1 Friday, 11 May 2012
2 (10.00 am)
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, Mr Jay.
4 MR JAY: Sir, the witness today is Mrs Rebekah Brooks,
5 please.
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you.
7 MRS REBEKAH MARY BROOKS (sworn)
8 Questions by MR JAY
9 MR JAY: Your full name, please, Mrs Brooks?
10 A. Rebekah Mary Brooks.
11 Q. May I ask you, please, to look at the large file in
12 front of you and identify the two witness statements you
13 have provided us with. The first is under tab 1,
14 a statement dated 14 October of last year, and secondly
15 under tab 2, a statement dated 2 May of this year. The
16 principal focus today will be on the second statement,
17 but are you content to confirm the truth of both
18 statements?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. I'll attempt a timeline of your career, Mrs Brooks.
21 Tell me if I make any mistakes. You joined
22 News International on the Sunday magazine of the News of
23 the World in 1989; is that right?
24 A. That's right.
25 Q. In 1995 you were appointed deputy editor of the News of
1
1 the World under Mr Hall, in 1998 appointed deputy editor
2 of the Sun under Mr Yelland, and in May 2000, editor of
3 the News of the World, aged 31; is that right?
4 A. Yes, that's right.
5 Q. Editor of the Sun, January, I think, 2003.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. CEO of News International -- can we be clear of the
8 dates here, because there's been some doubt about it.
9 Was the announcement of your appointment in June 2009
10 but you took up the job formally on 2 September 2009?
11 A. That's correct, yes.
12 Q. Then you resigned on 17 July 2011 --
13 A. 15th.
14 Q. 15 July.
15 A. (Nods head)
16 Q. So we're completely clear about the constraints bearing
17 on your evidence, you are under police investigation in
18 the context of Operation Weeting, Operation Elveden and
19 also for allegedly perverting the course of justice; is
20 that true?
21 A. It is.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Mrs Brooks, I'm grateful to you for
23 the obvious care you've put into the statements that
24 you've made, and I'm conscious of the difficulty the
25 time must be for you.
2
1 A. Thank you, sir.
2 MR JAY: The other constraints which are borne upon you may
3 relate to documents, including emails and texts, or more
4 particularly their absence. Would you please look at
5 paragraph 30 of your second witness statement, which is
6 our page 02577.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. You make it clear there that you have had reference to
9 a diary which was kept by your former PA. May we be
10 clear what sort of diary we're talking about? Is it an
11 ordinary desk diary or is it an Alastair Campbell-type
12 diary?
13 A. No, it's definitely not an Alastair Campbell diary.
14 It's my PA's old desk diaries, so the appointments in
15 there are not the complete picture and it's difficult to
16 know whether actually some of the meetings took place.
17 So I've done my best to give you a schedule but it's
18 more of a flavour than precise diary.
19 Q. There's a schedule of appointments but it's not
20 a narrative of what was discussed on any particular
21 occasion?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Is that fair? At paragraph 31, Mrs Brooks, you say that
24 since your departure from News International, you've had
25 no access to your work emails:
3
1 "However, the emails and texts that were on my
2 BlackBerry at the time I left News International were
3 imaged and saved."
4 So does it follow that your work email account was
5 blocked to you in some way or did something different
6 happen?
7 A. No, I think it was blocked on the day I left.
8 Q. When you say the BlackBerry emails and texts were imaged
9 and saved, can you tell us approximately when those
10 events occurred?
11 A. So my BlackBerry was imaged by my legal team when it was
12 returned from the MPS and it contained, I think, about
13 six weeks of emails and less so of texts, but about
14 a month of texts. But we had to image them and we had
15 some problems with that.
16 Q. So approximately when was your BlackBerry returned by
17 the MPS?
18 A. I think about three weeks later, maybe longer.
19 Q. Can you give us a month, please, so that we --
20 A. Oh sorry, in July.
21 Q. 2011, obviously?
22 A. 2011.
23 Q. So we have, as you explain, emails and texts which only
24 cover a limited period, from the beginning of June 2011
25 until, you say, 17 July. Maybe 15 July or 17 July --
4
1 A. I think it was the 17th.
2 Q. You also confirm that there is nothing of relevance to
3 this Inquiry in your private accounts, by which of
4 course you're referring to private email accounts; is
5 that right?
6 A. That's correct.
7 Q. Does it follow then that any emails you might have had
8 with politicians would only have been through your NI
9 email account?
10 A. That's correct.
11 Q. And any text message contact with politicians would only
12 have been on your BlackBerry, which was a work
13 BlackBerry?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. There was no other mobile phone?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Okay. I've been asked to put to you this question: were
18 there any emails or texts from either Mr Cameron or
19 Mr Osborne on your BlackBerry at the time you left
20 News International?
21 A. No, although when we got the image back, there was one
22 from Mr Cameron that was compressed, so -- in June, but
23 there's no content in it.
24 Q. So it's a complete mystery what, if anything, it might
25 contain; is that right?
5
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Did you receive messages of commiseration or support
3 from politicians, in July 2011 in particular?
4 A. Some.
5 Q. Either directly or indirectly; is that right?
6 A. Mainly indirectly.
7 Q. Yes. In order to get a fair picture, since if we focus
8 on one individual alone the picture will logically be
9 distorted, are you able to assist us with from whom you
10 received such messages?
11 A. I had some indirect messages from some politicians, but
12 nothing direct.
13 Q. The indirect ones, who were the politicians?
14 A. A variety, really, but -- some Tories, a couple of
15 Labour politicians. Very few Labour politicians.
16 Q. Can we be a bit more specific, Mrs Brooks?
17 A. Sorry, I'm not trying to be evasive. I received some
18 indirect messages from Number 10, Number 11, Home
19 Office, Foreign Office.
20 Q. So you're talking about secretaries of state,
21 Prime Minister, chancellor of the Exchequer, obviously,
22 aren't you?
23 A. And also people who worked in those offices as well.
24 Q. Labour politicians? How about them?
25 A. Like I say, there were very few Labour politicians that
6
1 sent commiserations.
2 Q. Okay. Mr Blair, did he send you one?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Probably not Mr Brown?
5 A. No. He was probably getting the bunting out.
6 Q. It has been reported in relation to Mr Cameron -- but
7 who knows whether it's true -- that you received
8 a message along the lines of: "Keep your head up." Is
9 that true or not?
10 A. From?
11 Q. From Mr Cameron, indirectly. You'll have seen that in
12 the Times.
13 A. Yes, I did see it in the Times. Along those lines. It
14 was more -- I don't think they were the exact words but
15 along those lines.
16 Q. Is the gist right, at least?
17 A. Yes, I would say so. But it was indirect. It wasn't
18 a direct text message.
19 Q. Did you also receive a message from him via an
20 intermediary along these lines:
21 "Sorry I could not have been as loyal to you as
22 I have been, but Ed Miliband had me on the run."
23 Or words to that effect?
24 A. Similar, but again, very indirectly.
25 Q. So, broadly speaking, that message was transmitted to
7
1 you, was it?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Out of interest, do you happen to know how these
4 messages do enter the public domain?
5 A. We have a very strong free press, who have great access
6 to politicians, so ...
7 Q. We may be coming back to that, but you can't be of any
8 more particularity than that, can you?
9 A. Journalists doing their job.
10 Q. Mr Cameron also said publicly:
11 "We all got too close to News International."
12 Or words to that effect. Was that a view he ever
13 communicated to you personally?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Can I ask you, please, about Mr Murdoch, by way of
16 background. We know he told the House of Lords
17 communications committee -- this was back in 2007 when
18 he was spoken to, I think, in New York -- that he was
19 a traditional proprietor who exercises editorial control
20 on major issues, like which party to back in a General
21 Election or policy on Europe. Do you agree with that or
22 not?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Does it apply as much to the News of the World as the
25 Sun or does that only apply to the Sun?
8
1 A. I think Mr Murdoch is probably more interested in the
2 Sun in terms of political issues, but it also applied to
3 the News of the World as well when I was there.
4 Q. Your evidence to the self-same committee, question 1461:
5 "I think it would be fair to say that, before any
6 appointment, he knew me pretty well."
7 You'd presumably stand by that, would you?
8 A. Well, particularly before my appointment to editor of
9 the Sun.
10 Q. Yes, 2003, and probably in 2000 when you were appointed
11 editor of the News of the World or not?
12 A. Less so.
13 Q. Then question 1462:
14 "He would be aware of my views, both social views,
15 cultural views and political views."
16 Again, presumably you stand by that or not?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Then you said:
19 "Take Europe, for example. Mr Murdoch was
20 absolutely aware of my views on Europe. I think even
21 before I became editor of the News of the World, maybe
22 even deputy editor."
23 Is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Without delving into this in any great detail,
9
1 presumably you are a Eurosceptic; correct?
2 A. Yes, I suppose so.
3 Q. And politically, your position is fairly similar to
4 Mr Murdoch's, is it?
5 A. In some areas, yes.
6 Q. Which areas do they differ?
7 A. Well, we disagreed about quite a few things, more in
8 margins of it rather than the principles. So, I don't
9 know: the environment, DNA database, immigration, top-up
10 fees, the amount of celebrity in the paper versus
11 serious issues, columnists, the design, the headline,
12 size, the font size, the point -- I mean, you know, we
13 had a lot of disagreements, but in the main, on the big
14 issues, we had similar views.
15 Q. Yes. So on the issue of celebrity against serious
16 issues, where did each of you stand on that?
17 A. I liked more celebrity and he wanted more serious
18 issues.
19 Q. Why did you want more celebrity?
20 A. Well, I liked -- I thought the readers were quite
21 interested in -- you only have to look at the viewing
22 figures of BBC or ITV to see that it's the celebrity
23 programmes, the real life -- the reality programmes that
24 do so well, and I took from those figures that our
25 readers were quite interested in that. He thought there
10
1 was too much of it, although he liked X Factor.
2 Q. In terms of your social and cultural views -- I'm not
3 going to pry into that too much, but are you a strong
4 believer in human rights and the Human Rights Act?
5 A. Not particularly, no. I mean, in its form. Obviously
6 its existence, absolutely, but there were parts of the
7 Human Rights Act that we campaigned against in the Sun
8 when I was there. At one point, the Conservative Party,
9 I think, were going to repeal it and replace it with
10 a British bill of rights. I think that was the case,
11 but I think that's now been dropped.
12 Q. We may come back to that issue in a more specific
13 context.
14 When you were appointed editor of the News of the
15 World in 2000, was that Mr Murdoch's decision?
16 A. I was actually told by Les Hinton that I was going to be
17 made editor of the News of the World and I didn't speak
18 to Mr Murdoch until after that.
19 Q. But was it his decision?
20 A. I think it was Mr Hinton's strong recommendation and --
21 like I said, I didn't speak to Mr Murdoch until I'd
22 actually taken the job.
23 Q. There was some discussion at the seminars we had
24 in October in relation to the departure of Mr Hall. Are
25 you able to enlighten us as to that at all?
11
1 A. No, I'm sorry. I was at the Sun at the time.
2 Q. Would the editorial line you took, in particular in
3 relation to the Sun, reflect Mr Murdoch's thinking?
4 A. I think, as I say in my witness statement, it really is
5 important to differentiate between Mr Murdoch's
6 thinking, my thinking, the political team's thinking and
7 the thinking of the readers. I mean, I know I spend
8 a lot of time on it in my witness statement but it's to
9 get across the point that it was -- the readers' views
10 were always reflected in any policy or politician or
11 political party. So I know Mr Murdoch, when he gave
12 evidence, he said, "If they want to know what I think,
13 read the Sun editorials", but I don't think he was being
14 totally literal about that.
15 Q. What his evidence was exactly:
16 "If you want to judge my thinking, look at the Sun."
17 Those were the exact words he used.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Whether it was an ill-guarded remark or not, it's not
20 for me to say, but some might think it was a considered
21 response to a question in fact from Lord Justice
22 Leveson. You'll recall that, won't you?
23 A. I don't think it was ill-guarded. I'm just saying I
24 don't think was literal.
25 Q. Why not, though?
12
1 A. Because there were lots of things in the Sun that
2 wouldn't reflect his views.
3 Q. I think he meant on the big points, not on the minutiae.
4 A. Okay.
5 Q. Would you agree with that?
6 A. I accept that.
7 Q. At paragraph 12 of your witness statement -- I'm now on
8 your second statement -- you give us a thumbnail sketch
9 of what the Sun is, what it represents, what its
10 cultural values are. It embodies an attitude, you say,
11 rather than a particular social class, et cetera. Then
12 you say:
13 "It is sometimes said that the relationship between
14 the Sun and its readers reflects the national
15 conversation. If you wanted to know what the nation was
16 talking about, you would look at the Sun."
17 We have a contrast here. Some would say: if you
18 want to know what Mr Murdoch is thinking, look at the
19 Sun, and then you're saying: if you want to know what
20 the nation's talking about, look at the Sun. Which is
21 correct?
22 A. The one in my witness statement.
23 Q. Why do you say that?
24 A. Because I wrote it and I believe it.
25 Q. What do you mean by "the nation" here?
13
1 A. Well, I think if you accept that the Sun, for many, many
2 years, has been the biggest-selling newspaper in the
3 country and that the Saturday Sun overtook the News of
4 the World, I think, about five years ago, maybe longer
5 actually, in circulation terms. So you have this huge
6 readership. I don't know what the exact figure is
7 today, but we always used a sort of 8 million. The
8 paper next to that is the Daily Mail, which is
9 6 million. So I think I'm basing it on such a large
10 percentage of the British population who would come in
11 contact with the Sun. They might not read it every day,
12 but they would come in contact with the Sun at some
13 point or other.
14 Q. You're addressing a different point, because it assumes
15 that the nation is monolithic or homogeneous, which it
16 isn't. The bigger the readership is, it might be said
17 the more diverse its views are rather than the more
18 singular its views are. Do you see that point?
19 A. I do see that point, and I make it later on again in my
20 witness statement, which is -- and this has been touched
21 on throughout this Inquiry -- actually broadcast media
22 has become more and more influential and more and more
23 important over newspapers, because it's a fact that
24 newspaper circulations in the printed form are
25 declining. So I do accept that.
14
1 It was meant to really say -- if -- for example, you
2 know, the conversation in the pub or the conversation at
3 work. So during the Manchester City/Manchester United
4 clash, you know, that conversation -- the incident that
5 happened there, that would be talked about in the pub
6 and that's what I meant by "national conversation". It
7 wasn't meant to be taken any more literally than that.
8 Q. A reflection then of the sort of debate which you would
9 hear in any pub, dining room table or whatever, but not
10 a reflection of the individual collective views of the
11 readership. Is that a fair description?
12 A. No, not particularly. I think -- no.
13 Q. I'm really leading into paragraph 15, Mrs Brooks, and
14 the myth, which you seek to explode, that newspaper
15 editors or proprietors are an unelected force. Well,
16 pausing there, that's true, isn't it?
17 A. I don't think it is, no.
18 Q. Who elects you, apart from Mr Murdoch?
19 A. We're not elected officials.
20 Q. You're saying it's a myth. But it's a truth, isn't it?
21 Newspaper editors or appropriates are an unelected
22 force, aren't they?
23 A. If you view them as that. I don't view editors as
24 unelected forces.
25 Q. So how do you view them then?
15
1 A. Journalists.
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But isn't the point you're really
3 making in paragraph 15 not so much about the unelected
4 force? One could talk about unelected, undemocratic,
5 whatever, if it's relevant. It's that you are shaping
6 and changing government policy to suit your own
7 interests.
8 A. Yes.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Isn't that the myth you're really
10 talking about?
11 A. That was also what I was addressing there, yes.
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But there is no doubt -- or perhaps
13 you would disagree? -- that newspaper editors and
14 proprietors are a powerful force. They have a voice,
15 they have a megaphone.
16 A. I think I understand, sir, what you're saying. I think
17 what I'm trying to say is that, particularly for
18 newspapers like the Sun, you have to -- your power is
19 your readership. It's not an individual power. You
20 know, it's a readership power and I think that's really
21 important.
22 I think Tony Gallagher, the editor of the Telegraph,
23 said that if he fell under a bus, you know, the power of
24 his office would go, and I think -- just adding to his
25 point, I think at the Sun, the readers are the most
16
1 powerful. It is their voice that we try and reflect,
2 their injustices, their concerns that we try and tackle,
3 their interests we try and engage in. So I just don't
4 see -- I think -- I can't remember what the question was
5 but I was more reacting to the fact that every day the
6 readers can unelect us as newspapers.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, we've heard that several times,
8 but I think we discussed yesterday, or certainly in the
9 recent past, the extent to which editors are reactive
10 and the extent to which they can in fact lead opinion.
11 They have to reflect the overall position of their
12 readership; I understand that. They can't suddenly go
13 out on a limb when they know their readers won't follow
14 them, but they are in a position to lead opinion. Would
15 you agree with that?
16 A. I think you can present issues to the readership, yes,
17 and that's part of being an editor.
18 MR JAY: And you present issues with a certain spin,
19 a certain slant, don't you?
20 A. Well, depending on the paper, yes. I mean, you can do.
21 Q. Your paper --
22 A. I wouldn't say "spin". I would say "attitude".
23 Q. Or perspective then?
24 A. Okay.
25 Q. You mentioned that the Sun, I think, was an attitude
17
1 rather than a particular social class, but maybe that
2 permeates all the way through.
3 When you were editor of the News of the World -- we
4 heard evidence yesterday from Mr Coulson of the degree
5 of contact Mr Murdoch had with his editor then. Would
6 your evidence be similar to Mr Coulson's or different,
7 if I can short circuit it in that way? The amount of
8 contacts or discussions.
9 A. What did Mr Coulson say, sorry?
10 Q. Well, that he phoned -- it varied, but it was on
11 Saturday evenings, if at all. It might be twice
12 a month, it might be less often than that.
