Hack Attack

by Nick Davies

  In the event, nothing was done to delete the emails, although by the following spring, May 2010, it had been agreed that when they moved to TMS in the autumn, News International would clear out all emails which had been sent or received before December 2007. Again, this decision flowed from a genuine need to unblock the company’s sagging computer system, but, if it were put into effect, the result would be to obliterate the email records covering the entire period of Mulcaire’s employment and the efforts to deal with him and Goodman leading up to their jailing in January 2007.

  Nothing was deleted at that point, but the policy shifted again. In August 2010 as the move to TMS approached, Rebekah Brooks, as chief executive, asked for the deletion to cover a further two years. ‘Everyone needs to know that anything before January 2010 will not be kept,’ she wrote. When the IT department queried the new date, she wrote: ‘Yes to Jan 2010. Clean sweep.’ One internal email suggests that she had discussed this with James Murdoch: ‘Rebekah… adamant on Jan 2010 and has discussed it with JRM who wants to draw a line as per 2010.’ This would not appear to have had any potential impact on the time frame in which the High Court was then interested.

  Still, there was little action, apart from the purging of some 1.1 million emails that August as a result of a disk failure corrupting the data. While the move to TMS was taking place, it so happened that Mark Thomson was moving forward with Sienna Miller’s case. On 6 September, he wrote to News International to ask them ‘please to confirm by return that you will preserve all the documents in your possession relating to our client’s private life’. Three days later, on 9 September, an internal email from the IT department recorded: ‘There is a senior NI management requirement to delete this data as quickly as possible but it needs to be done within commercial boundaries.’ On 30 September, a contractor working for News International deleted all emails dated up to the end of 2004, a total of some 4.5 million messages. This covered a significant part of the period when Mulcaire was hacking, but it is not clear that this destroyed any messages relating to Sienna Miller: her private life became a central focus for the News of the World during the following year, 2005. Only 1.5 million of these messages were eventually recovered by police.

  By October, with hacking victims pushing hard in the High Court, there was some anxiety within the company. On 7 October, Brooks emailed the company’s commercial lawyer, Jon Chapman: ‘How are we doing with TMS email deletion policy?’ Chapman forwarded this to an IT executive, adding his own thoughts: ‘Should I go and see [sic] now and get fired – would be a shame for you to go so soon?!!! Do you reckon you can add some telling IT arguments to back up my legal ones.’ Two days later, Chapman wrote again to the IT executive that, ‘given the current interest in the NoW 2005/6 voicemail interception matter’, they should preserve the email archive of any current employee who had been working for the paper at that time. He went on to add, ‘from an abundance of caution’, that this should include any messages between Andy Coulson and seven named individuals including Alex Marunchak, Greg Miskiw and Neville Thurlbeck.

  Giving evidence years later, Brooks said that she had approved the preservation of emails which might be related to the hacking and that, when earlier she had given the order for a ‘clean sweep’, she had not intended that to include anything which might be linked to the hacking. The policy of email deletion remained unchanged as the hacking cases moved through the High Court. Separately, in October 2010, as the move to TMS took place, the company destroyed all of its journalists’ old computers, including that of Ian Edmondson, who had been named by Mark Thomson in his letter to News International the preceding month.

  In court, News International challenged Mr Justice Vos’s orders for disclosure, claiming falsely that their archive held emails for only six months, but the wall of concealment which had stood for four years was clearly beginning to leak. Sources close to James Murdoch say he was increasingly anxious to complete the BSkyB deal quickly.

  His team began a frantic new round of lobbying, with limited success. Fred Michel persuaded the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, to tell newspapers in Scotland that the bid was important to protect jobs. But when Michel tried once more to breach the quasi-judicial boundary and get James through Cable’s door, he was rebuffed by Cable’s special adviser, Giles Wilkes, with the memorable line that a meeting would be acceptable ‘when a Google of Vince Cable, News International and Sky doesn’t turn anything up’. Michel tried to get James in to see one of Cable’s most senior colleagues, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, and was locked out again. Even Jeremy Hunt had trouble seeing them.

