly
24 false and he must have known it to be false when it was
25 put into the article."
12
1 So you know what Mr Justice Eady is saying. He's
2 saying that you made it up.
3 A. No, I --
4 Q. Deliberately.
5 A. I didn't make it up at all. If Woman E changed her
6 version of events slightly, you know, this was not an
7 uncommon feature of most people who went through very
8 detailed interviews with me. They would -- some details
9 would change sometimes in the telling, and they would
10 revise what they'd said before, for accuracy. I wasn't
11 overly concerned, from memory -- I mean, it's so long
12 ago I can't precisely remember now, I have to say, but
13 I wasn't overly concerned that there may have been
14 a shifting of emphasis. What I was more concerned about
15 with was what was on the tape when it actually took
16 place, when it actually happened.
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But when you've compiled your witness
18 statement, you were doing it for High Court proceedings,
19 which were incredibly important to you and your
20 newspaper.
21 A. Yes.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So you'd want that to be 110 per cent
23 accurate.
24 A. Yes.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Now you're saying to me it's wrong?
13
1 A. Well, I can't remember the circumstances of why they
2 might differ, you know, from the -- it being the first
3 time to it have happened before. My memory is that
4 she'd said it had happened before.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And not only is it wrong; you didn't
6 say that to Mr Justice Eady.
7 A. I can't remember now.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I think he probably would have noted
9 it if you had, Mr Thurlbeck.
10 A. Yes.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
12 MR JAY: Mr Justice Eady refers to your journalism,
13 paragraph 170 of the judgment -- you probably remember
14 this -- as "at least casual and cavalier".
15 A. My journalism?
16 Q. In this respect, this story.
17 A. All right.
18 Q. Fair judgment, isn't it, page 31521?
19 A. Mr Justice Eady is entitled to his opinion, but my --
20 all I would say is this, in defence of this particular
21 story: we were absolutely certain that we got the facts
22 right and nobody has come forward to show me that what
23 I said had happened did not happen. You know, it was
24 a factual account of what went on between those four
25 walls.
14
1 Q. You say "nobody", but the one individual who counts, the
2 individual who'd heard the evidence, seen the tape,
3 judged the credibility and reliability of witnesses,
4 including you, did come to that considered conclusion,
5 didn't he?
6 A. Yes, he did.
7 Q. May I ask you whether you have read and considered the
8 evidence of Mr McMullan, which the Inquiry heard about
9 13 days ago now? Do you have the transcript?
10 A. I read the transcript and I saw it live.
11 Q. The picture he paints, is it one with which you are
12 familiar?
13 A. Which particular aspect?
14 Q. Perhaps I can ask the general question: any of it? Then
15 I'll ask particular questions. You might say, "Well, it
16 completely resonates with my experience", or you might
17 say, "It completely conflicts with my experience." So
18 help us, please. Or maybe it's a bit of both?
19 A. It doesn't reflect my experience of the
20 News of the World at all. My experience of the
21 News of the World is that it was a highly professional
22 organisation. It was staffed by some of the best
23 journalists on Fleet Street, who worked with great
24 diligence and integrity, and continue to do so.
25 I don't -- I was proud to work alongside all of my
15
1 colleagues. I have enormous respect for all of them.
2 You know, there may have been a small caucus of people
3 who gave us a bad reputation now. Unfortunately, the
4 bulk of those very decent journalists have been tainted
5 by that and are now finding it extremely difficult to
6 get work. But I have to say that my experience of
7 working with the vast majority of the people on the
8 News of the World was wonderful. They are an exemplary
9 bunch of people who could work on any newspaper of the
10 world.
11 It has to be said that the News of the World wasn't
12 the biggest selling newspaper in the world for nothing.
13 It was there because it was put together by some of the
14 most gifted journalists of their generation. That might
15 seem a very unfashionable thing to say in the light of
16 what's going on now and the light of recent events, but
17 that was a tiny part of the News of the World's
18 168-year-old history, and I was privileged to be part of
19 that organisation, and I don't recognise the picture
20 that was painted by Paul McMullan.