13 A. I'm sure that's right at the News of the World, yes.
14 Q. And he was interested in the big stories, was he?
15 A. Occasionally, yeah. I mean, Mr Murdoch's contact with
16 the News of the World was much more limited than the Sun
17 or other newspapers.
18 Q. And when you become editor of the Sun, which is 2003,
19 paragraph 256 your statement, you say you believe that
20 Mr Murdoch was instrumental in your appointment; is that
21 right?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Do you know that to be true or you believe it to be
24 true?
25 A. I know that to be true.
18
1 Q. How often would he speak to you when you were editor of
2 the Sun?
3 A. Very frequently.
4 Q. Give us an idea, Mrs Brooks.
5 A. Well, it wasn't a sort of -- it wasn't a regular
6 pattern. Sometimes it could be every day. Sometimes,
7 if something else was going on around the world, it
8 would be less than that, but very frequently.
9 Q. Even, evidently, when he wasn't in this country; is that
10 right?
11 A. Mainly when he wasn't in the country, yes.
12 Q. It's said that you had a close relationship with
13 Mr Murdoch. Various stories abound. Let's see whether
14 any of them are true. It's said that you used to swim
15 together when he was in London. Is that true?
16 A. No, it isn't.
17 Q. November 2005, we recall that you were arrested for
18 alleged assault on your ex-husband. You recall that, no
19 doubt?
20 A. I do recall it, yes.
21 Q. I think that you'd been to the 42nd birthday party of
22 Matthew Freud that evening, had you?
23 A. I don't know if that was the birth date, but yeah, it
24 was a party, yeah.
25 Q. So, evidently, other members of the Murdoch family would
19
1 have been there, wouldn't they?
2 A. I -- I can't remember. Not particularly, but ...
3 Q. Mr Rupert Murdoch was there, wasn't he?
4 A. No, he wasn't.
5 Q. It's said that you kept him waiting for a breakfast
6 meeting the following morning. Is that bit true?
7 A. No.
8 Q. And that he sent a dress to the police station. Is that
9 bit true?
10 A. No.
11 Q. So this is all fiction then?
12 A. Completely. I don't know -- where is it from?
13 Q. Various sources, but ...
14 A. You need better sources, Mr Jay.
15 Q. Well, confidential sources. They're all in the public
16 domain, actually, but I'm not expressing a view on their
17 reliability.
18 A. I'm sorry --
19 Q. It may be leading up to a question much later on in
20 relation to all of this.
21 A. Okay.
22 Q. There is evidence, though, I've seen that there was
23 a 40th birthday party for you at Mr Rupert Murdoch's
24 house. Is that correct?
25 A. That is correct.
20
1 Q. Were politicians present on that occasion?
2 A. Yes, some.
3 Q. Mr Cameron and Mr Blair were presumably present, were
4 they?
5 A. It was a surprise party for me, so I'm pretty -- I know
6 Mr Blair was there. I'm not sure if Mr Cameron was.
7 Possibly.
8 Q. There are all sorts of stories as to what the birthday
9 present was, but I'm not going to ask you because it's
10 outside the --
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Oh, please.
12 A. You've asked me if I've been swimming with Mr Murdoch.
13 Please ask me about the birthday present.
14 MR JAY: No, I won't. In 2006, you were appointed chief
15 executive officer of News International.
16 A. 2009.
17 Q. 2009. Paragraph 26, pardon me. Was that Mr Murdoch's
18 idea?
19 A. I discussed that appointment with James and
20 Rupert Murdoch.
21 Q. Was it Rupert Murdoch's idea?
22 A. I think it was more James Murdoch's idea in the
23 beginning, but both of them, both of their ideas.
24 Q. Why was that job of interest to you?
25 A. I think I'd been editing the Sun for seven years by
21
1 then, and I was interested in -- very interested, like
2 most journalists are, in looking at the future economic
3 models of journalism and basically how you continue to
4 financially keep, you know, high quality journalism
5 going, and I think the digital age and the iPad and the
6 paywalls, they were all of interest to me and something
7 that I was looking forward to doing.
8 Q. Okay. Now, Mr Mohan was your replacement as editor and
9 I think he was your strong recommendation; is that
10 right?
11 A. He was, yes.
12 Q. Why?
13 A. He'd been my deputy for a few years, so I'd seen the
14 paper that he'd edited in my absence, and also I'd
15 attended a few more business management programmes in
16 the last year of my editorship of the Sun -- a couple of
17 modules at the LSE, some internal management
18 programmes -- and Dominic had had much more time to edit
19 the paper on his own, and I thought he was doing a very
20 good job.
21 Q. In terms of the general political perspective I've
22 mentioned earlier, where you stood vis-a-vis Mr Murdoch,
23 does Mr Mohan stand in more or less the same place or
24 a different place?
25 A. Not entirely -- Dominic is not entirely the same as I am
22
1 or Mr Murdoch, but then none of us are -- you know, we
2 all have different shades of grey.
3 Q. The same colour though; is that right?
4 A. Not necessarily.
5 Q. Okay. July 2011. Were you embarrassed when Mr Murdoch
6 indicated that you were his priority?
7 A. Are you referring to the -- when we -- in the street?
8 Q. Indeed.
9 A. I wasn't at the time, because I didn't think that's what
10 he was saying. I -- he was being asked by many
11 reporters lots of different questions, and I think
12 someone said, "What's your priority", and he looked
13 towards me and said, "This one." I took that to mean he
14 meant as in this issue. It was only the next day when
15 I saw how it could have also been interpreted in the
16 papers that I realised that was the interpretation that
17 had been put on it. So I wasn't embarrassed at the time
18 because I didn't know that that's what he meant.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Oh.
20 MR JAY: Your relationships with politicians. Can we go
21 back to Mr Blair, and we'll do this chronologically.
22 Paragraph 53 of your statement of claim. You say you
23 met him on numerous political and social occasions and
24 these meetings increased in frequency throughout his
25 decade as Prime Minister. You had many formal, informal
23
1 and social meetings with him, "some of which I have been
2 able to detail", and you have also spoken on the
3 telephone on a number of issues.
4 You're giving a picture here of contact which became
5 very frequent; is that fair?
6 A. I think it became more frequent when I became editor of
7 the Sun, but that probably would go for most
8 politicians, although obviously, as you heard from
9 Mr Murdoch, Mr Blair flew out to a News Corp conference,
10 I think in around 1995, and I probably met him shortly
11 after that. So it's -- and then he obviously -- they
12 were in power for ten years, so it's over a very long
13 period of time.
14 Q. I'm sure there wasn't a key moment but an important date
15 was 2003 when you became editor of the Sun. Did you
16 find that your contacts with politicians generally
17 increased from that point in time?
18 A. Yes, I would say so.
19 Q. It's also clear that -- tell me if this is wrong -- that
20 you became friendly with Mr Blair?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Were there text and email exchanges with him or not?
23 A. No, he didn't have a phone or -- mobile phone, or in
24 fact, I think, use a computer when he was
25 Prime Minister.
24
1 Q. So all the telephone contact is logically then only on
2 a landline, is it?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. From his perspective. You say in paragraph 54:
5 "Tony Blair, his senior cabinet, advisers and press
6 secretaries were a constant presence in my life for many
7 years."
8 A. Mm.
9 Q. Why do you think that was?
10 A. I think they made sure it was, and I wasn't unique in
11 that.
12 Q. Why do you think they made sure it was?
13 A. I think you have to look particularly at
14 Alastair Campbell's appointment. I mean, he came from
15 being political editor of the Daily Mirror, and
16 Tony Blair's advisers put a huge store on certain
17 newspapers and I think that they made -- shall we say
18 a shift change from the John Major government into
19 trying to get as much access to the press as possible.
20 I mean, millions of books have been written about this,
21 so it's not a particularly insightful comment but
22 relevant to that question.
23 Q. It's just like the Sun, then, reacting to its readers'
24 wishes. It's you, as an editor, reacting to the
25 politicians' wishes; is that correct?
25
1 A. No, not at all.
2 Q. But the impetus on your narrative is coming from the
3 politicians, not from the press.
4 A. I think --
5 Q. Which is correct?
6 A. I think the point of New Labour, if you like, embracing
7 the media in a different way was because they felt they
8 had a very big story to tell, at its best, shall we say.
9 They had a very big story to tell about the changes they
10 wanted to make or had made to the Labour Party. On the
11 press' side, me included, were journalists, and access
12 to politicians who can tell us things that we don't
13 know, explain things that are going on, tell us policy
14 that's being developed, all those things that we can
15 report back to our readers -- I mean, that's
16 a journalist's job.
17 Q. Your job, you tell us, is to hold politicians to
18 account.
19 A. Absolutely.
20 Q. How can you do that if they are a constant presence?
21 A. Well, very easily, because you can find out quite easily
22 what's going on and hold them to account for it.
23 A constant presence doesn't mean that you don't hold
24 politicians to account. I think every journalist and
25 every newspaper does that all the time on behalf of its
26
1 readers.
2 Q. It depends if at all the line is crossed, because if
3 a friendship developed or an antipathy develops, then
4 the constant presence is in danger of being abused,
5 isn't it?
6 A. Well, I think if a politician or a Prime Minister ever
7 put a friendship with a media executive or a media
8 company in front of his or her abilities to do their
9 professional duties properly, then that is their
10 failing, and I think if a journalist ever compromised
11 their readership or their role as a journalist through
12 friendship, then that is their failing. So I think it's
13 simply put.
14 Q. Tony Blair and New Labour were arguably masters of spin.
15 What steps, if any, did you take to counteract that?
16 A. First of all, I actually think that Gordon Brown and
17 Charlie Whelan were masters of spin more than Alastair
18 Campbell and Tony Blair. I don't think -- it's often
19 reported that it was Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell,
20 but I think the whole of New Labour engaged in a new
21 way, a more intense way, with the media when they came
22 to power.
23 Q. The question was: what steps, if any, did you take to
24 counteract that?
25 A. Well, I don't think any journalist takes a story from
27
1 a politician or a line from a politician and repeats it
2 verbatim in their newspaper without checking it or
3 analysing it. I mean, the role of a journalist is not
4 to just gather information; it's also to analyse and
5 prove that information.
6 Q. But you weren't disinterested in this, Mrs Brooks,
7 because you were on Mr Blair's side. You just made that
8 clear in the answer you gave a minute ago. Wouldn't you
9 agree?
10 A. I think when you back a political party in the way that
11 the Sun did in 1997 -- I wasn't on the Sun then, but,
12 you know, I was a close observer -- I don't think you
13 back them wholeheartedly. In fact, I think if you look
14 at the Sun's front pages from 1997 to when Tony Blair
15 left in 2007, you would at some point be quite confused
16 that it was actually supporting that party, particularly
17 on Europe but on other issues as well.
18 Q. On the level of personality, the clash that there was
19 between Mr Blair and Mr Brown, which you speak to in
20 your statement, you were on Mr Blair's side, weren't
21 you?
22 A. I think that -- are you talking about the hostilities
23 between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair?
24 Q. Yes, you were talking about it in the first sentence of
25 paragraph 61 your statement.
28
1 A. Right. And what was the question, sorry, Mr Jay?
2 Q. You were on Mr Blair's side, not Mr Brown's side,
3 weren't you?
4 A. What I said in the statement was that in the latter
5 years -- and again, there's been much better political
6 commentary on this from actually many of the books
7 you've asked me to read for this Inquiry, but in the
8 latter years of Tony Blair's prime ministership, the
9 hostilities between him and Gordon Brown got
10 increasingly worse and there did become a sort of
11 Tony Blair camp and a Gordon Brown camp, and on
12 particular issues -- say, for example, the welfare
13 reform bill, which I think they first tried to get
14 through in 2004 -- hostilities between Gordon Brown and
15 Tony Blair were such that it didn't get through that
16 time. We tried again. It was very important for Sun
17 readers.
18 So you would have an insight how those hostilities
19 were affecting the way to govern. So you would have an
20 opinion on them.
21 Q. But whose side were you on, Mrs Brooks?
22 A. Neither. On the side of the readers. It wasn't an
23 automatic given that Alastair Campbell or Charlie Whelan
24 were telling you the truth. It was our job to judge and
25 analyse it.
29
1 Q. You told us you were friends with Mr Blair. Was your
2 relationship with Mr Brown at the same level? Were you
3 friends with him?
4 A. I was actually friends with Sarah Brown, his amazing
5 lady, and -- that was the friendship. So probably not.
6 Q. So you were more friendly with Mr Blair than you were
7 with Mr Brown, weren't you?
8 A. By the end, yes, but not at the beginning. Actually, as
9 Mr Murdoch said in his testimony, he had a very warm
10 relationship with Mr Brown and I would see him --
11 I would see Gordon Brown quite regularly too.
12 Q. But all the commentators say -- and we make come back to
13 this -- that in relation to this feud, you took the side
14 of Mr Blair and not Mr Brown. Did you or didn't you?
15 A. I think you have to say which part of the feud. There
16 were many, many elements to the feud. For example, in
17 the famous curry house coup, I think we did in fact take
18 Mr Blair's side because the country hadn't been -- was
19 almost on ice because of the hostilities and I felt an
20 injustice on behalf of our readers because policy wasn't
21 getting through. But not always. No, not always.
22 Q. But most of the time, Mrs Brooks?
23 A. I think --
24 Q. Can we agree on that that?
25 A. I'm reluctant to agree to that because I'm not quite
30
1 sure it's true. You know, let's say 50/50. But at the
2 end, particularly, we were on the side of Mr Blair.
3 Q. So totally disinterestedly, in the fair interests of
4 your readers, you maintained impartiality between them?
5 Is that what you're trying to tell us?
6 A. Impartialities between ... sorry?
7 Q. Mr Brown and Mr Blair.
8 A. I'm sorry, I don't quite -- what is the question? That
9 I ...?
10 Q. That in fact you didn't take either person's side? You
11 played this with an entirely neutral bat, or however you
12 want to put it?
13 A. It wasn't a playground spat. They were the
14 Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We
15 were a newspaper who was looking after the real serious
16 concerns of our readers, so it wasn't that we were --
17 I would stand in one corner of the playground and
18 Alan Rusbridger would stand on the other and it would be
19 he was on Gordon's side and I was on Tony Blair's. It
20 just didn't work like that. Every story, every feud,
21 every, you know, mediation by John Prescott or Peter
22 Mandelson at the time was analysed by the media in
23 a just and proper way. So I just don't think you can
24 couch it like that.
25 Q. Is it true that in exchange for, generally speaking,
31
1 supporting Mr Blair, the Sun would often be the first to
2 receive scoops, or at least the stories the New Labour
3 government and its spin doctors wished to put out?
4 A. I'd like to think that we were the first to receive
5 scoops, but I think that's down to Trevor Kavanagh and
6 what a great political journalist he is and then Tom
7 Newton Dunn, but we did get a lot of scoops.
8 Q. They weren't fed to you, you think?
9 A. Not all of them were particularly pleasant, so no.
10 Q. Some of them were fed to you, though, weren't they?
11 A. Well, Trevor and I had some good sources.
12 Q. Those close to Mr Blair himself, those were your good
13 sources, weren't they?
14 A. As you said, you don't reveal your sources.
15 Q. Okay. Look at the schedule of meetings with British
16 prime ministers, which is RMB1.
17 A. Would you know what tab that is in, sorry?
18 Q. Yes.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Number 3.
20 A. Thank you.
21 MR JAY: Tab 3. You put in a revised version so --
22 A. Have we? Okay.
23 Q. I think we need to be absolutely clear about this.
24 You're not putting this forward necessarily as
25 100 per cent complete?
32
1 A. No.
2 Q. Owing to the documents you've told us about, the
3 existence only of a desk diary --
4 A. It's not even my own desk diary, so ...
5 Q. Some meetings may have been cancelled, some meetings may
6 not have within included. So this should not be seen as
7 other than indicative; is that the way you wish to put
8 it?
9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. We know that from Alastair Campbell's diary that there
11 was a dinner on 27 April 1997 -- you, your ex-husband,
12 Mr Blair, Mr Campbell -- which was four days before the
13 famous election of 1 May 1997. Do you recall that?
14 A. Not particularly, but I'm sure it's correct. We were
15 following Mr Blair's conference or last conference on
16 education, or we were doing a big number on education in
17 the paper. So I think it was to do with that, but
18 I can't remember. Is it in Alastair's book? I'm
19 sure --
20 Q. Yes, page 733 of the first volume. Obviously you were
21 going to be discussing what was then 99 per cent likely
22 to happen, namely a huge victory for the Labour Party.
23 Self-evident, isn't it?
24 A. Well, this is 14 years ago. I know there was -- I know
25 there was a meeting at an education rally, so it might
33
1 be the same -- one and the same thing.
2 Q. Okay. When we see an entry such as "Tony Blair lunch",
3 does that mean just Mr Blair or can it mean "and others
4 present as well"?
5 A. I would say that up until quite late in my editorship of
6 the Sun, that most of those dinners will have been
7 attended by political editor and particularly lunches
8 would have been -- and all prime ministers do this to
9 newspaper groups and senior cabinet visitors, is they
10 come into the newsroom and sit down with the editor and
11 the most senior executives and discuss issues of the
12 day. So I think a lot of those would have been that
13 format.
14 Q. Dinners in restaurants? How does that work?
15 A. You see --
16 Q. Just Mr Blair or other people there?
17 A. In 1999? I doubt that very much. But again, I'm sorry,
18 that is literally what it says in the desk diary.
19 I have probably better notes at News International, but
20 I --
21 Q. It's just your memory, Mrs Brooks, particularly if you
22 look at the period 2003 to 2007. You'll have memories
23 not of particular events but whether other people were
24 there on occasion or not.
25 A. I mean, like everybody, I'll probably have a better
34
1 recollection of 2003 to 2007 than 1999, which is 13, 14
2 years ago, so.