  In spite of everybody else’s caution, Hunt agreed to meet James to discuss the bid. However, his own departmental lawyers then gave him ‘strong legal advice’ that he should not do so, because of the quasi-judicial boundary around the subject. When Fred Michel texted the news to his boss, James replied: ‘You must be fucking joking.’ James then exchanged texts with Hunt, who – in spite of the legal advice – then agreed to talk to him on the phone. He agreed to do this on 15 November, and to do so on their mobiles, which would not be monitored by officials with the result that – as with their meeting in January – there would be no record of what they said. (Lord Justice Leveson later concluded that this kind of ‘off the record’ contact was ‘corrosive to public trust and confidence’.) That phone call evidently had the desired effect on Hunt, who went back to his departmental lawyers to ask if he could ‘make representations’ to Cable. Four days later, on 19 November, the lawyers told him that it would be ‘unwise’ to do so. That did not stop Hunt.

  That same day, in spite of the repeated legal advice, he drafted a memo to the prime minister, suggesting that the two of them should meet Cable and his party leader, Nick Clegg, to discuss the bid: ‘James Murdoch is pretty furious at Vince’s referral to Ofcom. He does not think he will get a fair hearing from Ofcom. I am privately concerned about this because News Corp are very litigious and we could end up in the wrong place, not just politically but also in terms of media policy.’ In the final version of the memo which he sent to David Cameron that evening, Hunt tactfully deleted the idea that he was concerned ‘politically’ but made his view very clear, adding that he thought it would be ‘totally wrong to cave in’ to opposition to the bid.

  All this was done behind the scenes, hidden from the public. When Hunt’s memo to the prime minister was revealed more than a year later at the Leveson Inquiry, Hunt conceded that in retrospect he realised that ‘it would not have been possible for Vince Cable to attend such a meeting’. As it was, the meeting which Hunt suggested never happened, but James Murdoch raised the level of fear, with a speech in Barcelona which carried a clear threat to pull BSkyB’s business out of the UK, taking 30,000 jobs with him: ‘From our perspective – from India to Italy to Germany – countries are becoming more welcoming of investment and more welcoming of what we can bring.’

  Regardless of the legal restraint on interfering with the quasi-judicial process, Fred Michel and/or James Murdoch continued to lobby not only Hunt but also coalition MPs, special advisers and at least four Lib Dem members of the House of Lords. They also became more aggressive. On 15 December – the day the Guardian broke the story of the hacking of Sienna Miller and her friends and family – the All-Party Parliamentary Group of MPs who had a special interest in the media invited News Corp to send a representative to a breakfast meeting to debate the bid with somebody from the opposing alliance. News Corp refused to send anybody. Later that day, when they heard that the MPs had gone ahead and met with the alliance, News Corp withdrew all their funding from the group.

  Meanwhile, Claire Enders, who was still centrally involved with the alliance, was told that News International would no longer co-operate with her, which threatened her ability to produce accurate reports on the media world. News International followed up by indicating that they were considering cancelling their £45,000 annual contract to receive her reports. Enders refus
ed to back down. They cancelled the contract. Clearly, James Murdoch’s team were worried.

  Then, suddenly, it all changed.

  At 2.30 in the afternoon on 21 December 2010, the BBC business editor, Robert Peston, posted a stunning story on his blog. This disclosed that on 3 December, two women who were working for the Daily Telegraph had approached Vince Cable pretending to be mothers from his constituency and secretly recorded their conversation. Over the previous few days, the Telegraph had printed several stories about it – but had not published the stick of dynamite which Cable had produced. Peston now reported that Cable had told the two women how he had blocked the BSkyB bid, saying, ‘I have declared war on Murdoch, and I think we’re going to win … I can’t politicise it, but, for the people who know what is happening, this is a big thing. His whole empire is now under attack.’ With one brief outburst, Cable had blown a hole in the neutrality which was essential for his quasi-judicial role.