21 Q. May I seek to draw out different aspects of the picture
22 so that you can comment?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. One point he made -- and this is in transcript for Day 9
25 at page 32. We can make it available to you if you wish
16
1 to see it but let me paraphrase it for you. He said
2 that you had to have published a number of stories
3 a year -- I think he said it was 12 stories -- but if
4 you didn't get enough bylines, the consequence was that
5 you got fired. Is that correct or was that correct --
6 A. It wasn't part of the News of the World rule book, but
7 there was a kind of an unofficial recognition that
8 bylines were a reasonable performance indicator, and if
9 your byline count was low, then obviously your job would
10 be in jeopardy, but I think that happens on every
11 newspaper. In fact, it does.
12 Q. Public interest, which he deals with first of all at
13 page 39. The question which was asked at line 12 of
14 page 39 in relation to blagging -- the answer was more
15 general. Question:
16 "When you did that, did you give any consideration
17 as to whether or not it would be in the public interest
18 to blag?"
19 Answer: Yes, it was always in the public interest.
20 I mean, circulation defines what is the public interest.
21 I see no distinction between what the public is
22 interested in and the public interest. Surely they're
23 clever enough to make a decision whether or not they
24 want to put their hand in their pocket and bring out
25 a pound and buy it."
17
1 Now, does that represent common thinking at the
2 News of the World?
3 A. No.
4 Q. And why not?
5 A. Well, it's plainly, you know, a travesty of what the
6 public interest is all about. I mean, we all understand
7 that there is a vast difference between the public
8 interest and what the public are interested in. They're
9 two completely different things.
10 The public interest was always something that we
11 would be aware of, that we would discuss. I don't
12 recognise that at all.
13 Q. Although you told us before 2008 it was a consideration
14 which was less punctiliously adhered to?
15 A. No, we were talking about privacy then, weren't we, not
16 the public interest? But no, the public interest
17 features very, very highly on a sort of -- on the
18 yardstick of how we judge whether or not a story goes in
19 the paper. I don't recognise that at all, and frankly
20 it's a million miles away from the truth.
21 Q. So what considerations then did you take into account in
22 assessing the public interest balance?
23 A. In the Mosley case?
24 Q. No, I'm talking more generally.
25 A. More generally? Well, we would look at -- you'd have to
18
1 really give me a kind of specific example of a story
2 here but -- you know, if we were exposing a drug dealer,
3 then we'd have to decide whether or not there was
4 evidence of a crime being committed, and if there was,
5 then clearly it would be in the public interest to
6 reveal the fact that a crime was taking place in
7 a school or a public place or wherever. We'd have to
8 look -- you know, before somebody appeared in the
9 News of the World, there would invariably be a public
10 interest discussion about it.
11 Q. Mr McMullan continued at page 40, line 9:
12 "The reason why the News of the World sold 5 million
13 copies is that there were 5 million thinking people and
14 that's what they wanted to read. That's what drove the
15 paper. We were the mirror to society, the daily mirror
16 in fact."
17 Did that represent your and other people's thinking
18 at the News of the World?
19 A. The readers were very important to us. There's no
20 question about that. But they were important to us in
21 the sense of we had to decide or find out, we had to
22 discover what particular stories they were interested
23 in. In the 1960s/70s, it was crime. In the 1990s, it
24 was royals. In 2000s, it was showbusiness. So we'd be
25 responsive, obviously, to what the public were
19
1 interested in. There's no question about that.
2 But, you know, to say that there was a -- that the
3 public interest and what the public were interested in
4 were somehow blurred is completely false.
5 Q. But you were acutely aware at all material times of the
6 matters which did interest the public, weren't you?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. In that respect, you were a mirror to society, weren't
9 you?
10 A. We had to respond to what our customers, if you like,
11 our readers, wanted to read. But that doesn't mean
12 because they wanted to read it, it gave us carte blanche
13 to publish anything they were interested in.
14 Q. But subject be libel, which you've clearly explained --
15 the News of the World did not want to get sued for
16 libel -- the only real and practical constraint before
17 the outcome of the Mosley case was whether you assessed
18 whether or not the story was true. That was where your
19 enquiry began and ended, wasn't it?