3 Q. I was asking you about 2003 to 2007. Can you --
4 A. Which --
5 Q. I'm not asking you about a particular entry.
6 A. Right.
7 Q. I'm just asking whether a dinner with the Prime Minister
8 in a restaurant might have been one-to-one, or would it
9 always have been with someone else there?
10 A. I think from in that period I, from memory, had about
11 three dinners with Mr Blair on my own.
12 Q. We see one dinner at the home of Matthew Freud and
13 Elisabeth Murdoch. Again, if one reads material online,
14 one would be led to believe that there were frequent
15 occasions when Mr Blair went with you to the home of
16 Mr Freud and Elisabeth Murdoch. Is that correct or not?
17 A. No; once.
18 Q. You can only remember one or you are sure there was only
19 one?
20 A. I'm sorry, I thought your question was that I took
21 Mr Blair to the home of Matthew --
22 Q. You were there on the same occasion. Whether you're
23 taking him or not, I'm not sure --
24 A. No, sorry, I will have seen Mr Blair probably much more
25 since he left office in their company, but on occasion,
35
1 yes, he was there.
2 Q. Informally, spontaneously? Did that ever happen?
3 A. No.
4 Q. You say "on occasion". Can you give us a feel for the
5 number of occasions when he was at the home of Matthew
6 Freud and Elisabeth Murdoch when he was Prime Minister?
7 A. I actually think quite few.
8 Q. Quite a few?
9 A. No, few. As in very few.
10 Q. A handful then. Is that what you're telling us?
11 A. Maximum, yes.
12 Q. Can we look at the elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005 as
13 of one piece. Was the support of your newspaper,
14 whether it be the News of the World or the Sun -- I know
15 you weren't editor in 1997 -- the subject of prior
16 discussion with Mr Blair or his advisers?
17 A. I have no idea for 1997. Not in 2001 that I can
18 remember. But in 2005, it was a very difficult time for
19 the Labour Party, and I think -- I am pretty sure it was
20 Michael Howard who was leader of the opposition at that
21 time, and so the Sun newspaper, at the time under my
22 editorship, we were very even-handed during that
23 election process, giving both equal weight to all party
24 policies. So I'm not sure we particularly had
25 a conversation with the Labour Party about access --
36
1 support.
2 Q. In 2005, though, the Sun did support the Labour Party.
3 That's a matter of record.
4 A. That's right.
5 Q. It changed, of course, in September 2009.
6 A. Mm.
7 Q. But the question was: was the fact of the Sun's support
8 the subject of prior discussion with Mr Blair or his
9 advisors?
10 A. Not that I can remember, no. It wouldn't be -- it
11 wouldn't be that way. In fact, I think in 2005 --
12 again, it's very difficult. I wish I'd had some access
13 to my notes, but I think in 2005 the Sun -- we left it
14 right to the day, and I think we erected a sort of
15 a Vatican-style chimney on the roof of Wapping and
16 whatever coloured smoke -- sorry, it was funny at the
17 time. It's clearly lost in translation now, but anyway,
18 whatever smoke at the time came up. So we had red smoke
19 and blue smoke.
20 Q. You'd run out of yellow smoke? You made that note to
21 the Select Committee.
22 A. I'm not sure we could have found any yellow smoke at the
23 time. We clearly would have needed it now. I think we
24 left it to that minute. I remember being on the roof of
25 Wapping and looking down and seeing all the press guys
37
1 there waiting for the colour to come out. And --
2 I didn't see Mr Blair standing there with them, though,
3 waiting.
4 Q. That wasn't the question. The question was a more
5 straightforward one: was the Sun's support the subject
6 of prior discussion --
7 A. No, sorry, I keep thinking -- I keep saying the same
8 thing. No, I don't remember having a prior discussion
9 with him about it. But I think, if I'm correct in the
10 2005 Vatican chimney, we didn't tell anyone, until we
11 got to the roof of Wapping, what colour was coming out.
12 Q. Did you at least make it clear to Mr Blair and his
13 advisers before that election which aspects of Labour
14 Party policy would be less or more acceptable to your
15 readers?
16 A. There was not a particular discussion about policy but
17 it would be fair to say that leading up to the 2005
18 General Election, there was a huge debate on the next
19 stage of the European constitution and the Sun, the
20 Daily Mail and, I think, the Telegraph were all
21 campaigning quite hard to have a referendum put in the
22 2005 manifesto. And so, yes, that would have been
23 subject of discussion, you know, if there were any
24 meetings pre the 2005 -- I'm not sure if there are any,
25 but ...
38
1 Q. Okay. Just look at one particular article, which is
2 tab 27 in this bundle we've prepared, which was the
3 piece in the Sun in 2005. Do you remember this one,
4 Mrs Brooks?
5 A. Sorry, I'm just trying to -- yes, sorry, I have it now.
6 Q. "Hopes dashed. News is crushing blow to Gordon Brown's
7 chances of becoming prime minister."
8 A. Is there a date on this?
9 Q. No, there isn't because it's printed online.
10 A. Right.
11 Q. But it's printed in 2005.
12 "Mr Blair has confided to close allies over the last
13 two weeks that he intends to lead Labour for five more
14 years and may even fight a fourth election."
15 Was that piece the outcome of a conversation between
16 you and Mr Blair?
17 A. I think the byline will be Trevor Kavanagh, and as I --
18 but it's not printed on here, and as I said, Trevor and
19 I had some good sources, but I don't think it's fair to
20 reveal who they were.
21 Q. Well, I think you can tell me whether it was Mr Blair
22 himself, whether he'd, as it were, planted this in the
23 Sun with your help. Can you tell us that or not?
24 A. I don't think I can tell you that at all.
25 Q. Okay.
39
1 A. Although I do remember this story, that -- I think some
2 time in 2004 -- and this is going from memory --
3 Gordon Brown had felt that he had come to an
4 agreement -- I think this is in Andrew Rawnsley's book,
5 I think -- an agreement that he would step down before
6 the 2005 election, and at some point between that
7 agreement in 2004, which I think was during the summer,
8 when they all came back from recess, I think Tony Blair
9 changed his mind and Trevor and I had heard about this
10 and we asked everybody and we got that story.
11 Q. It's also suggested that you passed on material,
12 intelligence -- call it what you will -- gained from
13 your few dinners with Gordon Brown -- you passed that on
14 to Tony Blair. Is that true or not?
15 A. Who suggested that, sorry?
16 Q. It doesn't matter. In the same way as you're not
17 telling me your source, I'm certainly not going to share
18 mine with you. Is it true or not?
19 A. Okay, we'll play that game all day. No, it isn't, and
20 I think your source might be John Prescott. And it's
21 not true.
22 Q. Completely untrue, is it?
23 A. Not true.
24 Q. We can see from this schedule at RMB1 that you had much
25 less contact with Mr Brown when he was Prime Minister
40
1 than you had had with Mr Blair when he was
2 Prime Minister. Would you agree?
3 A. Well, he wasn't Prime Minister for very long, and in
4 2009, the Sun came out for the Tories and contact was
5 very limited after that.
6 Q. It stopped on 30 March 2009. There was a telephone
7 call, and that's the last contact you've recorded.
8 A. When, sorry? Can I just check that date?
9 Q. Yes, 30 March 2009. Do you see that one?
10 A. I can't, but anyway, I know -- I'm not sure that's true.
11 Q. Well, unless the diary is incomplete, it is true, isn't
12 it?
13 A. The diaries are very incomplete, and -- you know, I do
14 want to make this point. They are very incomplete.
15 I will have seen Gordon Brown between 30 March 2009
16 and -- I saw him at the Labour Party Conference
17 in September 2009, so -- but I -- and I remember at
18 least one occasion going to Downing Street. Again, I'm
19 sorry for these diaries that are incomplete, but they're
20 just my PA's desk diaries, so they perhaps won't have
21 everything in.
22 Q. But after 30 March 2009, the Sun was moving inexorably
23 towards supporting the Conservative Party, wasn't it?
24 A. I think the position at the Sun at the time was not an
25 overwhelming support for the Tory Party, but more that
41
1 we had had a few major issues in which we had, on behalf
2 of our readers, particularly on Afghanistan, fallen out
3 with Gordon Brown's government, and I think around March
4 2009 -- it may have been a bit later -- I think that's
5 when Gordon Brown announced that the referendum that had
6 been many promised in the 2005 manifesto on the European
7 constitution, they were going to renege on that promise,
8 and again, I think it was the Mail and the Telegraph and
9 the Sun who -- particularly at the Sun, so I'll just
10 speak to the Sun -- called then for a snap election in
11 the autumn of 2009 because this referendum was
12 a hard-fought battle. The population by far wanted that
13 referendum on the European constitution, and so we had
14 fallen out with each other, but I still saw him from
15 that date.
16 Q. Again, that wasn't really the question at all. By
17 30 March 2009, the Sun was moving inexorably towards
18 supporting the Conservative Party. Is that true or not?
19 A. Sorry, I thought I had said at the beginning, in answer
20 to that question, that I don't think that was quite the
21 way I would describe it, more that we were running out
22 of ways to support Mr Brown's government.
23 Q. Moving inexorably towards withdrawing its support for
24 the Labour Party. Could we agree on that formulation?
25 A. We could.
42
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Could I just ask about one sentence
2 in what you've just said? Let me just find it. You
3 spoke of pursuing matters "on behalf of your readers".
4 I'm just wondering what you did to discover the views of
5 your readers, save for those that communicated with you.
6 In other words, if you have millions of readers, how are
7 you identifying their views or are you reading the runes
8 of what you believed the correct approach is, supported
9 by those who are vigorous enough to correspond with you
10 and taking that forward? I'm trying the find the
11 balance here.
12 A. Yes, no, I think on Europe we -- on our European
13 campaign, which had been a long tradition at the Sun way
14 before I became editor but believed in it too -- on
15 particularly the European constitution, we had spent
16 probably since 2005 -- and the sentence that I said then
17 was in 2009 -- we were pretty sure of where our readers
18 stood on that matter. We'd had lots of polls that we'd
19 been done. We'd run petitions in the newspaper.
20 I think both the Mail and the Sun ran phone lines
21 saying, "Call in if you feel this promise should be kept
22 to about the referendum." So there was a lot of
23 feedback from the readers on that particular issue.
24 And on Afghanistan, I think it's fair, through our
25 Help for Heroes campaign, that we are considered to be
43
1 a very pro-armed forces paper and some of the failings
2 in Afghanistan, we were getting an incredible amount of
3 feedback on, not just from the troops on the ground but
4 also from the military here. So we had a pretty good
5 idea on those issues.
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, I've found the sentence now.
7 You said:
8 "We had a few major issues on which we had, on
9 behalf of our readers ..."
10 I'm just wondering whether you are merely a conduit
11 or whether there is a fair amount of what is
12 Rebekah Brooks and/or Trevor Kavanagh and/or some others
13 that's thrown into the mix of deciding how you're going
14 to pursue the matter.
15 A. I think every editor uses his or her own judgment in
16 putting together the paper and what stories or campaigns
17 we should follow and hopefully we get it right. But
18 that is -- it's an instinct but it's also -- and I refer
19 to it in my witness statement, and I don't know if it's
20 the same on other newspapers but we have a particular
21 close interaction with Sun readers. I mean, for the
22 last 11 years, every year I go on holiday on a £9.50
23 caravan park with Sun readers. I take all my executive
24 team. We go through their emails. The post room at the
25 Sun is sort of legendary. It's now an email room, or
44
1 inbox, but the letters that we get through them are
2 always looked at. There's a great sort of culture at
3 the Sun newsroom that the reader is always to be
4 respected. I mean, it's almost a sackable offence to be
5 rude to a reader. We get readers ringing us up asking
6 for directions if they're lost somewhere. We have quite
7 a close -- and I'm sure it's the same on other papers,
8 but I remember when I moved from the News of the World
9 to the Sun, it was one of the things that I noticed the
10 difference in.
11 MR JAY: Can I ask you about your social circle, I hope not
12 intrusively. Is it fair to say that there was a close
13 social circle in existence here: you, Wendi Murdoch,
14 Elisabeth Murdoch, and at one stage Sarah Brown?
15 A. We all knew each other, but we didn't meet as a group
16 like that very often. In fact, I think probably once.
17 Q. Okay. I'm doing this chronologically, so we're onto
18 Mr Cameron now.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Is that convenient just to have five
20 minutes?
21 MR JAY: Yes.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
23 (11.09 am)
24 (A short break)
25 (11.21 am)
45
1 MR JAY: Mrs Brooks, we're onto Mr Cameron now. According
2 to his biography, in 2005, you actually supported
3 Mr Liam Fox for the Conservative leadership. Is that
4 correct or not?
5 A. I don't think that is correct. I can't -- I don't think
6 the Sun came out for a particular candidate in the
7 leadership. We probably didn't support Ken Clarke
8 because of Europe, but I don't remember actually having
9 a particular line in the paper for the leadership.
10 Q. Okay. Mr Coulson is appointed Director of
11 Communications in or about May 2007. Did you have any
12 involvement in that event?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Can you recall when you first got to hear about it?
15 A. Yes, I can. I think I've written it in my witness
16 statement. I heard about it from Andy Coulson after he
17 had met with George Osborne and I then was told by Andy
18 again that he'd got the job.
19 Q. What was your reaction to that piece of news?
20 A. I probably said, "Well done."
21 Q. That's what you said, but what was your reaction to it?
22 How did you feel about it?
23 A. Well, he'd had to resign from the News of the World and,
24 you know, he'd found another job, a good job, so as
25 a friend I was very pleased for him.
46
1 Q. Were you at all surprised?
2 A. I'd already had the -- I wasn't surprised when he
3 finally got the job because he'd called me with George
4 Osborne, but --
5 Q. At a slightly earlier stage, when you first heard of it,
6 were you at all surprised that the Conservative Party
7 wanted to appoint Mr Coulson?
8 A. Not really. I mean, journalists are good communicators
9 and Alastair Campbell went to the Mirror.
10 Amanda Platell I think worked for William Hague, Iain
11 Duncan Smith. So there's a long history of journalists
12 going into politics, so it didn't occur to me this was
13 any different.
14 Q. I think your answer is: you weren't surprised at all?
15 A. No.
16 Q. The list of your meetings, which is RMB1. It's a list
17 of meetings with members or leaders of political
18 parties. Do you have that page, Mrs Brooks?
19 A. Yes, I have, yes.
20 Q. For the meeting at Santorini, Greece, which is the
21 bottom of the first page of this list, you put an
22 asterisk by it. You say you don't have a record of this
23 meeting although you do recall meeting Mr Cameron while
24 on holiday with the Murdoch family in Santorini, Greece,
25 in 2008. That's why you've included it in the list, is
47
1 it?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Whose idea was it that Mr Cameron meet with the Murdochs
4 in Greece on this occasion?
5 A. I'm not sure who came up with the idea. I think it was
6 borne out of the fact that Mr Murdoch --
7 Mr Rupert Murdoch was in Europe that summer, and
8 Mr Cameron was travelling to Europe, and I think the
9 idea came up -- but it was organised through Number 10.
10 Q. There must have been initiatives, though, within
11 News International to make arrangements. Did you know
12 anything about those?
13 A. I knew he was coming, but I think the arrangements were
14 made through Mr Murdoch's office and Number 10.
15 Q. Were you consulted at all in relation to those
16 arrangements?
17 A. No.
18 Q. You were there in Greece, presumably on holiday, with
19 the Murdoch family and there was nothing more to it than
20 that; is that right?
21 A. Yes, it was for Elisabeth Murdoch's birthday.
22 Q. And you presumably met with Mr Cameron on that occasion
23 when he was in Greece, did you?
24 A. I did, yes.
25 Q. Do you remember how long he stayed?
48
1 A. I think it was an afternoon and an evening. I think
2 that's all.
3 Q. Were you witness to any of the conversations which took
4 place, or not?
5 A. Yes, I was witness to one with him and Mr Murdoch about
6 Europe, because we were in Europe. Very general terms.
7 But then he had subsequent other conversations where
8 I wasn't around.
9 Q. So there were a number of conversations, possibly on
10 a number of topics. Is that the picture?
11 A. Well, it wasn't a sort of formal sit-down conversation.
12 However, the one I was witness to was a sort --
13 I happened to be there when they were talking about
14 Europe. I was brought into the conversation because
15 they were talking about Europe.
16 Q. Was this an occasion you were pleased about or not?
17 A. Well, it seemed to -- it was a very cordial meeting and
18 it went well. Like I say, it lasted for either an
19 afternoon or an evening, so it wasn't particularly long.
20 Q. Because by that point you were quite friendly with
21 Mr Cameron, weren't you?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Because we know from your list that on new year's eve
24 2008, he attended a new year's eve party at your farm,
25 didn't he? Your husband's farm.
49
1 A. Yes, but not at our home. It was my sister-in-law's
2 party.
3 Q. So her home nearby; is that it?
4 A. No, the point I was just trying to make was the Brooks
5 family had a family connection with the Camerons before
6 I came along, so I just wanted to make that distinction.
7 Q. Is the distinction that Mr Cameron is only a friend of
8 the Brooks family, or are you accepting that Mr Cameron
9 became your friend?
10 A. Yes. No, of course I'm accepting that.
11 Q. Looking further down this list, 3 May 2009, lunch at the
12 home of James and Kathryn Murdoch. From that point, of
13 course, there's no evidence that you're meeting with
14 Mr Brown; is that fair? Although you did say that your
15 list may not be complete in relation to Mr Brown.
16 A. I know my list isn't complete. I'm not sure -- I'm sure
17 Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have had to release their
18 social and formal and informal meetings, haven't they?
19 With -- and I'm pretty sure if they have, there will be
20 meetings at Downing Street with Mr Brown from that
21 period in May right up until September. I don't know
22 how many, though.