  Peston’s story hit the power elite like a fan dancer at a funeral: some were amazed; some were alarmed; everybody noticed. James Murdoch was so excited that he was physically jumping with joy, according to one News Corp source. Up and down Whitehall, ministers and officials called emergency meetings: this was a threat not just to Cable’s job but, by extension, to the stability of the coalition government itself.

  In the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt spoke by phone to James, who complained that Cable was clearly biased and revived his threat to sue the government. Hunt texted the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne: ‘Cld we chat about Murdoch Sky bid? I am seriously worried we are going to screw this up.’ And then again seconds later: ‘Just been called by James M. His lawyers are meeting now and saying it calls into question legitimacy of whole process from beginning, “acute bias” etc.’

  In Downing Street, the prime minister met with Osborne and officials. Rapidly, they agreed that Cable could keep his job, which would stabilise the coalition, but he must hand over responsibility for the BSkyB deal to another minister. And they chose … Jeremy Hunt. Fully aware that Hunt was sympathetic to the bid, Cameron asked the Treasury Solicitor, Sir Paul Jenkins, to advise whether Hunt had said anything public which might cause a problem. Sir Paul checked and reported that he could see no fatal problem.

  However, Cameron’s request that Sir Paul review Hunt’s ‘public’ comments meant that he did not consider the memo which Hunt had sent to Cameron four weeks earlier, in which he had ignored legal advice by attempting to organise a meeting with Cable and declared that he thought it ‘totally wrong’ to give in to opposition to the bid. Nor did Sir Paul consider any of Hunt’s discreet encouragement for the takeover in his contacts with News Corp, including the fact that earlier that same day, less than two hours before Robert Peston posted his story, Hunt had heard that the European Commission had ruled that they had no objection to the bid and had texted James Murdoch: ‘Congrats on Brussels. Just Ofcom to go!’

  At 5.45 that afternoon, a little more than three hours after Peston’s story broke, Downing Street announced that Vince Cable would pass over all responsibility for the bid and for all media mergers to Jeremy Hunt. Within ten days, Hunt would receive the report from Ofcom and decide whether to wave the deal through or to refer it to the Competition Commission. Shares in BSkyB rose sharply.

  One intriguing question remained. Since the Daily Telegraph had not published Cable’s destructive comments, how had Robert Peston from the BBC managed to get hold of them, including the recording of Cable’s voice? The Telegraph, although embarrassed by the clear implication that they had suppressed the story because they opposed the bid, responded by hiring the upmarket security company Kroll to investigate the leak. Six months later, Kroll reported their ‘strong suspicion’ that the whole affair had been orchestrated by a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Will Lewis, who had left the paper under unhappy circumstances seven months earlier … and was now working as right-hand man to Rebekah Brooks at News International.

  Kroll found evidence of texts and phone calls between Lewis and a computer specialist at the Telegraph during the twelve days before the story broke. They also found that that specialist had since left and gone to work at News International. And it was a matter of record that Lewis and Robert Peston had worked together years earlier at the Financial Times and remained close friends. Giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, Lewis declined to answer questions about whether he had organised the leak. It really didn’t matter. The breakthrough was clear.

  Two days later, on the evening of 23 December 2010, a triumphant James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, sat down for an informal private supper with Rebekah and Charlie Brooks. They were joined by the prime minister and his wife, Sam. Caesar was in sight of Rome. What could possibly stop him?

  12. 15 December 2010 to 28 June 2011

  The Sienna Miller story hit them hard. On 16 December 2010, the day after we had published her devastating submission to the High Court, News International suspended Ian Edmondson. They made sure that they said nothing in public, but it was a very significant moment, the first sign of a new strategy, of selective sacrifice. Edmondson might have worked for them for years, might have thought they would protect him, might have guessed they felt some loyalty, but as soon as his presence became a threat, they were ready to toss him over the wall to the enemy.

  Christmas and the New Year holiday intervened, with the press feasting on Vince Cable’s removal from the BSkyB bid. On 5 January 2011, the Guardian disclosed Edmondson’s suspension. On 7 January, News International got hold of the fat file of Mulcaire paperwork which Mark Thomson had forced Scotland Yard to disclose. It traced in horrible detail how their full-time private investigator, acting on instructions from their long-standing head of news, had repeatedly and unlawfully eavesdropped on the voicemails of Sienna Miller and her friends and family.