20 A. No, that's certainly one criteria and one of the most
21 important criteria that we would use, but not the sole
22 criteria. You know, one had to decide whether or not it
23 would be in good taste, for example. Many stories came
24 out where that simply didn't cross that threshold. So
25 regardless of whether or not the public would be
20
1 interested in it or whether it was in the public
2 interest, it simply wouldn't end up on the news list
3 because it was a matter of bad taste or it was unfair,
4 unjust or whatever. But it wasn't the sole criteria
5 that we used. The libel laws weren't the sole sort of
6 barrier to publication, if you like.
7 Q. Did these good taste considerations enter into the
8 equation at all in Mr Mosley's story?
9 A. We felt that it was -- many aspects of it were
10 distasteful, especially what we believed was the
11 sexualisation of the plight of the Jews, and we thought
12 that it was vital that Mr Mosley, who was an elected
13 representative of 100 million people, many of whom could
14 have come from the Jewish faith -- that they had a right
15 to know, regardless of whether the information was
16 tasteful or distasteful.
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But, you see, that's a very fine
18 stand, Mr Thurlbeck. What I don't understand,
19 therefore, is why you didn't put it to him, because if
20 it was an unanswerable story, that each one of you was
21 satisfied was rock solid, why make a decision -- and
22 I appreciate you didn't, but why should it not go to
23 him?
24 A. I'm afraid that is really a question you need to address
25 with the editor.
21
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, I'm asking --
2 A. Because it wasn't my decision.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Do you think it should have been put
4 to him?
5 A. Right. If we'd put it to Mr Mosley, we all know that
6 Mr Mosley would have sought an injunction.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes?
8 A. The likelihood is that there would have been an interim
9 injunction granted until the event -- until the matter
10 had been considered properly by the judge.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, maybe.
12 A. In that event, the story would have leaked out and
13 become the currency and property of our rivals.
14 So this, I imagine, is a decision that an editor would
15 have when he's deciding what to do with regard to
16 presenting, you know, potential -- people who are
17 potentially appearing in the newspaper, but as I say,
18 it's not my -- this is not my opinion. This is not my
19 decision. They were made by others. But you're asking
20 me what my opinion is of what process of thinking they
21 might have gone through --
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, no, I actually asked you what you
23 would have done.
24 A. What I would have done? I really don't know. I don't
25 know. Under the circumstances, it's a difficult call.
22
1 If my newspaper had spent a lot of time and maybe
2 thousands of pounds on an investigation and the legal
3 process was going to ensure that my property was going
4 to become the property of a rival, what would I do?
5 It's a very difficult judgment call. If we did that
6 every time, we would simply be handing our rival
7 newspapers with the property that we'd paid very dearly
8 for.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But you had the video. Nobody else
10 had it.
11 A. Yes, but they'd have the -- if this was the matter of an
12 injunction, the newspapers wouldn't need the video
13 because they would have the qualified privilege it would
14 take from a court hearing. They could report it as
15 fact.
16 MR JAY: The injunction hearing would have been in private,
17 wouldn't it?
18 A. Yes, but these things always leak out.
19 Q. That's why your newspaper took such careful steps to
20 limit the people who knew about the story?
21 A. You'll have to ask Mr Myler about that. As I keep
22 referring you back, this is not part of my
23 decision-making process.
24 Q. Although you are fully aware, it seems, from your last
25 series of answers, what the decision-making process was
23
1 in Mr Myler's mind?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. That's true, isn't it?
4 A. I don't know what his decision-making process was.
5 You'll have to ask him. I'm saying this is probably the
6 thought process that he would have gone through.
7 Q. I want to go a little bit further than that,
8 Mr Thurlbeck. I appreciate your apparent diffidence,
9 but had you been the editor it would have been precisely
10 your decision-making process because you wouldn't have
11 wanted to run the risk of losing such a glorious story.
12 That's the truth, isn't it?
13 A. I really don't understand why you want to find out what
14 my opinion would have been if I was the editor because
15 I wasn't the editor.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm actually thinking about your
17 ethical approach, Mr Thurlbeck, because you represent
18 one of a number of journalists who are giving evidence
19 from News of the World and that's what I'm required to
20 consider.