23 Q. The topic of conversation on 3 May 2009. It's difficult
24 to remember any specific events, of course I understand,
25 but did it cover political issues?
50
1 A. It will have done in general terms. I mean, there were
2 probably lots of other people there at the lunch, but
3 again, May 2009 -- like I say, I'm not quite sure that
4 my memory's correct, but I'm pretty sure that the
5 European constitution debate was, shall we say, at
6 large, as was Afghanistan at the time. So they may have
7 been two of the issues.
8 Q. We know that on 9 September 2009, Mr James Murdoch told
9 Mr Cameron at a drink at the George that the Sun would
10 support the Conservative Party at the next election.
11 The headline on the front page, I think, was on
12 30 September 2009.
13 A. Mm-hm.
14 Q. When did you first know that that shift would take
15 place?
16 A. To the -- to the Conservative party?
17 Q. Yes. I've given you the date when Mr James Murdoch told
18 Mr Cameron that it would happen: 9 September 2009. When
19 did you first know that that shift would take place?
20 A. Well, if we put aside the timing of it, I think probably
21 in the June 2009. Me and Rupert Murdoch and
22 James Murdoch had started to have discussions, because
23 I think by that stage -- and that was post the reneging
24 on the referendum, it was post a campaign for a snap
25 election, and it was -- I think one of my last front
51
1 pages that I edited of the Sun was "Don't you know
2 there's a bloody war on?" The point of it was there
3 didn't seem to be one senior politician, including the
4 Prime Minister, who was willing to address the issues
5 the military were facing out there, and so I think that
6 was around June --
7 Q. You're moving off the question now. The question was
8 a simple one: when did you first know? You gave me the
9 answer. It was June 2009. You kindly expanded upon it.
10 There were conversations: you, the two Murdochs and
11 Mr Kavanagh. Is that is in a nutshell?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Was any part of the discussion about who was likely to
14 win the next election?
15 A. I think back in June, the main discussion, which is why
16 I tried to give you a little bit of background, so you
17 could understand the context, was that it was more that
18 we had lost things to support Gordon Brown's government
19 on and what did that mean. So there were very initial
20 discussions in June.
21 Q. When those discussions coalesced into a fixed position,
22 which must have arisen by 9 September 2009 by the
23 latest, was any part of the decision based on who was
24 likely to win the next election?
25 A. I'm not sure what the polls were at the time. It was
52
1 much more, in that summer, about our readership and
2 where they stood in terms of the policies that the
3 Labour government -- the bank bailout had been the year
4 before. The debt, the rising debt, so -- the recession.
5 There were lots of issues that our readers were
6 concerned about, and like I say, the main point of
7 summer was the fact that we probably hadn't written one
8 editorial in support of the Labour government for quite
9 some time. So it wasn't as clearcut as -- as the
10 question.
11 Q. I'm not saying it was. The question was: was any part
12 of the discussion related to who was likely to win the
13 next election?
14 A. Well, in general terms, it would have been, but not --
15 but only a part of it, because I can't remember what the
16 polls were at the time. I think the Tories were in the
17 lead then. But polls are polls.
18 Q. But from your perspective, if it's true that you're
19 mirroring the views of your readers, then by definition
20 you would be interested in how they were going to vote
21 at the next election. Do you see the logic of that?
22 A. I do, and the issue with the Sun, which I think is
23 probably one of the most interesting things about its
24 readership, is the amount of floating voters. So if
25 you're a Mirror reader or a Mirror journalist, you're
53
1 pretty much tied to Labour --
2 Q. We know all this, Mrs Brooks.
3 A. Yes. So I think that in the Sun the floating voters are
4 quite important. So we would do internal polls and
5 research to where our readers were changing, but the
6 overwhelming feedback from the readership at that time
7 was that they were very unhappy with the lot they had.
8 Q. So we're back to the wider point, whether you are simply
9 the mirror of the opinion of your readers or whether you
10 have any influence at all on the formation of their
11 opinion, which may be a point I'll come back to you.
12 If you look at the list of meetings, there's also
13 a meeting, a dinner, with David Cameron, 21 January
14 2010, again at the home of James and Kathryn Murdoch.
15 Can you remember if anyone else was present?
16 A. I can't, I am afraid. There will have been other people
17 present, maybe people from the office. But not
18 particularly that one. I think we had one dinner where
19 there were some military chiefs there. I'm not sure if
20 that was the one.
21 Q. At that dinner, was there any discussion as to the
22 timing of the Sun's change of support?
23 A. No, we didn't tell anyone the timing.
24 Q. Did Mr Cameron at any stage know the timing?
25 A. Probably he knew it was within a period of time from the
54
1 drink that you referred to that he had with
2 James Murdoch that it would happen, but absolutely not
3 on the timing.
4 Q. Can we see how specific we can be?
5 A. Mm-hm.
6 Q. Was he told that it would be within the party conference
7 season?
8 A. No. I don't think so.
9 Q. What was he told?
10 A. Well, I wasn't there at the drink that he had with
11 James Murdoch, but I think from -- James Murdoch's own
12 evidence is that they had a discussion, which is: "This
13 is what the Sun will probably do."
14 The timing was a matter of discussion with me and
15 the editor of the Sun, Dominic Mohan, and the political
16 team there, and James and Rupert Murdoch. So the timing
17 conversation was not with David Cameron or his advisers.
18 Q. So the News International team, really from the top to
19 editorial level --
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. -- with you in the middle as CEO, were responsible for
22 the timing of the decision; is that right?
23 A. In terms of the party conference season, yes.
24 Q. Did you play the major role here, Mrs Brooks?
25 A. I was certainly instrumental in it. I mean, ultimately,
55
1 Rupert Murdoch's the boss, but I was instrumental in it,
2 as was Trevor Kavanagh, Tom Newton Dunn and the editor,
3 Dominic Mohan.
4 Q. Final decision made by Rupert Murdoch, but you are the
5 driving force behind it, or not?
6 A. No, I was instrumental rather than the driving force.
7 It was pretty collective in terms of everyone's view,
8 particularly the readership's view, but everyone's view
9 that we were going to sort of distance ourselves from
10 the Labour Party that we'd supported for many years, but
11 as in terms of the timing, it was probably quite a small
12 group.
13 Q. And you were part of that small group?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Of course, the timing was careful inasmuch as it
16 succeeded Mr Brown's speech at that conference, didn't
17 it?
18 A. It did.
19 Q. And so designed, rightly or wrongly, to cause him
20 maximum political damage. Would you agree?
21 A. Well, the discussion on the timing was this, which is it
22 would be terribly unfair at the start of a party
23 conference to say that before hearing what Mr Brown and
24 the senior cabinet ministers had to say. For all we
25 knew, they could have come up with a fantastic policy
56
1 for Sun readers, some taxation -- any -- I mean
2 anything. So I think it was unfair for us to go before.
3 Q. Are you seriously saying that Mr Brown might have said
4 something which caused you, the Sun, to change their
5 minds and go back to plan A?
6 A. No, I'm not seriously saying that. What I'm saying is
7 we felt it was unfair to cloud a party conference in
8 that way. So that was the reason for the timing not
9 being before. I think you heard from Mr Coulson
10 yesterday that the Conservative part, if they'd had
11 their way, they would have liked the endorsement at the
12 beginning of their conference. But the reason -- the
13 main -- the sole reason for -- we knew it was going to
14 be -- we absolutely were ready to do this in that party
15 conference season, but the reason for that night is
16 because Mr Brown's speech, which I can't remember how
17 long it lasted, but the key was that he spent less than
18 two minutes on Afghanistan, and we felt that was the
19 right timing in order to distance ourselves from --
20 Q. But you must have made this decision before you heard
21 his speech.
22 A. Oh, yes. I'm not --
23 Q. There was nothing in his speech which made a difference
24 to the timing, was there?
25 A. I was talking more about fairness rather than it was
57
1 going to affect the decision. I thought or we thought
2 it was fair not to do it at the beginning of their party
3 conference. They probably wouldn't see it like that,
4 but at the time it was thought to be the right thing.
5 Q. All these considerations, including, you say, the
6 consideration of fairness, are an indication of how
7 important this decision you were taking was. Would you
8 agree?
9 A. I think from the Sun's point of view it was an
10 incredibly important decision that the Sun made in 1997,
11 after many, many years of Tory support --
12 Q. Please just keep to the question, Mrs Brooks. The
13 question was about this decision in 2009.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Don't give us ancient history. Focus on this, please.
16 A. No, but ancient history is quite important in this
17 manner because I think you're asking for an explanation.
18 So I think that it was a very important decision and we
19 did give it careful consideration after many years of
20 Labour support.
21 Q. And you knew that the decision would anger certain
22 people, didn't you?
23 A. Well, the Labour Party.
24 Q. Well, obviously, Mrs Brooks.
25 A. Well, who did you mean then?
58
1 Q. I mean individuals within the Labour Party as well. You
2 knew that, didn't you?
3 A. Well, yes.
4 Q. Did you sense in any way that this was the exercise of
5 power concentrated, if not in you personally, at least
6 in a small group of people within News International,
7 who of course you've named?
8 A. I think -- I don't think we ever saw it in those terms,
9 no.
10 Q. But I'm asking you to think about it now and perhaps see
11 it in those terms.
12 A. But I don't think we've ever seen it in those terms.
13 Q. Why not?
14 A. Because rightly or wrongly, I believe and have believed
15 throughout my career that I was -- my main
16 responsibility was to a readership, and that any
17 influence that we could come to bear on their behalf or
18 for their concerns was the most important thing, and
19 that's just the way it was. So I don't think we saw it
20 like that. Yes, in answer to your question, we knew
21 there would be certain individuals in the Labour Party
22 that would not be happy with that decision.
23 Q. This is a decision taken -- you've identified who took
24 it?
25 A. Yes.
59
1 Q. Ultimate responsibility, Mr Rupert Murdoch.
2 Mr James Murdoch was a party to it. You were
3 instrumental, to use your term, and Mr Kavanagh was
4 there as well. Effectively it was those four people,
5 wasn't it?
6 A. And Mr Mohan, the editor.
7 Q. Yes. Was he contributing much to this debate or not?
8 A. Yes, he was.
9 Q. Five of you then, add him as well.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. All five of you in different ways exercising
12 considerable power. Would you agree?
13 A. I think that we were -- the part of me, Mr Kavanagh and
14 Tom Newton Dunn, who was the political editor, and
15 Dominic Mohan, the journalists, I think we were all of
16 a mind that this was the right thing to do for the paper
17 and for our readership. We just didn't see it in those
18 terms, so I'm -- I'm sorry.
19 Q. You don't see the intrusion -- I'll use a different
20 word -- the dissemination of power from within a few
21 people capable of impacting on the opinions of many
22 people? You don't see that as being at least
23 a possibility?
24 A. Well, I can see how you can phrase it like that, and
25 many other critics do so too, but from your own
60
1 perspective, the Sun newspaper has in its history always
2 done sort of quite dramatic endorsements. It's like the
3 paper. It's strong, it's punchy. It tells it as it is.
4 When you reach an opinion, it's pretty obvious. And,
5 you know, from the Vatican chimney of smoke to Kelvin's
6 "Will the last person turn out the lights?", we have had
7 a tradition and a history of being bold and dramatic in
8 our timing when it came to politics. So we just didn't
9 see it in the terms that you're couching it at, although
10 I know that critics did.
11 Q. Mm. We know you had conversations with those close to
12 Mr Brown in relation to the decision. Before I ask you
13 about those, did you try to speak to Mr Cameron before
14 the headline went out?
15 A. No, I didn't. I was busy.
16 Q. Too busy to try and speak to him. Is that it?
17 A. My main concern was to try and speak to Mr Brown.
18 Q. Why was he a higher priority than Mr Cameron here?
19 A. Because I felt it was the right thing to do, to speak to
20 Mr Brown before anybody else.
21 Q. Out of what motive?
22 A. Well, I think general courtesy, but I thought it was the
23 right thing to do, and also Mr Brown and his wife were
24 due to come to the News International party that night
25 and I wanted to get hold of them beforehand.
61
1 Q. Did you leave a series of voicemail and text messages on
2 the mobile phones of Mr Brown and Lord Mandelson?
3 A. I think "a series" is too strong a word. I left
4 a message for both of them, yes.
5 Q. For Mr Brown to speak to you urgently. Was that it?
6 A. Well, I certainly put a request earlier in the afternoon
7 to speak to him. Later in the afternoon, sorry.
8 Q. I know you've seen Lord Mandelson's account, but he
9 eventually did speak to you, didn't he?
10 A. Yes, he did.
11 Q. And there's a slight difference as to, I think, one word
12 which was used, which we'd better not go into.
13 A. What, the "chump" word?
14 Q. Yes.
15 A. That was what he claimed to have said, yes.
16 Q. Was he angry or not?
17 A. Well, depending on how you heard it, "chump" could be
18 quite an offensive word. So he seemed quite angry, but
19 not surprised.
20 Q. No, because, as you said, the tone of your coverage had
21 been unfavourable to the government for some time,
22 hadn't it?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Did you have any conversation with Mr Brown on or
25 shortly after 30 September 2009?
62
1 A. I did have a conversation with Mr Brown, and I think it
2 was in October, rather than that night or that week.
3 Q. So within a week of the --
4 A. No, I think it was a few weeks after.
5 Q. Why did it take you so long to speak to him?
6 A. Well, I had tried to speak to him on the night, and then
7 I'd spoken to Lord Mandelson instead, and it was clear
8 that there was nothing more to say at that point.
9 Q. Why?
10 A. I don't think he wanted to talk to me.
11 Q. So when you did speak to him eventually, can you
12 remember anything about that conversation?
13 A. I do. I remember it quite clearly because it was in
14 response to -- the Sun had splashed on a letter that
15 Gordon Brown had written to a bereaved mum whose son had
16 died in Afghanistan and he had got some spelling
17 mistakes and addressed the wrong name or something, but
18 the Sun had been particularly harsh to him over it, and
19 I spoke to him either that day or the next day, I can't
20 remember.
21 Q. What, at his instigation or yours? Can you recall?
22 A. He rang me.
23 Q. Can you remember anything about the conversation?
24 A. Yes, I can, because it was -- it was quite tense.
25 Q. Okay, so what was said then?
63
1 A. Well, it was a private conversation, but the tone of it
2 was very aggressive and, quite rightly, he was hurt by
3 the projection and the headline that had been put on the
4 story, and I think, also quite rightly in his defence,
5 he suspected or thought that this may be a way in which
6 the Sun was going to behave, and I assured him that it
7 wasn't, that it was a mistake, the headline was too
8 harsh and this was not the way the paper was going to
9 behave.
10 Q. But you were no longer the editor, of course, were you?
11 A. No, but I had spoken to the editor that morning, very
12 early on, when I saw the headline, and we had discussed
13 it at length and come to that conclusion.
14 Q. So you told Mr Mohan not to repeat that sort of thing,
15 did you?
16 A. I thought that Mr Brown's concerns that the Sun coverage
17 was going to be a personal attack was understandable and
18 I thought that would be wrong.
19 Q. That's what politicians fear most from the Sun, isn't
20 it; personal attack? And it's what the Sun has quite
21 often indulged in, would you agree?
22 A. No.
23 Q. This is a one-off, is it?
24 A. I think the fact that it resulted in such an
25 extraordinarily aggressive conversation between me and
64
1 Mr Brown shows that it actually doesn't happen all the
2 time. I mean, I remember it very clearly for the nature
3 of it and -- no, sorry, I don't accept that.
4 Q. But fear of personal attack from the Sun has been
5 a factor in what politicians do or don't do. You well
6 know that, Mrs Brooks, don't you?
7 A. I think that Neil Kinnock may feel that about the Sun.
8 But I'm not sure that the paper has been like that for
9 a while.
10 Q. For how long?
11 A. I just don't think it concentrated on the personal -- in
12 the main. Occasionally, obviously, depending on the
13 story, that would happen, but in the main, I think the
14 Sun concentrated on the issues and the policy and the
15 campaigns, rather than attacking just for the sake of
16 personal attacks, and I think Mr Brown felt that letter
17 was purely personal attack.
18 Q. Fear of personal attack and a fear of allegedly holding
19 politicians to account by prying intrusively into their
20 personal lives. That has been part of the métier of the
21 Sun, hasn't it?
22 A. Obviously I'm going to object to "prying intrusively".
23 The whole point that newspapers or the press in general,
24 shall we say, hold politicians to account on occasion
25 has been found to be intrusive, but that is not the
65
1 policy.
2 Q. These are aberrations then? Is that what it amount to?
3 A. I think that when a newspaper oversteps the line,
4 that -- I have heard criticism of papers that I have
5 edited and others -- that privacy is a hugely debated
6 topic in every newsroom, but your question, your
7 premise, was that this was the culture, and I was just
8 disputing that.
9 Q. I think as well it's also a manifestation of the power
10 that the Sun and other high circulation newspapers can
11 exercise, often through the personality of the editors.
12 Would you accept that or not?
13 A. Sorry, what was the question?
14 Q. A manifestation of the power high circulation newspapers
15 can exercise, often through the personality of their
16 editors. It is the fear that if the politician departs
17 from what the paper wants, there may be a personal
18 attack.
19 A. I -- I don't think it's fair to say that politicians
20 live in fear of newspapers. They are highly motivated,
21 ambitious people, and MPs don't scare easily. So
22 I don't think that's fair that they live in fear of
23 power and because I believe that the power of a paper is
24 its readership -- I know, but that's what I believe, and
25 that it's its readership -- then that would be like
66
1 saying they're fearful of the leadership or the
2 electoral.
3 Q. This is a sort of recurring theme in what you're saying,
4 that the roots here are the readership, it all flows up
5 through the tree, which is you, and then emitted out,
6 but you have no role in any of this?