  They reacted by adding a little more weight to their new strategy, announcing that they were conducting an internal inquiry to find out what had been happening. This was all too like the scene in Casablanca where the corrupt police captain declares that he is ‘shocked – shocked – to discover that gambling has been going on’ in the casino where he has just been placing his bets. The internal inquiry was headed by Rebekah Brooks.

  Edmondson tried a little psychological warfare on his former commanders, leaking to the press the fact that he had ‘had a cup of tea’ with Max Clifford, with the clear implication that he might just decide to use the celebrity PR agent to tell all. He also hired himself a tough lawyer, Eddie Parladorio. (It isn’t clear whether Edmondson noticed the oddity that Parladorio was highly likely to have had his own messages eavesdropped by the News of the World in July 2002 when he had a relationship with the eternal tabloid target Ulrika Jonsson, whose phone certainly was hacked; and that Max Clifford also certainly had had his phone hacked in 2005/6 – on Ian Edmondson’s instructions.) Edmondson remained suspended.

  However, the real problem for the Murdoch commanders was that while they were busy reinforcing their defences against the evidence uncovered by Sienna Miller, another big gun was finally rolling into position. Sky Andrew’s case was ready to blow another hole in News International.

  On 12 January, the police belatedly obeyed a court order to hand over evidence which they had been holding for more than four years on the hacking of Andrew’s phone. However, repeating the pattern from Max Clifford’s case a year earlier, the police took it upon themselves to redact all of the material so heavily that Andrew’s lawyer, Charlotte Harris, had to submit a new application to the High Court for an order to compel the police to disclose the evidence so that it could be read properly.

  This had bought News International some time, but clearly the Murdoch team were nervous and they repeated that they were holding a ‘comprehensive internal inquiry’. The Guardian discovered that all they were doing was searching Edmondson’s computer and emails, apparently checking to see what would happen if the court accepted Charlotte
Harris’s request for internal email to be handed over. More important, Sky Andrew had another shot to fire.

  Weeks earlier, a judge had ordered Glenn Mulcaire to name the person who had told him to hack Andrew’s phone. In the case of Nicola Phillips, he had been able to block a similar order by appealing on the grounds that he could not be ordered to disclose information which might incriminate him. We strongly suspected that News International were funding him to do so. But with Sky Andrew, they couldn’t do that: Mulcaire had already been convicted of hacking Andrew, back at his original trial in January 2007. He had no way out. He had to name the name.

  On the afternoon of 17 January 2011, after more than four years of silence, the News of the World’s former private investigator lodged an affidavit with the High Court. The following morning, the Guardian reported that this was understood to have named the person who had commissioned the interception of Sky Andrew’s voicemail – Ian Edmondson. Nicola Phillips’s case had hinted at him, Sienna Miller had named him and now Sky Andrew had nailed him. A rogue reporter was an embarrassment. A rogue news editor was devastating – not only for News International, but also for the police and the prosecutors who had done nothing about this evidence for years, and, beyond them, for the prime minister’s right-hand man, whose credibility was draining away like old bath suds.

  Within twenty-four hours, the crisis for Coulson got worse. A hearing in the case of Andy Gray disclosed that the name which Mulcaire had written in the top left-hand corner of his notebook as he hacked the football commentator’s phone was Greg Miskiw. Miskiw had already been named in the case of Tommy Sheridan, and here was confirmation. Miskiw had been one of Edmondson’s predecessors as news editor. A rogue reporter perhaps could have slipped under the newspaper’s radar. But this was two rogue news editors – spending the lion’s share of the editorial budget, providing the paper’s most important stories and reporting directly to their editor (Coulson in the case of Ian Edmondson) and their deputy editor (Coulson in the case of Greg Miskiw). How could he not have known that the budget and the stories were tied up with hacking? Forty-eight hours later, on Friday 21 January, Andy Coulson quit.