21 A. Yes.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That's the terms of my reference.
23 A. Mm.
24 MR JAY: Humour me to that limited extent and try and
25 extrapolate and enter the world of more generalised
24
1 debate. What would your decision have been?
2 A. On the Mosley case?
3 Q. Mm.
4 A. I don't know. I haven't sat down and seriously
5 considered what I would have done if I was the editor.
6 Q. Okay, Mr Thurlbeck, I'll move on to another point.
7 We've heard that answer.
8 Back to Mr McMullan at page 97 of the transcript,
9 where he talks about the culture in relation to
10 expenses. His evidence was, page 98, line 5:
11 "In some regards, we weren't that well paid. My
12 leaving salary as the deputy features editor was only
13 £60,000 and as a way to bump up salaries, we were given
14 a certain amount of leeway. So I claim, I don't know,
15 another 15, 20 a year, of which 3 was legitimate. Is
16 that what you mean? Is that legal? It's not. I mean,
17 that was just the general ethos."
18 Does that chime well your experience?
19 A. No, it most certainly doesn't. The managing editor at
20 the time, Stuart Kuttner, was the man who signed all our
21 expenses, and a more forensic examiner of newspaper
22 expenses I don't know of. Everything had to be
23 receipted. If there was anything that looked as if it
24 might not be legitimate, it would be returned with
25 a question mark in black felt tip on it and a demand for
25
1 an explanation. I don't know who was signing
2 Mr McMullan's expenses, but it certainly wasn't
3 Mr Kuttner.
4 Q. He gives us one example -- this is page 99 -- where
5 Mr Kuttner himself -- you probably don't know about
6 it -- on getting back from Kosovo and Swiss Air flying
7 out the last plane, so there was a five star hotel in
8 Greece and a first class Swiss air flight. But you may
9 not know much about that; is that correct?
10 The picture you're painting, is this right, is
11 entirely different? It's 180 degrees in the other
12 direction, as it were, from Mr McMullan's?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Doesn't chime at all?
15 A. Correct, absolutely.
16 Q. Can I ask you next, please, about the use of private
17 investigators.
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Just before you leave Mr McMullan,
19 I'm going to ask, because I think it's only fair: do you
20 know of a reason why Mr McMullan should come along and
21 tell me what you describe is a complete tissue of fairy
22 tale?
23 A. I have no idea whatsoever. It was an enormous surprise
24 to me and my colleagues. It's not a place I recognise.
25 MR JAY: Okay. Use of private investigators.
26
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can I ask you about Mr Derek Webb. What was your
3 involvement, if any, with him?
4 A. He would be employed to observe people, report back to
5 journalists on activities that we might be investigating
6 for the paper. He would compile a report. A journalist
7 would then act on that report and investigate further
8 with him or alone.
9 Q. The question was: what was your involvement with him?
10 And your answer was: he would be employed.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. I think the question was more directed to you. did you
13 employ him?
14 A. I did, yes.
15 Q. Do you remember approximately when you first started
16 engaging him?
17 A. I think it was at the beginning of 2002 or 2003,
18 something like that. I'm not quite sure.
19 Q. That matches up with the witness statement he has
20 provided. Can you remember approximately how many
21 assignments you gave him?
22 A. Dozens. I can't put a number on it, but several dozen,
23 I would think.
24 Q. Can you assist us with the type of assignments in
25 general terms?
27
1 A. Yes. We would -- the newspapers, for decades, have been
2 involved in observing human behaviour and reporting on
3 it. Derek Webb was especially good at observing and he
4 would observe and he would compile evidence on all sorts
5 of activities, illegal or otherwise, and he would come
6 back to us and we would act upon whatever he was
7 reporting on.
8 Q. Were your primary surveillance targets politicians and
9 celebrities?
10 A. I would say they formed a large percentage, yes.
11 Q. In relation to celebrities -- take them first -- were
12 the assignments in the main directed to finding out
13 about their private lives?
14 A. Only if their private life came into conflict with their
15 public life.