7 A. But the reader --
8 Q. Is that right?
9 A. I suppose that the point of me being here is to give the
10 Inquiry some explanation of how the newspapers I edited
11 worked, and it was true that the readership was at the
12 very centre of that paper, and so going against that
13 readership -- that's why I'm saying that it's not
14 a particular individual editor that has a power; it is
15 the paper.
16 Q. How one can test this: after you have a piece which some
17 would say is personal -- and we're talking about
18 Mr Brown's piece -- what happens? Does your inbox fill
19 up with emails of approbation or is there a deathly
20 silence? What happens? Can you help us?
21 A. Well, in extreme circumstances, going over history,
22 numbers of people can stop by the newspaper. In terms
23 of that particular story, I think I -- I wasn't on the
24 paper at the time, so I think I do remember that being
25 a negative reaction from the readers, although they felt
67
1 that, you know, the Prime Minister should probably take
2 the time to spell the name of a grieving widow
3 correctly, and certainly the bereaved son, and there was
4 some sort of -- overall, they felt that, you know, at
5 least he'd taken the time to do it, and I think that's
6 probably fair. It wasn't an overwhelming reaction but
7 yes, you do get reactions.
8 Q. The one extreme reaction, of course, was Hillsborough,
9 but since then there's never been anything equivalent,
10 has there? Where people actually voted with their feet
11 and didn't buy the paper?
12 A. And Princess Diana's death, actually.
13 Q. Okay.
14 A. For the majority -- for a lot of newspapers, yes. So
15 there have been other occasions.
16 Q. Can I just go back to this conversation with Mr Brown.
17 You said it was tense, he was angry. No doubt you say
18 it was also a private conversation. I don't really want
19 to lead you on this, if you understand me, but did he
20 say anything which is relevant to this Inquiry,
21 particularly in the context of evidence we've heard from
22 Mr Murdoch?
23 A. Sorry, what particular piece of evidence from
24 Mr Murdoch?
25 Q. Well, then I'm leading you. I just thought that putting
68
1 it in those terms you'd follow what I was referring to.
2 You followed Mr Murdoch's evidence, did you?
3 A. I did follow Mr Murdoch's evidence. I think Mr Brown
4 was very angry, and I'm not sure there was anything
5 particularly relevant to this Inquiry, although when
6 Mr Murdoch relayed his conversation with Mr Brown --
7 I cannot remember when that was -- Mr Murdoch also told
8 me the same story that he told you.
9 Q. Okay, well that is of some assistance, but can we be
10 clear: when did Mr Murdoch relay that conversation to
11 you?
12 A. The reason I can't remember the timing is because
13 obviously I had my own rather angry and intense
14 conversation with Mr Brown. However, previous to that
15 conversation, I had also indirectly, again, had
16 similar -- not threats made, but similar sort of veins
17 of reaction -- sorry, similar sort of comments made
18 about the Sun abandoning Labour after 12, 13 years.
19 Hostile comments. So when Mr Murdoch told me his
20 conversation, it didn't surprise me.
21 Q. What did Mr Murdoch tell you?
22 A. Exactly what he told the Inquiry.
23 Q. And the conversation you had with Mr Brown, was that
24 issue returned to or not?
25 A. It was -- like I said, I feel that the content probably
69
1 was a private conversation, but the tone of it --
2 unless, of course, Mr Brown would like to tell you about
3 it, but he was incredibly aggressive and very angry.
4 Q. It's relevant in this sense, Mrs Brooks. I doubt
5 whether in the end this Inquiry will resolve questions
6 of fine detail, but you were chief executive officer of
7 News International. You might have been fearful that if
8 Mr Brown did win at the next election, of course against
9 the odds, he had it in his power to harm the interests
10 of your company. Do you see that?
11 A. I don't accept it. I see the question, but I --
12 Q. Which part don't you accept?
13 A. That I didn't think that.
14 Q. So that obvious point didn't cross your radar at all,
15 did it?
16 A. That at not any point in the conversation with Mr Brown
17 did I think: "If he wins, he will go against the
18 commercial interests of credit company"? He was just
19 incredibly aggressive and angry.
20 Q. I'm sure it wasn't a thought which flashed through your
21 mind during the conversation, but when you reflected on
22 the conversation, it would immediately spring to mind,
23 wouldn't it?
24 A. It didn't, no.
25 Q. At no stage in the run-up to the 2010 election did you
70
1 harbour any such fear or concern; is that it?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Why not?
4 A. Because although Mr Brown had said those things to
5 Mr Murdoch and although I had heard similar insinuations
6 from others close to Mr Brown, that there was a sort of
7 a tone of threat about it, the fact is that it just
8 didn't occur to me that they were real or proper or --
9 I just -- I would just dismiss them, I suppose.
10 Q. Some would say that an elected government, either
11 through executive power conferred on it by mandate or
12 through Parliament in due course, would be quite
13 entitled to bring in media policies which it thought to
14 be in the public interest but which nonetheless did
15 impact on the commercial interests of media companies.
16 Would you agree?
17 A. I'm sure that it is absolute -- of course it's proper
18 for all governments to debate and introduce regulation
19 and policy on the media. Of course I agree with that.
20 Q. I'm just trying to explore your thinking in 2010. You
21 have here Mr Brown allegedly, on your evidence, hostile
22 to News International, and you have Mr Cameron, who
23 isn't. Is that right? I'm not saying he's favourable
24 to News International but he's certainly not hostile, is
25 he?
71
1 A. He wasn't hostile to the Sun.
2 Q. No. It's just how this would weigh in your thinking.
3 After all, you're the chief executive officer now.
4 A. Mm-hm.
5 Q. So that's something that you should be thinking about.
6 Wouldn't you agree?
7 A. It depends if you -- I mean, Gordon Brown is -- if you
8 accept the premise that Gordon Brown is a responsible
9 politician that doesn't put personal prejudice or
10 bitterness before his policy-making decisions -- so if
11 you accept that premise, then the threats are pointless
12 and should be dismissed. However, if he's not that
13 person and he does put those things, then that's
14 a failing in his duty because it's not -- it shouldn't
15 be about his personal prejudices. The Sun supported the
16 Labour Party for many, many years, and then decided to
17 make a change. So it didn't occur to me at the time
18 that Mr Brown and his colleagues would devote their time
19 in -- into carrying out those threats.
20 Q. Of course, it might have been part of the implied
21 settlement between the Sun and the Labour Party, who,
22 after all, were in power for 10 years, that the quid pro
23 quo for support is that the Labour Party would not
24 intrude into areas media policy which could harm the
25 interests of News International and other similar
72
1 organisations. Did that thought process ever pass
2 through your mind?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Okay. I'm going to come back to Mr Cameron. There's an
5 absence, isn't there, of text messages which might have
6 existed?
7 A. Yes, that is correct.
8 Q. Can we see, however, how far we get? It is said that he
9 texted you at certain times, up to a dozen times a day.
10 Is that true?
11 A. No, thankfully.
12 Q. Okay. A handful of times a day?
13 A. No. I mean, I have read this as well, 12 times a day.
14 I mean, it's preposterous. One would hope as leader of
15 the opposition or Prime Minister, he had better things
16 to do and I hope that as chief executive I did. I mean,
17 I would text Mr Cameron and vice versa, on occasion,
18 like a lot of people.
19 Q. Can you give us an idea of frequency?
20 A. Probably more -- between January 2010, maybe -- during
21 the election campaign, maybe slightly more, but on
22 average, once a week.
23 Q. The critical time, as you say, is the election campaign,
24 March to May 2010.
25 A. Yes.
73
1 Q. Can you give us an idea of frequency in relation to that
2 period?
3 A. Well, maybe twice a week.
4 Q. Can you assist us with the content of any of these text
5 messages?
6 A. Some, if not the majority, were to do with organisation,
7 so meeting up or arranging to speak. Some were about
8 a social occasion, and occasionally some would be my own
9 personal comment on perhaps the TV debates, something
10 like that.
11 Q. How often do you think you met with him socially during
12 this period? Let's take the first five months of 2010.
13 Ignore the record, because we agree --
14 A. No, I'm ignoring the record, but at least it gives me
15 a sort of memory refresh. Sorry, what was the period of
16 time?
17 Q. Let's just take the run-up to the 2010 election, which
18 was, I think, on 6 May 2010. I may be wrong about the
19 exact date. The four or five months before then.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. How often would you meet with him or did you meet with
22 him socially?
23 A. I did meet with him between January 2010 and the
24 election. As you can see, I have no record of it, so --
25 I think we will have met about -- I mean, obviously it's
74
1 incredibly busy time -- I'd say probably about three or
2 four times.
3 Q. What comments, if any, did you make on his performance
4 in the television debates? Can you remember those?
5 A. Not a particular great length. I think, like everybody,
6 I felt the first one wasn't very good. That was it.
7 Q. Did you text the other two party leaders or not?
8 A. I didn't text Gordon Brown, no.
9 Q. No.
10 A. That would have been --
11 Q. Not evidently Mr Clegg either, from your demeanour?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Everybody wants to know how his texts are signed off.
14 Can you help?
15 A. In the main --
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Do I?
17 MR JAY: Well, you probably don't, actually, but if I don't
18 ask, people will enquire why the question wasn't asked.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
20 MR JAY: But I'm happy to be overruled, frankly.
21 A. What was the decision?
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Answer the question.
23 A. Oh right, sorry, sir. He would sign them off "DC" in
24 the main.
25 MR JAY: Anything else?
75
1 A. Occasionally he would sign them off "LOL", "lots of
2 love", actually until I told him it meant "laugh out
3 loud", then he didn't sign them like that any more. But
4 in the main, "DC", I would have thought.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right. We've done that. Move on.
6 MR JAY: We'll move on, okay. Did he make or did you make,
7 rather, phone calls to his constituency home?
8 A. No, actually, no.
9 Q. Did you often pop around to each other's houses in south
10 Oxfordshire?
11 A. No, I think often popping around is definitely
12 overstating the case.
13 Q. How would you put it?
14 A. We occasionally met in the countryside if it was --
15 because I was there every weekend and he was there in
16 his constituency.
17 Q. It's also said -- and I think this is still in the
18 Times -- was there a meeting at the Heythrop
19 point-to-point ahead of which you texted each other to
20 make sure that you would not be seen together?
21 A. I just thought there might be a -- I have been to the
22 Heythrop point-to-point, because my husband is chairman,
23 and I think Mr Cameron has been too, because it's in his
24 constituency. Was the question did we meet there,
25 sorry?
76
1 Q. Did you text each other beforehand? Do you remember
2 that?
3 A. There have been many point-to-points over the years.
4 Well, it's annual. Was this a particular one?
5 Q. Can you remember this or not, Mrs Brooks?
6 A. Which --
7 Q. A date has not been put on this. Of course it will be
8 an annual event.
9 A. Where did you say you read it, sorry?
10 Q. It was in the Times on Tuesday.
11 A. Oh, right. I did read that. It was a suggestion in the
12 Times that we -- both were at the same point-to-point
13 but we didn't meet up and there was some reason why that
14 was significant, but it is true that we didn't meet up.
15 I was there very briefly and I think -- but he did meet
16 up with my husband.
17 Q. Did you attend his private birthday party in October
18 2010?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Can I ask you these questions. Others have asked me to
21 put them. Did you have any communication with
22 Mr Cameron following the publication of the Guardian's
23 Milly Dowler hacking story, which was on 5 July 2011?
24 The communication would be about that story.
25 A. I'm sure we discussed it between July 2009 and July
77
1 2011.
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, Mr Jay didn't ask about 2009.
3 A. Oh, sorry.
4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: He asked about 2011. In other words,
5 this is the story which came out of the Guardian, which
6 generated the --
7 A. Right. No, I don't think I did have any direct
8 contact -- sorry, sir, yes, you're right -- on those
9 dates.
10 MR JAY: The other question, which in fact is the question
11 which I think you thought I was asking, but I am going
12 to ask it now: did you discuss the phone hacking
13 allegations against News International with Mr Cameron
14 at any time between the July 2009 Guardian story and
15 your departure from News International?
16 A. Yes, I did.
17 Q. I wouldn't want you to say anything which bears on the
18 current police investigations, you understand -- in
19 other words which relates to anybody in particular --
20 but in general terms, can you assist us as to the
21 content of those discussions?
22 A. I think on occasion -- you know, not very often, so
23 maybe once or twice, because of the news and because,
24 you know, the phone hacking story was a sort of
25 a constant, or it kept coming up. We would bring it up,
78
1 but in the most general terms. Maybe in 2010, we had
2 a more specific conversation about it, which I think
3 is -- yeah, that's about right.
4 Q. Can you tell us about that one?
5 A. It was what I remember, rather than it being -- the
6 general terms of the story being around or what had
7 happened that day. I'm just very concerned because
8 you -- I thought you were warning me in --
9 Q. Well, I don't know what you're going to say, Mrs Brooks,
10 but if it's a general conversation and it may relate
11 more to Mr Cameron's state of mind rather than any
12 underlying fact, I think you can probably tell us about
13 it.
14 A. No, I think it was nothing particularly that he wouldn't
15 have said publicly, but he was interested in the latest
16 developments and asked me about them and I said to him
17 what I say to everybody when they asked me for an update
18 on it. It was to do with the amount of civil cases
19 coming in around 2010 and we had a conversation about
20 it. I just particularly remember that.
21 Q. I think the context must be that he was concerned that
22 this went beyond Goodman and Mulcaire; is that fair,
23 without being any more specific than that?
24 A. Probably, yes. It was a general conversation with
25 the -- in late 2010 about the increase in the civil
79
1 cases.
2 Q. The increase in civil cases can only be an indication
3 that this phenomenon is not limited to Messrs Goodman
4 and Mulcaire, or at least that's a very strong
5 inference. Are we agreed about that, without being any
6 more precise than that?
7 A. I think News International has acknowledged that
8 publicly anyway, yes.
9 Q. Can you help us with what Mr Cameron said?
10 A. It was a couple of years ago. It was a general
11 discussion about -- I think he asked me what the update
12 was. I think it had been on the news that day, and
13 I think I explained the story behind the news. No
14 secret information, no privileged information; just
15 a general update. I'm sorry, I can't remember the date,
16 but I just don't have my records.
17 Q. You're focusing on what you told him, which I'm not
18 really interested in --
19 A. Oh, right.
20 Q. -- with respect. I'm just concerned with what he might
21 have said. That's all.
22 A. I think he asked me -- I think it had been in the news
23 that day -- I think it was about the civil cases. Maybe
24 a new civil case had come out, and he asked me about it
25 and I responded accordingly.
80
1 Q. Was it related to his hiring of Mr Coulson and possibly
2 having second thoughts about that?
3 A. No, not in that instance, no.
4 Q. On any other instance?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Are you sure about that?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. We're really in the dark then as to what these
9 conversations were about, apart from a general --
10 A. Well, because they were very general. He -- they
11 weren't a sort of -- it was particularly around the
12 civil cases in 2010. Your question was: did we ever
13 speak about it in those two years, and my answer is:
14 yes, we did, very generally, but I do remember in late
15 2010 having a particular -- perhaps a more detailed
16 conversation, because if you go back in the chronology
17 of the phone hacking situation, that was when the civil
18 cases were coming in and being made newsworthy.
19 Q. Okay, can I just ask you about a different topic: the
20 role of the Freuds. We'll just touch on this. You've
21 been a close friend of Elisabeth Freud nee Murdoch for
22 over ten years; is that right?
23 A. Longer, actually, but yes.
24 Q. They have a country house in Oxfordshire as well, don't
25 they?
81
1 A. Yes, they do.
2 Q. About how often have you been in the Freuds' home in the
3 country, your home in the country or the Camerons'
4 constituency home in the company of other politicians?
5 A. So just to distill that to make it easier to answer, how
6 many times I've been in David Cameron's home with other
7 politicians?
8 Q. Yes, or the Freuds' country home or your home.
9 Approximately.
10 A. I'm pretty sure never, David Cameron's home in the
11 countryside. I think once, maybe, George Osborne may
12 have been present at a dinner at my own and I think the
13 only time at Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud's house
14 was her 40th in -- a couple of years ago.
15 Q. Yes, the 40th party we've got under tab 40, haven't we?
16 It's the last tab. It was in August 2008.
17 A. Oh, sorry.
18 Q. It actually was held at somewhere called Burford Priory.
19 I don't know where that's it, although I detect it might
20 be in Oxfordshire.
21 A. It's in Burford.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well done.
23 MR JAY: We can see who was there. To be fair, a range of
24 politicians across all parties, but I don't spot many
25 Liberal Democrats.
82
1 A. Are there no Liberal Democrats? No. Right. Yes, I can
2 see the list.
3 Q. Do you know if BSkyB is still a client of Freud
4 Communications?
5 A. I don't. I'm sure -- I mean, you know, Freud
6 Communications is a huge company. I don't know their
7 full client list. I'm pretty sure they haven't
8 represented BSkyB on a corporate level, but I'm sure
9 they will have represented lots of other areas of Sky.
10 I don't know currently, but probably.
11 Q. Can I just ask you some general questions about that
12 bid. When were you made aware that the bid would be
13 made?
14 A. I think before the public announcement, shortly before
15 the public announcement.
16 Q. Before the General Election or after, do you think?
17 A. I think it was before -- yeah, before. I actually can't
18 remember when the public announcement was, but it was
19 shortly before.
20 Q. This was obviously a big moment for News Corp.
21 I appreciate that you're CEO of News International and
22 not News Corp and that distinction is understood, but
23 were there not discussions with either of the Murdochs
24 about the timing of the bid?
25 A. I -- I played no formal role in the BSkyB transaction
83
1 and certainly not the strategy of timing and all that
2 kind of thing. I was made aware that it was on the
3 cards, so to speak, before the public announcement.
4 Maybe six weeks, a couple of months beforehand.
5 Q. Because it would obviously have knock-on effects for
6 News International as well, wouldn't it?
7 A. Well, not particularly, no. No.
8 Q. If News International had no interest in it, why were
9 you told about it?
10 A. It wasn't that we had no interest. Obviously, as part
11 of News Corp, we were interested, but at the time, the
12 way it was presented to me was -- I didn't think it was
13 going to have an effect on News International.
14 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You've said that you had no formal
15 role in the BSkyB bid, and I quite understand that,
16 because there's no reason why you should, but what about
17 informally? I mean, here, as we've been discussing, you
18 are extremely well connected to very, very senior
19 politicians across the range, and that's part of your
20 job, as you've described. Wouldn't your view as to how
21 it might work out, how it might play, be of extreme
22 value informally, not formally?
23 A. Extreme value to News Corp?
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: To News Corp. To your ultimate boss,
25 to Mr Murdoch.
84
1 A. It was never quite put in those terms, but I did have an
2 informal role, as you suggest, mainly after the
3 formation of the -- if you want to call it this for
4 a better word -- the anti-Sky bid alliance, because that
5 directly in some ways brought News International into
6 what was a News Corp transaction because -- the anti-Sky
7 bid alliance was I think the BBC, the Guardian, the FT,
8 the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, British Telecom,
9 Independent -- well, everyone else probably, and once
10 they had formed that alliance and were using their own
11 news outlets to promote their view and also to lobby
12 politicians, then I suppose I probably did get involved,
13 but again, not in the deal or the transaction or the
14 strategy behind it.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, it's not the deal or the strategy
16 behind it; it's perhaps the public presentation, perhaps
17 the way in which the criticisms could be countered,
18 perhaps using all your experience borne out of the
19 relationships you've been careful to develop for
20 professional reasons -- and doubtless coincidentally for
21 personal reasons -- over the years.
22 A. I mean, I think in some circumstances that may be true,
23 but in this one it was a quasi-judicial decision and
24 I don't think my input or, as you say, using that was of
25 relevance. Obviously, in light of the anti-Sky bid
85
1 alliance lobbying, that I would waste no opportunity in
2 putting what was probably our case on the deal -- not
3 ours, News International, but ours, News Corp -- but
4 because of the nature of the decision, I'm not sure
5 I was of any -- it was of any value, particularly, apart
6 from a counter voice in a very large opposition.
7 MR JAY: When were you first made aware of the code name
8 Rubicon? Can you recall?
9 A. I think when I was -- I was told about it. I may have
10 heard it in the ether before, but I think I was told
11 what that was.
12 Q. I'm sure you were aware when you were told about it, but
13 I asked when that was.
14 A. Around the same time.
15 Q. A few weeks before; is that it?
16 A. No, maybe a couple of months before. Six, eight weeks
17 before.
18 Q. Do you know who chose that code name?
19 A. No, I don't, but I think it -- I think it might have
20 been James Murdoch, but I don't know that.
21 Q. Obviously someone who enjoys classical allusions. Was
22 it a code name which anybody in government knew about?
23 A. No, I don't think so.
24 Q. Mr Osborne, Mr Hunt, did they know about it?
25 A. No, I never heard them acknowledge that, no.
86
1 Q. If you could look at the list again of RMB1, the
2 meetings with prime ministers, and identify whether the
3 BSkyB bid was discussed on any relevant occasion. On
4 9 October 2010, there was dinner at Chequers with
5 Mr Cameron.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Might you have raised the bid on that occasion?
8 A. No. I'm pretty sure that was his birthday party.
9 Q. That's the private party we'd covered about 15 minutes
10 ago.
11 A. I --
12 Q. What about 23 December 2010, which we've already had
13 some evidence about?
14 A. It was -- rather than discussed at that dinner, it was
15 mentioned and I think James Murdoch's testimony said
16 that, and I was aware that it was mentioned, but it was
17 not by any means widely discussed at that dinner. It
18 was mentioned because it was in the news because of --
19 because obviously Dr Cable had resigned from that role.
20 Q. Were you party to any conversations along the lines of:
21 "Dr Cable has acted in breach of duty. Let's hope the
22 next one, Mr Hunt, does not"?
23 A. Not necessarily, but clearly that was our view, that we
24 hoped that having been always put to us that it would be
25 a very fair process and -- which, of course, we were
87
1 happy with, that it would be fair and democratic, to
2 find out that perhaps some personal prejudice had come
3 into that decision was quite disappointing, so it would
4 have been along those lines, yes, that at least now the
5 decision would be fair.
6 Q. Fair or favourable, do you think?
7 A. Fair.
8 Q. You knew Mr Hunt quite well, didn't you?
9 A. Not as well as others, no. I mean, I'd seen him
10 occasionally, but not particularly.
11 Q. Even informally, you weren't putting out feelers,
12 soundings, to find out whether he'd be onside or not?
13 A. I think he had -- I think he'd posted something on his
14 website saying that he was quite favourable earlier on
15 in the process, before he'd had the -- before the
16 decision went to him. I'm pretty sure that's --
17 Q. So maybe you knew it anyway?
18 A. Maybe I knew from then, but I don't -- but not from
19 a direct conversation with Mr Hunt.
20 Q. People are also curious -- it may be nothing turns on
21 this, I don't know -- about a further occasion when you
22 may have met with Mr Cameron on Boxing Day 2010. Can
23 you enlighten us there, Mrs Brooks?
24 A. Yes, no, it's -- I've been asked about it before.
25 Mr Cameron attended a Boxing Day mulled wine, mince pie
88
1 party at my sister-in-laws, and I popped in on my way to
2 another dinner and I actually don't have any memory,
3 because I don't think I did even speak to him or
4 Samantha that night, but my sister-in-law tells me they
5 were definitely there for the party, so I would have
6 seen them, but not even to have a proper conversation.
7 Q. So as to the scope of any conversation, which you say
8 wasn't a proper conversation, are you sure it would not
9 have covered the BSkyB issue?
10 A. On?
11 Q. Boxing Day.
12 A. Definitely. Absolutely not. I mean, I don't think
13 there was a conversation.
14 Q. I will come back to certain aspects of BSkyB in due
15 course, but I'd like to cover some general questions now
16 about the subject matter of conversations with
17 politicians, seeking to ignore, to the extent which one
18 can, private and social matters. It's self-evident that
19 your conversations with politicians would embrace the
20 issues of the day; is that fair?
21 A. Sometimes, yes.
22 Q. Would they also embrace issues such as press regulation
23 and media policy?
24 A. Very rarely. I mean, there are some examples of when
25 I have met with a politician particularly to discuss
89
1 that, but they were very infrequent.
2 Q. And the role of the BBC, was that often the subject or
3 sometimes the subject of conversation?
4 A. Not particularly. I mean, from my perspective, Sun
5 readers are pretty pro-BBC. I think in general, wasting
6 in any public sector or taxpayer's money was something
7 that we would address with the BBC on occasions and
8 others, but not in a sort of -- I never really had
9 a conversation with a politician about the sort of
10 top-slicing the licence fee or all that kind of -- just
11 not ...
12 Q. What about issues such as self-regulation of the press
13 and the Press Complaints Commission? Were those ever
14 discussed with politicians?
15 A. Again, probably not enough, but no.
16 Q. Why do you say "not enough"?
17 A. Well, when you asked me the question, I was just
18 reflecting on the fact that I couldn't remember
19 a conversation with a politician where we did discuss
20 the PCC, which is --
21 Q. What about press ethics? Was that ever the subject of
22 conversations with politicians?
23 A. Well, obviously because of the last couple of years it
24 has been the subject, but --
25 Q. Can we go back before then?
90
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Because I think the last couple of years is in danger
3 of --
4 A. Overwhelming --
5 Q. -- muddying the waters, and I want to speak for
6 generally. Can you help us with that?
7 A. Okay. I think after Operation Motorman and "What price
8 privacy?", there was a sort of a general debate going on
9 in the media in terms of -- particularly in 2003, which
10 pretty much saw the end of the use of private
11 detectives, certainly in the way that they had been for
12 the last decade, and I think that that was something --
13 Operation Motorman and "What price privacy now?" will
14 have been discussed with the relevant politician at the
15 time.
16 I suppose press ethics particularly came up with
17 Jack Straw. I know that Mr Les Hinton and Mr Murdoch
18 MacLennan and Mr Dacre had spent some time, as well as
19 the rest of the industry, discussing the Data Protection
20 Act and in particular the custodial sentence assigned to
21 journalists. I remember that being a big conversation
22 with politicians and I probably only got involved in
23 that again quite late on. So there was some discussion
24 but not a great deal.
25 Q. You were friends with Mr Blair. Mr Blair we know often
91
1 felt that the Daily Mail was hostile to him and his
2 wife. Was that something that he discussed with you?
3 A. On occasion, yes.
4 Q. Quite often, perhaps?
5 A. Not quite often. It was probably more Cherie Blair that
6 would discuss it with me.
7 Q. I'm not interested in private discussions, but I'm
8 interested in the wider picture of press ethics. What
9 was the concern that was being conveyed to you in this
10 context?
11 A. Well, it wasn't, if you like, press ethics in its most
12 altruistic form, but it was the tone. I think Cherie
13 Blair was concerned that she felt a lot of her coverage
14 was quite sexist, you know, but she's not the first
15 high-profile female to think that about the UK media,
16 and so that would come up on occasion. And she
17 sometimes felt it was quite cruel and personal about her
18 weight and that it sort of concentrated on those things
19 rather than, in her eyes, her charity and the things
20 that she was going to do. But I'm not sure that's what
21 you're asking me because it's not really press ethics;
22 it's more tone.
23 Q. It may be part of the overall picture. We know that
24 Mr Blair described the press as "feral beasts" in 2007.
25 A. Yes.
92
1 Q. Was that a discussion in like vein which he had with
2 you?
3 A. No. Although I think that post Iraq, I think there was
4 some conversations about the 24-hour media, which is,
5 I think, what he was referring to, the sort of the fact
6 that we, the press, have become feral beasts because
7 there was always a constant need for a new story. So
8 occasionally 24-hour news was mentioned in terms of
9 Iraq, but not really. I was surprised when he said
10 that.
11 Q. Well, his speech speaks for itself, but "feral beasts"
12 I think went further than just a temporal point, that
13 the press is there 24 hours a day. It's also to do with
14 the way they behave. Sometimes they're a bit wild and
15 off their leashes. Do you see the analogy?
16 A. I see the analogy, yes.
17 Q. He didn't communicate any of those concerns to you?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Did politicians ever complain to you privately about
20 coverage in the Sun of them?
21 A. Yes, occasionally. You know, there was a -- if
22 people -- if someone felt it was unfair -- I mean, you
23 asked me a question earlier about -- I can't remember
24 how you phrased it, but if I had passed information from
25 Gordon Brown to Tony Blair, I think it was something
93
1 like that, and which I said wasn't true. There's plenty
2 of people doing that, but on occasion they would
3 complain. Tony Blair would often complain about our
4 attitude to Europe and him on Europe, regularly. Many,
5 many Home Secretaries would regularly complain about
6 campaigns or -- that we were doing in the paper. So
7 yes, they did. I think our role was -- I think that was
8 correct because our role was to hold them to account on
9 certain issues.
10 Q. Okay. Some further general questions. Let's see if we
11 can analyse the power play which may or may not be in
12 issue here. It would be fair to say, wouldn't it, that
13 you were very close to Mr Rupert Murdoch, who trusted
14 you implicitly; are we agreed?
15 A. I was close to him, yes.
16 Q. And he trusted you implicitly --
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Would you also agree that politicians, for whatever
19 reason, wanted to get close to Mr Murdoch to advance
20 their own interests? Are we agreed?
21 A. I think that a lot of politicians wanted to put their
22 case to Mr Murdoch. "Advance their own interests" is
23 probably -- I'm sure most politicians have a higher view
24 of what they were doing, but yes.
25 Q. I'm not suggesting this is wholly selfish, but I think
94
1 we can agree more or less where we are.
2 A. Mm.
3 Q. This may be the more important point: that in order to
4 get close to Mr Murdoch, in practice they had to get
5 close to you. Would you agree with that?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Why not?
8 A. Because it's not true.
9 Q. Would you agree that politicians might perceive that you
10 had influence over Mr Murdoch?
11 A. No, I certainly don't think that, no. I think they --
12 I was an editor of a newspaper, a very large circulation
13 newspaper, with a wide readership with an exceptional
14 percentage of floating voters, and I do believe that,
15 like other editors in similar situations, politicians
16 did want to get access to the editor of the Sun and his
17 or her team as much as possible. But I don't think that
18 people ever thought to get to Mr Murdoch they had to go
19 through me. I don't think that's correct.
20 Q. Let's see if we can break that down. Politicians
21 certainly wanted to get close to you, to have access to
22 you, didn't they?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And you were someone who Mr Murdoch trusted implicitly,
25 were you not?
95
1 A. Yes. I hope so.
2 Q. And that was well understood by any politician who cared
3 to look. Would we agree?
4 A. Well, I think they thought we had a close working
5 relationship, yes.
6 Q. Didn't you ever examine the motives or thought processes
7 of politicians, why they were wanting to get close to
8 you, and just, even as a piece of self-indulgence,
9 pondered to yourself: "Well, what's going on here? Why
10 are they trying to get close to me?"
11 A. I think I always examined the ulterior motivates of
12 politicians, but I thought it was pretty obvious that
13 they wanted to get to -- I don't know a politician that
14 would turn down a meeting with a senior journalist from
15 any broadcast or any newspaper. So it wasn't -- it
16 didn't need a lot of thinking that politicians wanted to
17 get access to journalists. I mean, that's been the same
18 case for decades, as you -- as you pointed out in your
19 opening statement in this module.
20 Q. But you were in possession of the megaphone which would
21 be of utility to them, and which, if they had access to,
22 logically and self-evidently, might have influence over
23 your readership. That's the truth, isn't it?
24 A. I think the politicians were very keen to put their case
25 to me and my team at the Sun because of the large
96
1 readership of the Sun.
2 Q. Did you regard it as part of your role -- or, if you
3 didn't, perhaps it was an accidental by-product of your
4 role as editor in particular -- to build up friendships
5 with politicians?
6 A. I think some friendships did occur, but I think it's
7 important to put it in the context of friendships.
8 I mean, we all have lots of different friendships. Old
9 friends, new friends, work colleagues, associates. And,
10 you know, through the decade that I was a national
11 newspaper editor and the years I was CEO and the ten
12 years I was a journalist, some friendships were made.
13 But I don't think I ever forgot I was a journalist and
14 I don't think they ever forgot they were a politician.
15 Q. Did you not understand that you did have a degree of
16 personal power over politicians?
17 A. No. Again, I just didn't see it like that. I saw my
18 role as editor of the Sun as a very responsible one and
19 I enjoyed my job and every part of that job, but
20 particularly, as I've said in my witness statement,
21 I enjoyed campaigns and I enjoyed bridging a gap between
22 public opinion and public policy, taking on concerns of
23 the readers. So I don't accept it in the power terms
24 that you keep describing it as.
25 Q. But your real interest is people, isn't it, Mr Brooks?
97
1 You're a very empathetic person. You understand how
2 human beings think and feel, don't you?
3 A. I do like people, yes, and journalists, as a main, do
4 try and be empathetic, otherwise no one would tell them
5 anything.
6 Q. But you understand the potential of, if I can put it in
7 this way, personal alchemy, how you with get people to
8 do or might get people to do what you want, and indeed
9 what they are trying to do with you. Don't you get any
10 of that?
11 A. I'm not sure quite what you mean.
12 Q. I'm not suggest anything sinister here. I'm talking
13 about really the power of human empathy. Some people
14 are empathetic and it's completely lost on them. But
15 it's not lost on you, is it?
16 A. Well, I hope to be empathetic in life to people, yes.
17 Q. I just wonder whether you sense or sensed -- because
18 we're talking about the past now -- the effect you might
19 have had on politicians. Some of them may even have
20 been afraid of you. Is that true?
21 A. I literally -- like I say, I don't see politicians as
22 these sort of easily scared people. Like I say, most of
23 them are pretty strong, ambitious and highly motivated,
24 so ...
25 Q. Let's see if we can just take one case study and see
98
1 whether there's any validity in that case study.
2 A. Okay, right.
3 Q. You remember the McCanns serialisation case?
4 A. Yes, I do.
5 Q. Actually, we have Dr McCann's evidence in relation to
6 this in the bundle at page 57 under tab 6. Do you have
7 that there? We're working from the transcript of the
8 evidence this Inquiry received on 23 November 2011.
9 A. Right, yes.
10 Q. If you look at page 57, line 11, the question I asked
11 was:
12 "You talk about a meeting with Rebekah Brooks ..."
13 Are you on the right page?
14 A. They're not numbered in that way.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: They are, actually.
16 A. 57, is it? At the bottom?
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, it says 15 at the bottom, but
18 each page has four pages on it.
19 A. Yes, right. I have it, sorry. Thank you, sir. Yes?
20 MR JAY: The question was:
21 "You talk about a meeting with Rebekah Brooks which
22 led to a review of your case, a formal review. Just to
23 assist us a little bit with that, can you recall when
24 that was?"
25 Dr McCann's answer was:
99
1 "I think it's probably worth just elaborating a
2 little bit because it's quite a complex decision-making
3 process. News International actually bid for the rights
4 to the book along with HarperCollins, and one of their
5 pitches was the fact that they would serialise the book
6 across all their titles. We were somewhat horrified at
7 the prospect of that, given the way we had been treated
8 in the past and the deal was actually done with the
9 publishers, Transworld, that excluded serialisation.
10 "Now, we were subsequently approached by
11 News International and Associated to serialise the book,
12 and after much deliberation, we had a couple of meetings
13 with the general manager and -- Will Lewis and
14 Rebekah Brooks and others, and what swung the decision
15 to serialise was News International committed to backing
16 the campaign and the search for Madeleine."