16 Q. That wasn't the question.
17 A. It was --
18 Q. Did the assignments in the main relate to their private
19 lives?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. In other words --
22 A. Their activities.
23 Q. -- their intimate relationships?
24 A. Not always.
25 Q. But usually; is that right?
28
1 A. I wouldn't say usually. Sometimes it could be their
2 intimate relationships or sometimes it could be
3 drug-taking or sometimes it could be maybe fraternising
4 with undesirables, but it was right across the spectrum.
5 Q. Can I take those three in turn. Drug-taking. In cases
6 where Mr Webb was put onto a celebrity in relation to
7 drug-taking, did you usually have evidence that
8 suggested that drug-taking might be involved?
9 A. We'd receive a tip-off and then research it.
10 Q. Is that your usual practice or occasion practice? That
11 you had a tip-off?
12 A. It was always -- 99 per cent of the time, I would say we
13 had -- it was a tip-off to the news desk or to me
14 directly from a contact and then we would research --
15 you know, we would research that information.
16 Q. In relation to the second category, which I think was
17 personal relationships, what information did you have,
18 in advance of putting the private investigator onto
19 a case, that there was anything worse examining or
20 exploring in relation to the personal relationship of
21 the particular celebrity?
22 A. Well, the information would normally come either to the
23 news desk from an informant on the outside, somebody
24 knowledgeable about the person's life, or it would come
25 direct to me from a contact or a source that I'd
29
1 established over the years. So it would either come
2 from the news desk or from one of my contacts.
3 Q. You didn't, as it were, go on any fishing expeditions?
4 Is that the position, Mr Thurlbeck?
5 A. It was too expensive to go on fishing expeditions, as
6 you say, and it's just not something we would do.
7 Fishing expeditions weren't part of our sort of make-up.
8 We would get information from contacts. That's the way
9 it worked.
10 Q. So fishing expeditions, wholly anathema to the culture
11 and ethos of the News of the World? Is that your
12 evidence?
13 A. Well, it wasn't something that we did, to my knowledge.
14 I certainly received information from contacts and acted
15 upon it, but I can only speak for myself.
16 Q. How often did Mr Webb's activities substantiate the tips
17 that you received, in relation in particular to snippets
18 about sex?
19 A. I can't put a percentage figure on how many ended up in
20 the newspaper.
21 Q. Again, that's not quite the question. How often did his
22 activities substantiate the snippet?
23 A. I would say very often. He was as very, very effective
24 operator.
25 Q. Do you have any idea how often? You're not making this
30
1 up as you go along on that point, are you?
2 A. How many times did I use him?
3 Q. No, how often he actually yielded anything for you.
4 A. Well, it was considerable. I mean Derek Webb's
5 assistance was considerable, so it was a considerable
6 number of times.
7 Q. How many stories, then, approximately, were you able to
8 publish as substantiated by his work?
9 A. I can't put a figure on it, I really can't. Several
10 dozen maybe? Or -- I don't know. I don't have a log of
11 the stories that Derek Webb helped me out on over the
12 years.
13 Q. Does it follow that often he wasn't able to substantiate
14 your story?
15 A. Sometimes he would be put on a story and then, for
16 whatever reason, after two days or a day -- in other
17 words far too soon -- he would be called off in order to
18 do something else for somebody else. So very often the
19 story -- his investigation would not be completed. It
20 would barely be started.
21 Q. What about your third category, which I believe was
22 fraternising with undesirables, in relation to setting
23 Mr Webb onto a case. What do you mean by that?
24 A. An example might be a police officer maybe consorting
25 with known criminals or a teacher consorting with a drug
31
1 dealer or whatever. That sort of basis might be the
2 start of an investigation, but not necessarily the end
3 of it. You know, we'd need to establish the facts.
4 Q. In deciding whether or not to set Mr Webb or someone
5 like him onto a case, what consideration did you give to
6 the public interest?
7 A. Well, we'd have to, you know, decide whether or not the
8 activity that was alleged was worthy of reporting
9 because it was in the public interest. You know,
10 sometimes we might have to investigate further in order
11 to establish whether or not there was a public interest
12 justification. But these are decisions that are made as
13 you're going through an investigation, at the beginning
14 and ultimately at the end.