17 Pausing there, there was going to be serialisation
18 in both the Sunday Times and the Sun, I believe. Do you
19 recall that?
20 A. I do.
21 Q. I think this is the year 2010, by which time you were
22 chief executive officer, weren't you?
23 A. That's correct.
24 Q. What was the price that you paid for the serialisation?
25 Can you remember?
100
1 A. I can't remember, actually. I -- it's hundreds of
2 thousands of pounds.
3 Q. A million, we've been told.
4 A. No, it wasn't. It wasn't a million. Half a million,
5 maybe. I can't remember. I mean, I can -- there are
6 ways to find out, but I'm not sure it was a million.
7 Q. Okay. I paraphrase the rest of what Dr McCann said,
8 because he couldn't take this issue much further. Your
9 intervention was successful in securing a review of the
10 case. Do you understand that?
11 A. I -- you asked if it was successful and he says it was,
12 yes.
13 Q. Yes. Can you remember anything about that intervention?
14 A. Actually, to just go back, the reason I was involved as
15 chief executive was because it concerned two newspapers,
16 the Sunday Times and the Sun. So if you like, I did the
17 deal with HarperCollins from the corporate point of
18 view, and then left it to the two editors, John Witherow
19 and Dominic Mohan, to decide the different approaches.
20 I had always got on very well with Dr McCann and
21 Kate McCann throughout their incredible traumatic time,
22 and in fact I think they, if asked, would be very
23 positive about the Sun, actually, and in this case,
24 I thought that Dominic Mohan's idea to run the campaign
25 for this review of Madeleine's case by the Home
101
1 Secretary was the right thing for the Sun to do, and
2 I think the Sunday Times did the book. So my
3 intervention was at that point, as in: was the original
4 discussion with Dr McCann. I don't think I spoke to
5 Theresa May directly, but I am pretty sure that Dominic
6 Mohan may have done.
7 Q. Let's see whether we can agree or disagree on what may
8 have happened. When you were discussing the
9 arrangements with the McCanns, you asked if there was
10 anything more they wanted. Do you recall that?
11 A. Maybe, yes.
12 Q. And Dr Gerry McCann said that he wanted a UK police
13 review of the case. Do you remember him saying?
14 A. That I do, yes.
15 Q. Do you remember your answer being: "Is that all?"
16 A. I may have said it slightly more politely: "Is there
17 anything else before we conclude this meeting?", but --
18 I don't particularly remember saying that, but maybe
19 I did, yes.
20 Q. I'm not suggesting to you that it was impolite; I'm just
21 summarising the gist of what you said.
22 A. Maybe, yes. We had been going through a list of issues
23 that Dr McCann and Kate McCann wanted to be assured of
24 before we went forward with the serialisation, so
25 possibly.
102
1 Q. Did you then take the matter up with Downing Street
2 direct?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Did you not tell Downing Street that the Sun was going
5 to demand a review and the Prime Minister should agree
6 to the request because the Sun had supported him at the
7 last election?
8 A. No, in fact I didn't speak to Downing Street or the Home
9 Secretary about this, but I know that Dominic Mohan or
10 Tom Newton Dunn will have spoken to them.
11 Q. Pardon me?
12 A. They would have spoken directly to either Number 10 or
13 the Home Office. I'm not sure. You'll have to ask
14 them. Probably the Home Office, I would have thought.
15 Q. That the Sun wanted an immediate result and that
16 a letter would be posted all over the front page from
17 the McCanns to the Prime Minister asking for a review,
18 unless Downing Street agreed. Did that happen?
19 A. I think that's how the Sun launched the campaign from
20 memory. It was with a letter, yes.
21 Q. The Home Secretary was told that if she agreed to the
22 review, the page 1 letter would not run. Do you
23 remember that?
24 A. No, I don't.
25 Q. But as the Secretary of State did not respond in time,
103
1 you did publish the letter on the front page. Do you
2 remember that?
3 A. I do remember the Sun kicking off the campaign with
4 a letter, yes.
5 Q. But you don't believe there was any conversation or
6 indeed threat to the Secretary of State? Is that right?
7 A. I'm pretty sure there would have not been a threat, but
8 you'll have to -- we'll have to ask Dominic Mohan,
9 because, like I said, my involvement was to discuss the
10 campaign in the continued search for Madeleine with the
11 McCanns and to do the deal on the book and to -- they --
12 because I had done so many campaigns in the past, they
13 wanted my opinion, but after that I left it to both
14 editors to execute the campaign.
15 Q. What I've been told is that you then intervened
16 personally, Mrs Brooks. You told Number 10 that unless
17 the Prime Minister ordered the review by the
18 Metropolitan Police, the Sun would put the Home
19 Secretary, Theresa May, on the front page every day
20 until the Sun's demands were met. Is that true or not?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Is any part of that true?
23 A. I didn't speak to Number 10 or the Home Office about the
24 McCanns until, I think, after the campaign had been won,
25 and then it came up in a conversation that I had -- and
104
1 I don't even think directly with the Prime Minister.
2 I think it was one of his team.
3 Q. We can find out in due course whether this is true or
4 not, but I must repeat it to you. It is said that you
5 directly intervened with the Prime Minister and warned
6 him that unless there was a review by the Metropolitan
7 Police, the Sun would put the Home Secretary,
8 Theresa May, on the front page every day until the Sun's
9 demands were met. Is that true or not?
10 A. I did not say to the Prime Minister: "I will put
11 Theresa May on the front page of the Sun every day
12 unless you give me a review." I did not say that. If
13 I'd had any conversations with Number 10 directly, they
14 wouldn't have been particularly about that, but they
15 would have been, if I'd been having a conversation, that
16 the Sun was leading a major campaign with a very strong
17 letter on page 1 to start the campaign, and anyone who
18 knew me would have talked to me -- any politician would
19 have talked to me about it. But I did not say that.
20 I don't know who said I said that, but we're going back
21 to sources again.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Could we ask this: were you part of
23 a strategy that involved your paper putting pressure on
24 the government with this sort of implied or express
25 threat?
105
1 A. I was certainly part of a strategy to launch the
2 campaign in order to get the review for the McCanns,
3 yes. But I think the word "threat", sir, is -- is too
4 strong.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, give me another word then for
6 "threat", could you?
7 A. Persuade them?
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Persuasion. All right.
9 MR JAY: In your own words, Mrs Brooks, define for us what
10 the strategy was.
11 A. So the McCanns were deeply upset that there hadn't been
12 a review. It seemed incredibly unfair that they hadn't
13 got this review. You only have to read their book to
14 understand the trauma that they go through. So we said,
15 "We'll join forces with you", and Dominic Mohan and his
16 team went away and constructed a campaign. I cannot
17 remember when the idea of the letter came up. It may
18 have even been my idea to do the letter. I can't
19 remember. But the campaign was launched in order to try
20 and convince the government or convince the Home
21 Secretary that a review would be the right thing to do.
22 Q. Do you know how it came about that the review was
23 ordered?
24 A. No, I -- I can't remember, I'm sorry. Such a lot has
25 happened since then, but --
106
1 Q. You must have been told, Mrs Brooks?
2 A. I remember Dominic Mohan telling me that the review was
3 going ahead.
4 Q. That the Sun had won, in other words?
5 A. He didn't put it in those terms, but he said -- well,
6 actually, I think he said, "The McCanns have won."
7 Q. The Sun headline on 14 May, front page, was that as
8 a result of its campaign, the Prime Minister was
9 "opening the Maddie files". Do you remember that one?
10 A. I remember the Sun winning the campaign, the McCanns
11 winning the campaign, yes.
12 Q. So this is not, you say, a case study then in the
13 exercise of power by you? I'm not suggesting that the
14 end result was right or wrong. Many would say it was
15 right, that there should be a review. I'm just saying
16 the means by which you achieved the objective --
17 A. But it could be said that a review of Madeleine McCann's
18 case, with everything that had gone on, was the right
19 thing to do. We presented the issue. We supported the
20 McCanns in their determination to get a review. It
21 wasn't new. They'd tried before, before the election,
22 and the election had come into -- and the Sun -- and the
23 Home Secretary clearly thought it was a good idea too,
24 because I'm pretty sure there wasn't -- it wasn't a long
25 campaign. It wasn't like Sarah's Law over ten years.
107
1 I think it was very short.
2 Q. Yes, it didn't take very long because the government
3 yielded to your pressure, didn't they? It took all of
4 about a day.
5 A. Or perhaps they were convinced by our argument.
6 Q. There are always two sides to the coin here, that of
7 course everybody would say, on one level, money should
8 be spent, but the campaign to date, I'm told, has cost
9 £2 million and some would say maybe that money might
10 have gone somewhere else. It's never clearcut, is it?
11 A. What, the Madeleine McCann campaign?
12 Q. No, the operation which started up the review, which was
13 called Operation Grange, I understand.
14 A. Right, sorry.
15 Q. Perhaps you would say all you were doing was reflecting
16 the views of your readers. Is that it?
17 A. I think in that case, it was an issue that we brought to
18 the readers, that we explained to the readers that
19 a review hadn't taken place and that -- we presented the
20 McCanns' story as in the reason why they wanted the
21 review. I think that absolutely chimed with our
22 readership and the campaign was started with a very
23 heartfelt letter and the politicians were convinced our
24 argument, or the McCanns' argument, was correct.
25 Q. It also chimes with the commercial interests of your
108
1 papers because this sells copy, doesn't it?
2 A. Well, campaigns can sell newspapers. I think the
3 serialisation of the book actually was good for
4 circulation for the Sunday Times. I'm not sure how well
5 the campaign was in circulation terms, but they would be
6 a matter of record. It may have been.
7 Q. Can I deal, finally before lunch, with one other example
8 just to get your evidence on this. Mr Dominic Grieve at
9 one point was the Shadow Home Secretary, wasn't he?
10 A. Yes, he was.
11 Q. Do you remember a conversation with him over dinner
12 which you discussed the Human Rights Act?
13 A. I do, yes.
14 Q. To cut to the quick, his position was in favour of the
15 Act and your position was not, if one wanted to distill
16 it into one sentence; is that correct?
17 A. I don't think that's quite right. Similar. His
18 position was that it was -- it was a shadow cabinet
19 dinner, and his position was that David Cameron's
20 promise or, shall we say, the Tory Party's promise to
21 repeal the HRA and replace it with a British bill of
22 rights, I think was the plan at the time, was not --
23 should not be so easily promised to papers like the Sun
24 and the Mail and the Telegraph, and so it wasn't that he
25 was pro it or against it. He was just making the legal
109
1 point that it was very difficult to do.
2 Q. Were you impressed with him after that conversation?
3 A. Well, as it turned out, he was absolutely right, but at
4 the time -- it was more his colleagues around the table,
5 because I think they'd put out a policy announcement
6 that it was going to be in the manifesto they would
7 repeal the HRA. David Cameron had written for the Sun
8 explaining this. And so the dinner conversation was
9 quite heated, as he was the only one at the table
10 saying, "Actually ..." I admired him standing up to his
11 shadow colleagues like that, and as I say, in the end
12 he's turned out to be correct.
13 Q. Didn't you tell Mr Cameron, after that conversation you
14 had with Mr Grieve, words to this effect: "You can't
15 have someone like that as Home Secretary. He won't
16 appeal on our readers. Move him"? And that's indeed
17 what happened.
18 A. No, I did not tell Mr Cameron to move him. What -- the
19 conversation -- as I say, it was a very heated
20 conversation, borne out by -- his colleagues were trying
21 to almost silence him at the table because he was, in
22 effect, saying one of the promises the Conservatives had
23 made to the electorate was they were going to repeal --
24 and it was almost the opposite way around, that they
25 were concerned that his view was not to be taken
110
1 seriously, and as it turned out, he was entirely
2 correct.
3 Q. Did you give any advice to Mr Cameron as to whether
4 Mr Grieve might move on?
5 A. No, no. In fact, after that conversation -- sorry, it
6 is important to remember Mr Cameron wasn't at that
7 dinner.
8 Q. That's right. Did you indicate to Mr Cameron in any way
9 what your view was about Mr Grieve?
10 A. No. In fact, Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron did the opposite
11 to me, where they were at pains to explain that
12 Mr Grieve's view, which has now proved to be entirely
13 correct, was absolutely not their view and they were
14 going to repeal the HRA and replace it with a British
15 bill of rights, and that Mr Grieve was mistaken.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Just before we break, could I take
17 you back to this issue that we've bounced around several
18 times, which is who is leading who.
19 A. Yes.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Do you think that at least in part,
21 what you were in fact doing, to use your own words, was
22 bringing issues to your readers as opposed merely to
23 responding to your readers' interests?
24 A. I think that's correct, yes.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm sure we'll come back to it this
111
1 afternoon, but I would like your view, which you can
2 reflect upon, on this: everybody's entitled to be
3 a friend of whomsoever they want to be a friend. That's
4 part of life. But can you understand why it might be
5 a matter of public concern that a very close
6 relationship between journalists and politicians might
7 create subtle pressures on the press, who have the
8 megaphone, and on the politicians, who have the policy
9 decisions?
10 A. Yes, I can understand that.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right. 2 o'clock.
12 (1.02 pm)
13 (The luncheon adjournment)
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
112
1
2 (2.00 pm)
3 MR JAY: Mrs Brooks, may we move to what a couple of Labour
4 politicians would say. Do you recall an occasion at the
5 time of the Labour Party Conference in Brighton
6 in September 2004 where Mr Chris Bryant MP had been
7 speaking at a fringe meeting and argued that
8 Rupert Murdoch should not be allowed a monopoly in the
9 UK? Do you recall that?
10 A. I don't, I'm afraid. No, I'm sorry. What year was it?
11 Q. 2004. As he arrived at a News International reception,
12 you approached Mr Bryant. Do you recall that?
13 A. I think I know what anecdote you're referring to.
14 Q. It's not an anecdote. It's in a witness statement I've
15 seen. You said, "Ah, Mr Bryant, it's dark, isn't it?
16 Shouldn't you be out of Clapham Common by now", or
17 something like that. Did you say that?
18 A. I don't remember saying that, no.
19 Q. Do you remember what your then husband said?
20 A. I remember what Mr Bryant said my then husband said.
21 Q. He was extremely rude, wasn't he?
22 A. Mr Bryant?
23 Q. No, Mr Kemp, your then husband.
24 A. I don't think he said that.
25 Q. Mr Watson. You had it in for Mr Watson, Mr Watson would
1
1 say -- indeed, will say -- following Mr Watson's
2 resignation in 2006. Is that true?
3 A. That that's what Mr Watson would say?
4 Q. No, not merely that that's what he's going to say but
5 there's the underlying truth to it. You had it in for
6 him and you have encouraged the Sun to write adverse
7 material about him. Is that true?
8 A. No. Well, sorry, the Sun has covered -- has written
9 adverse things about Mr Watson. I think Mr Watson is
10 referring to an incident -- and I can't remember when it
11 is, I think 2006 -- when he galvanised the troops, as in
12 backbench rebellion, in order to force Mr Blair to
13 resign. It was called the curry house coup at the time
14 and there was a situation where the night before
15 Mr Watson published the letter, which Mr Bryant was also
16 on, I believe, calling for Tony Blair to step down, he'd
17 driven halfway across Scotland to see Mr Brown, and when
18 the newspapers confronted Mr Watson and said, "You
19 clearly did tell Mr Brown", he famously said, "No, I was
20 just delivering a Thomas the Tank DVD." And I think the
21 subsequent coverage, not just in the Sun but the Times
22 and lots of newspapers, were very critical of Mr Watson.
23 I think that's where it originates from.
24 Q. Did you force Mr Passcoe-Watson, or another Sun
25 journalist, to write stories about Mr Watson that he
2
1 knew were completely untrue?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Did you tell Mr Nick Robinson -- of course, the
4 political editor of the BBC -- in August 2011 -- or
5 rather, did you speak to him at a Labour Party
6 Conference 2009, along the lines: "What am I going to do
7 about this Tom Watson?"
8 A. May have done, yes, but I can't remember saying that
9 exactly.
10 Q. Do you feel that you might have used the Sun as perhaps
11 an unfair means of disparaging politicians you did not
12 particularly like?
13 A. No, I don't think that.
14 Q. I go back to the BSkyB issue and paragraphs 90 to 92 of
15 your witness statement, please, Mrs Brooks.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Paragraph 90. This is our page 02587. You say in the
18 fourth line or third line:
19 "As might be expected, many people sought to raise
20 the issue with me and I became involved in defending the
21 bid to them."
22 So you're suggesting there you were always adopting
23 a defensive position; is that right?
24 A. I include lots of people who were members of the
25 anti-Sky bid as well, so not necessarily just
3
1 politicians. The fact is that it was a common
2 misconception and often reported that News International
3 was trying to buy the remainder of the shares in BSkyB
4 rather than News Corp, and that subtle distinction,
5 therefore, because it was in the UK territory was --
6 perhaps understandably got confused. And so, yes, there
7 were occasions when I defended the bid.
8 Q. You do say in paragraph 90, on the next page:
9 "When the matter arose in conversation, I am sure
10 that I would have expressed my views forcefully,
11 particularly given the vocal opposition."
12 So it might be said the stronger the opposition, in
13 your eyes, the more forceful you needed to be. Would
14 you agree?
15 A. I think the anti-Sky bid alliance had so many different
16 members from all over the media and lots of other
17 commercial rivals of Sky that -- and that they, I knew,
18 were seeing politicians and I think Dr Cable had
19 a dinner with them in -- early on in 2010.
20 So, I think, yes, I did. When I met people, if
21 I had the chance to put our side of the story, so to
22 speak, I would.
23 Q. And those people included Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne,
24 didn't they?