15 Q. Were these decisions ever documented? The public
16 interest decisions, that is.
17 A. I don't think they were.
18 Q. You don't --
19 A. No, no, I don't think so.
20 Q. Did you use other private investigators? That's to
21 say -- well, did you use other private investigators as
22 well as Mr Webb?
23 A. Mr Webb was the main private -- I think several had been
24 used over the years by different people at the
25 newspaper, but my -- the person that I dealt with most
32
1 of all was Derek Webb.
2 Q. Do you remember using Mr Whittamore?
3 A. I don't remember but I understand my name is there as
4 having called him several times, many, many years ago,
5 I believe. So yes, I think it's safe to say that I have
6 used him, yes.
7 Q. It's a long time ago now. You probably don't remember
8 the circumstances --
9 A. I really don't, I don't.
10 Q. Was there any uneasiness in the News of the World -- I'm
11 speaking generally now -- about the use of private
12 investigators, particularly looking at the private lives
13 of celebrities and, on occasion, politicians?
14 A. Well, specifically the use of private eyes was merely an
15 extension of what journalists always do anyway, and that
16 is to observe and report on human behaviour. It so
17 happens that Derek Webb had very specialised skills in
18 this area, which is why he was used as an extension of
19 the journalistic process, if you like. So we didn't
20 have any objections to using Derek Webb. He was -- or
21 concerns. To my knowledge, he didn't do anything
22 illegal, he didn't do anything that would cause us or
23 him to be embarrassed. He was a very, very effective
24 former detective and we were very grateful for his
25 services. He was a particularly good operator and very
33
1 genuine and very above board.
2 Q. There must have been occasions, though, where Mr Webb
3 truly struck gold and came out with an extremely
4 confidential and potentially salacious piece of
5 information which you and others in the office would
6 read before making a decision whether or not to publish
7 the story. Did you never feel any uneasiness about the
8 ethics of doing that?
9 A. About the ethics of what?
10 Q. Reading the type of information I've referred to.
11 Highly confidential. When I say "salacious", I mean
12 intimate. Usually involving sex, to be more explicit.
13 A. Well, you know, if, for example, a trade union leader
14 was being followed by Derek Webb and that trade union
15 leader was having an affair and he was married with
16 another woman and he was staying at a hotel and that
17 hotel was being paid for by his union members, then
18 clearly we would be in a very great public interest
19 scenario. And the salaciousness of it, as you put it,
20 is -- gives us no concern. What we were concerned about
21 is the public interest justification, and that example
22 I've just given you is actually a very real one. So
23 we'd have to weigh up one against the other. The
24 salaciousness in itself is not the justification for
25 writing the story. That is the detail of the story.
34
1 Q. It's sure enough what sells a story, though, isn't it?
2 A. Well, as I say, you know, you'll -- the 5 million,
3 6 million readers of the News of the World, more, you
4 know, obviously bought it for these reasons. They liked
5 the mixture of the stories that went in.
6 Q. If I were to ask you in your own words to define the
7 culture of the News of the World at all material times,
8 give us four or five key bullet points, please.
9 A. The culture was one of thoroughness. There was -- the
10 first thing that struck me when I joined the
11 News of the World in 1988 was -- when I first started
12 working there, was how thorough their journalism was.
13 There was no stone left unturned. They were extremely
14 fastidious journalists and I entered that culture with
15 the belief that we had to make sure the story was
16 correct, and in 26 years in journalism, I've never been
17 successfully sued for libel and I have never had a PCC
18 ruling against me. Our newspaper had it instilled in us
19 that we had to be thorough, that we had to be extremely
20 rigorous in the stories we wrote because the reputation
21 of the newspaper rested upon us getting it absolutely
22 right. That was the overwhelming -- that was the
23 culture there. All my colleagues were off the same
24 breed. They were, by and large, by and large --
25 I accept that this is not, by any manner of means,
35
1 100 per cent, but it's rather like saying because Nick
2 Leeson brought down Barings, then Barings was therefore
3 a toxic institution. The News of the World was not
4 a toxic institution at all. The people who were there
5 when it was closed were some of the finest journalists,
6 as I've said, that I've ever had the privilege of
7 working with. I did not recognise Paul McMullan's
8 evidence at all, and I think if you were to call before
9 this Inquiry every other journalist on the
10 News of the World, they would say more or less what I am
11 telling you now. That was the culture, one of rigour.
12 Q. We'll take up that offer in part, I think, Mr Thurlbeck,
13 but not obviously in full. You are, I understand, very
14 concerned that I don't go into the detail of the Bob and
15 Sue Firth story; is that right?
16 A. All I would say on this matter is that the PCC
17 investigated the allegations made by this couple --
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Mr Thurlbeck, I think I've said this
19 to you twice. I am looking at the customs, practice and
20 ethics of the press.
21 A. Yes.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: One of the questions I have to
23 consider is whether the PCC provided an effective remedy
24 for those who complained about stories.
25 A. Yes.
36
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So the PCC endorsement is not
2 definitive.
3 A. No, I understand that. All I can say is this: that the
4 adjudicator of these matters in our industry, the only
5 adjudicator, the PCC, did adjudicate in this matter in
6 1998. It examined all their evidence and it examined
7 all my evidence. It exonerated me. It declared that
8 the article was "justified" and in the public interest,
9 end quotes. My editor, deputy editor and managing
10 editor went to review all the Firths' evidence and the
11 conclusion from those three people was that there was no
12 impropriety.
13 Now, beyond that, for the reasons that I've
14 explained today you privately and to your team, I intend
15 to say no more on the matter, with respect.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, you can -- I'm not going to
17 force you to respond, but you must understand --
18 A. I understand, sir.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- that I am looking at this issue,
20 along with many, many others, and I want to make sure
21 that you do have an opportunity to respond --
22 A. Yes.
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- to complaints and criticisms and
24 concerns that have been articulated to me because I want
25 to be fair.
37
1 A. Yes, I understand.
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Now, if you don't want to take the
3 opportunity to do so, then that's up to you. But I do
4 want to give you the chance.
5 MR JAY: So would you like to answer questions on this issue
6 or not?
7 A. I've given you my full statement on the matter, Mr Jay.
8 Q. So that we see the full position, I will read out the
9 PCC adjudication. Whether or not you have an objection
10 to that --
11 A. No, please go right ahead.
12 Q. It's addressed to Mrs Firth, who was the complainant,
13 obviously. It's dated 13 November 1998. We can make
14 copies available if necessary.
15 "The Commission took the view from the evidence you
16 had provided that the bulk of the article appeared to be
17 accurate and that a sexual service was provided for
18 guests. Under these circumstances, the Commission did
19 not consider that the main allegation in the article
20 referring to sexual services was significantly
21 misleading, though the sexual service referred to was
22 hand relief. However, it made no finding on the
23 complaints regarding the allegations that you had
24 offered full sex or that your husband had had sex with
25 clients."
38
1 Then they go on to say that the use of subterfuge by
2 you was in the public interest. But wouldn't it be fair
3 to say that the Commission ducked the principal
4 allegation, namely that relating to full sex, which you
5 had made in your article?
6 A. As I say, I'm not going to go any further on the
7 statement I've made. My position is clear. I was
8 exonerated by the PCC -- that is the main adjudicator of
9 these matters -- by my editor, my deputy editor and my
10 managing editor.
11 MR JAY: Well, I'm not going to press that any further.
12 Thank you very much for your patience, Mr Thurlbeck.
13 MR SHERBORNE: Sir, there are a number of points to correct
14 in Mr Thurlbeck's evidence. I'll stick to the more
15 significant ones.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Just hold on. Are you applying to
17 ask him any questions?
18 MR SHERBORNE: I'm not, sir, no, but there are a number of
19 factual points that I need to raise.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: By all means, you can do that, as
21 I've allowed others to do. But Mr Thurlbeck needn't
22 stay there.
23 MR SHERBORNE: It's a matter for Mr Thurlbeck.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, he's no longer giving evidence.
25 Therefore it's not a matter for him; it's a matter for
39
1 me. Thank you.
2 (The witness withdrew)