25 A. Not Mr Cameron. I did have a conversation with
4
1 Mr Osborne. I may have mentioned it to Mr Cameron, but
2 it's not to be dwelled on because it wasn't
3 a particularly long conversation. But I did have
4 a conversation with Mr Osborne about it, I think some
5 time in 2010, where I put my views that were contrary to
6 the ones that he had heard from everyone else in the --
7 Q. We'll come back to that in a short time. In
8 paragraph 92 of your statement, you say:
9 "With regard to the suggestion that I had
10 'discussions' [and you put that term in inverted commas]
11 with David Cameron and George Osborne, I am sure I did
12 refer to the issue generally."
13 So is that statement relevant to both Mr Cameron and
14 Mr Osborne?
15 A. Yes, but -- in general discussion in terms of -- always
16 in relation to the -- usually in relation to something
17 I'd heard that the anti-Sky bid had put forward, but
18 I remember better conversation with George Osborne some
19 time in 2010, but obviously as discussed, the BSkyB bid
20 was mentioned at dinner at our home in December, but
21 I don't remember having a particularly forceful
22 conversation with Mr Cameron will about it, although our
23 views on the BSkyB bid -- News Corp views and the
24 News International views and my views -- were pretty
25 clear.
5
1 Q. Were they shared by Mr Cameron?
2 A. Mr Cameron always made it very clear that it was -- that
3 he turned it into or it was a quasi-judicial decision
4 and it wasn't him and it was off his remit and he,
5 I think, had been lobbied by lots of other people, so it
6 wasn't -- I would say no, it wasn't particularly shared.
7 He was always very even-handed about it.
8 Q. Was Mr Cameron supportive of the BSkyB bid, to your
9 knowledge?
10 A. Not particularly, no.
11 Q. Was he at all supportive of it?
12 A. No, but I think it would be fair to say that he
13 understood why we wanted to present our view in relation
14 to the other lobbying he was getting.
15 Q. Was Mr Osborne supportive of the BSkyB bid?
16 A. I think -- he never said so. He never said explicitly
17 that. However, I think one of the points that we were
18 trying to make about the bid was if that kind of level
19 of investment was coming into the UK, that contrary to
20 what the anti-Sky bid alliance were saying, in that it
21 would be a bad thing, that actually we thought in the
22 call centres around the country, the creation of jobs,
23 that it would -- that we would try and put those
24 arguments to Mr Osborne. But again, they would all say
25 the same thing: "It's not my decision."
6
1 Q. I think my question was only: was he supportive of the
2 bid or not?
3 A. And as I say, he never explicitly said so.
4 Q. But could you infer whether he was supportive or not?
5 A. No. He was interested in our arguments. I think that's
6 probably at its best.
7 Q. Were you aware of the role Mr Fred Michel was occupying
8 in relation to the bid?
9 A. Well, I was aware at the time, but not to the extent
10 that I've now seen. But I was aware, yes.
11 Q. So when you say to the extent that you have now seen,
12 are you referring to the 163-odd emails?
13 A. Yes. I hadn't realised there were that many emails, but
14 yes, I was aware of his role in the BSkyB bid.
15 Q. When did you read those emails?
16 A. I actually still haven't read them all.
17 Q. You've sampled them?
18 A. I saw some during the evidence given by James Murdoch.
19 Q. And when they were drawn to your attention in that way,
20 did they surprise you in any way?
21 A. I think the truth is at the time -- at the time of the
22 BSkyB bid, I suppose, like most journalists, I viewed
23 public affairs and lobbyists with slight scepticism, and
24 I often thought that Mr Michel perhaps overegged his
25 position. However, he was doing his job. He was
7
1 passing on information as lobbyists do.
2 Q. How do you know he was overegging his position?
3 A. I always thought -- I suppose because, as journalists,
4 we would have quite direct contact with ministers and
5 prime ministers and -- you know, in the course of our
6 work, but I always thought it was slightly strange that
7 he had that level -- not slightly strange, actually.
8 That's not fair. Fred was very good at his job.
9 I always thought the level of access that seemed to come
10 out was -- was pretty good, really.
11 Q. Okay. A couple of documents in these 163 emails feature
12 you. Only a couple. This is KRM18. We've got one of
13 them under tab 17 in the bundle.
14 A. Tab 17, okay.
15 Q. We can probably put it up on the screen. I'm not sure
16 it's going to be available to anybody else. From the
17 PROP file, 100001657. You may have it as a separate
18 piece of paper, Mrs Brooks. I don't know.
19 A. I do. Thank you, Mr Jay.
20 Q. It relates to 12 October 2010. You were copied in on an
21 email from Mr Michel to Mr Anderson.
22 A. Mm.
23 Q. Are you with me? Mr Anderson we heard with
24 Mr James Murdoch, but I've clean forgotten who he is.
25 Could you remind me?
8
1 A. He it is -- so Fred Michel is public affairs for
2 News Corp Europe and Asia, and Matthew Anderson is
3 corporate communications for News Corp.
4 Q. The generals gist of this email is that -- the bid is
5 still with Dr Cable. This is before 21 December --
6 A. Right, okay.
7 Q. "It's necessary to keep briefing senior Lib Dems and key
8 cabinet ministers."
9 Why do you think you were copied into this email?
10 A. I'm not sure, because I wasn't copied in to many of
11 them.
12 Q. No.
13 A. So I don't know. There would be regular meetings
14 between the News Corp people who were in charge of the
15 bid and occasionally -- maybe I was in that meeting?
16 I don't know why I'm copied in to this one particularly,
17 but --
18 Q. You were copied into the next one, which is the same
19 part file, PROP100001679 --
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Hang on, just before -- sorry, are
21 you going to 1679?
22 MR JAY: Yes. Sir, that's probably the only one you have in
23 that file.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It is, yes. All three emails are on
25 the same sheet.
9
1 MR JAY: Yes, I'd found an earlier one, ploughing through
2 KRM18 as I did a few days ago so, just to see if there
3 was anything else relevant. The most relevant one is
4 1679, which you'll have, Mrs Brooks, in tab 17.
5 A. Right, the one that starts:
6 "Very good debrief with Hunt"?
7 Q. That's right.
8 A. Yeah.
9 Q. It's dated 14 December 2010. It's sent from Mr Michel
10 to Mr James Murdoch and you're copied in. Are you with
11 me?
12 A. Yes, I am.
13 Q. The issues letter, I think, was the Ofcom issues letter,
14 wasn't it?
15 A. Was that the time? I mean, you obviously have the
16 chronology, but I accept that.
17 Q. Scan up the page, though. Three minutes later, you
18 reply to Mr Michel, don't you:
19 "Same from GO -- total bafflement at response."
20 The reason why you were able to reply so quickly,
21 I think, is that you had had dinner with Mr Osborne the
22 night before, hadn't you?
23 A. That's correct.
24 Q. So you had discussed the issues letter with Mr Osborne
25 the night before, hadn't you?
10
1 A. I must have done, yes.
2 Q. Yes, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to reply so
3 quickly?
4 A. Quite rightly.
5 Q. And the reference to "GO" is not including his special
6 advisor; it is to GO personally, isn't it?
7 A. It is, yes.
8 Q. Why were you discussing the issues letter with
9 Mr Osborne at all?
10 A. Well, I don't -- you're telling me now that it was at
11 the time of the issues letter so I accept that. My
12 memory from the dinner was that it was with my husband
13 and I, Mr Osborne and his wife, and Mr Lewis and his
14 wife. So it was the six of us. It was in a restaurant,
15 more of a social occasion, but like I said in my witness
16 statement, I -- I probably brought it up, but I can't
17 remember, but there would have been a part of the dinner
18 I would have discussed our frustration, perhaps, at the
19 time, of what was going on. So I don't know whether
20 I brought it up or George, but we did discuss it at that
21 dinner. Not at any great length, because --
22 Q. It's a point of detail, this, isn't it, what's in an
23 Ofcom issues letter? You'd agree with me?
24 A. Yes, but that wouldn't have been -- I mean, that
25 wouldn't have been my stance on it, because I probably
11
1 wasn't all over the complexities of an Ofcom issues
2 letter, as chief executive of News International.
3 Literally, my main focus of -- my main involvement in
4 the BSkyB bid, if you like, was informal, as in nothing
5 to do with the transaction, but was generally in
6 response to the huge amount of opposition and lobbying
7 that was going on by the anti-Sky bid alliance.
8 Q. You told us that already.
9 A. Yes, but --
10 Q. What this dinner must have encompassed was a discussion
11 about the issues letter, because the email makes that
12 clear. Would you agree?
13 A. I agree with you. That's exactly what the email says.
14 But I don't remember a detailed conversation at a social
15 dinner about the complexities of an issues letter at
16 Ofcom. It may have been precisely three minutes of me
17 saying, "Can you believe that that has happened?" and
18 George Osborne looking slightly perplexed and me
19 responding to Fred Michel the next day. I mean, it was
20 a very brief conversation, but it did happen.
21 Q. Plainly it did happen, but it's not Mr Osborne looking
22 slightly perplexed. He's "totally baffled" according to
23 you.
24 A. "Totally baffled", then, was my interpretation of his --
25 Q. The conversation must have been initiated by you,
12
1 Mrs Brooks. You don't hold back on these occasions, do
2 you?
3 A. I just can't remember whether I brought it up or not.
4 That's at all.
5 Q. There are two possibilities: either Mr Osborne did or
6 you did.
7 A. Let's say I brought it up then.
8 Q. Yes.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I don't want you to guess.
10 A. I'm being forced to guess, sir, I'm sorry.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, I promise you, you're not being
12 forced to guess.
13 A. Well, I can't remember who brought it up, but I'm happy,
14 for argument's sake, Mr Jay, to accept that I did. But
15 I'm not sure that's the case.
16 MR JAY: Do you think it's an appropriate conversation with
17 Mr Osborne?
18 A. I think it --
19 Q. Or not?
20 A. I think it was an entirely appropriate conversation.
21 I was reflecting the opposite view to the view that he
22 had hard by that stage from pretty much every member of
23 the anti-Sky bid alliance on many occasions. So I think
24 for one three-minute conversation at the beginning of
25 dinner, I got the opportunity to give our view. I don't
13
1 see why that's inappropriate.
2 Q. If you remember the length of the conversation, you
3 might be able to assist us as to who initiated it.
4 Couldn't you agree?
5 A. Accepting for the sake of argument that I brought it up,
6 I just can't remember if this is absolutely true.
7 Q. Another reason you're diffident about it: it's obvious
8 from your one-line email that we know what Mr Osborne's
9 thinking is about the bid generally, don't we?
10 A. Well, I obviously remembered from the conversation,
11 which -- I can't remember exactly how long it took, but
12 from the limited conversation that we'd had the night
13 before, that he was baffled at the response. That's
14 what I say. I'm not -- I'm agreeing with you on the
15 email.
16 Q. Yes, but it's also obvious that he was supportive of
17 your bid, wasn't he?
18 A. No. Bafflement. Or he was perplexed at the --
19 whatever -- you're telling me it was the issues letter.
20 I'm -- fine. He was baffled at the response.
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Hang on, Mr Jay isn't quite telling
22 you that. Paragraph 92 of your statement proceeds on
23 that premise.
24 A. That it was the issues letter?
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes.
14
1 A. Yes, well, he was baffled at the response. It's
2 still -- I'm not sure what the question is, Mr Jay.
3 MR JAY: At this stage, of course, Mrs Brooks, you knew
4 where everybody in the cabinet and this Coalition
5 government stood in relation to support or otherwise for
6 the BSkyB bid, didn't you?
7 A. No, I didn't. I particularly didn't know Mr Cable's
8 view -- personal view.
9 Q. You didn't have any suspicions at all as to what his
10 view was?
11 A. No. In fact, I'd assumed Mr Cable would carry out that
12 responsibility as any minister would, you know, as --
13 properly, without personal prejudice.
14 Q. By the time you'd read the email, the first in the
15 chain, if not before, you were well aware what Mr Hunt's
16 view was about the merits of the BSkyB bid vis-a-vis
17 News Corp, weren't you?
18 A. I said to you earlier: I don't remember hearing anything
19 from Mr Hunt directly on the bid particularly, but
20 I have a recollection that he put something on his
21 website. I think it came up in this Inquiry. So --
22 that he put something positive on his website, wasn't
23 it, or --
24 Q. Didn't you have conversations with Mr James and
25 Mr Rupert Murdoch about how the bid was getting on and
15
1 who was supporting it?
2 A. I think my conversations with Mr James Murdoch and
3 Mr Rupert Murdoch about the bid were in essence probably
4 discussing the latest move of the anti-Sky bid alliance.
5 So I remember having to call Mr James Murdoch when the
6 anti-Sky bid alliance commissioned a poll through their
7 PR agency they'd hired -- I think Webber Shandwick --
8 and their poll had discovered that 80 per cent of people
9 didn't want us to buy the rest of Sky shares. So
10 I would probably update -- because the anti-Sky bid
11 alliance was, of course, working in the UK territory, so
12 there would be occasions when I would update Rupert or
13 James Murdoch and there were internal meetings that went
14 on inside News International that occasionally I would
15 attend too.
16 Q. News Corp or News International regarded it as important
17 to lobby government generally in relation to this bid.
18 Are we agreed?
19 A. I don't think that was a strategy. I think it was
20 a response.
21 Q. Regardless of what originated it, it is what happened in
22 the event, isn't it?
23 A. Certainly from what we've seen from Fred Michel's
24 emails, there was a lot of lobbying going on from our
25 side, yes.
16
1 Q. You could assist the Murdochs to this extent: that you
2 knew the personalities involved at least as well as them
3 and you could advise them in relation to Mr Osborne,
4 Mr Cameron and Mr Hunt in a way in which perhaps they
5 couldn't. Isn't that what you brought to the table
6 here?
7 A. No, I don't think so. I think this was a very --
8 I mean, first of all the strategy behind the bid was set
9 by News Corp and I had nothing to do with that and had,
10 again, no formal role. And secondly, this was
11 a quasi-judicial decision, which is nothing to do with
12 the personalities and preferences of particular -- of
13 the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer in
14 this case, or Mr Hunt before he took over from Dr Cable.
15 Q. But you weren't so naive, were you, to believe that this
16 quasi-judicial decision would be carried out necessarily
17 wholly properly? You would naturally fear that personal
18 prejudices might intrude. You knew that, didn't you?
19 A. No, actually, I -- maybe it was naive of me to think
20 that, you know, the procedure would be dealt with
21 properly, but I did believe that. I had no reason not
22 to until Dr Cable's comments came out in the December.
23 Q. Okay. We do have one email, don't we, which you have
24 found. It's RMB2, under tab 4. You kindly disclosed
25 this one to us.
17
1 A. Yes, this email, yes. Tab 4, isn't it?
2 Q. It's under tab 4.
3 A. I have got it.
4 Q. Before we look at it, I think people would be interested
5 to know how it is that this one email has survived and
6 others might not have done. Can you assist us?
7 A. Well, in the period of between beginning of June
8 and July 17, when my BlackBerry was imaged, there were
9 certain emails on there and some text messages, and for
10 the purpose of the Section 21 notice for this Inquiry,
11 my legal team went through all those in order to
12 disclose anything that fell into the Inquiry, and this
13 was the only email that I had in that period that was
14 relevant to the BSkyB questions I'd been asked in my
15 witness statement.
16 Q. Go first -- because we have to look at it in this
17 order -- to the bottom of page 02606, which is going to
18 be the first page of this document. We can see, at
19 16.29 hours on 27 June 2011 -- are you with me?
20 A. I am, sorry, yes. It came on the screen --
21 Q. Frederic Michel sends an email and it goes to just you,
22 I think, although it's not altogether clear. Is that
23 your understanding?
24 A. I would be surprised if it just came to me. As you've
25 seen from the previous emails, they were always copied
18
1 in to the same -- almost the same group of people, but
2 perhaps it was directly to me.
3 Q. The text of the email is on the next page, 02607:
4 "Hunt will be making references to phone hacking in
5 his statement on Rubicon this week. He will be
6 repeating the same narrative as the one he gave in
7 Parliament a few weeks ago. This is based on his belief
8 that the police are pursuing things thoroughly and phone
9 hacking has nothing to do with the media plurality
10 issue."
11 There's something gone wrong with the printing
12 there.
13 A. That's a corruption there.
14 Q. It's corrupted.
15 "It's extremely helpful."
16 So you are being told what the Secretary of State is
17 going to be saying in his Rubicon statement -- not, of
18 course, that the Secretary of State would have used that
19 code name, no doubt -- in his statement to Parliament.
20 Is that it?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. That bit speaks for itself.
23 "On the issue of privacy committee, he supports
24 the widening of its remit to the future of the press and
25 evidence from all newspaper groups on the regulatory
19
1 regime. He wants to prevent a public enquiry. For
2 this, the committee will need to come up with a strong
3 report in the autumn and put enough pressure on the PCC
4 to strengthen itself and take recommendations forward."
5 Was any of this news to you, Mrs Brooks?
6 A. Yes, I think it was.
7 Q. Was any of it surprising to you?
8 A. I think -- I think it was -- it was -- it was news to me
9 and therefore could be surprising, yes. Probably.
10 Q. The next paragraph:
11 "JH is now starting to look into phone
12 hacking/practices more thoroughly and has asked me [the
13 pronoun 'me' is Mr Michel] to advise him privately in
14 the coming weeks and guide his and Number 10's
15 positioning."
16 Do you know what that was about?
17 A. Well, I think it speaks for itself.
18 Q. Does that surprise you?
19 A. Well, at the time -- the date of this email I think
20 is --
21 Q. 27 June.
22 A. -- 27 June, and at the time at News International, it
23 was a particularly -- I had a lot of my own concerns.
24 We'd just handed over the Harbottle & Lewis file to the
25 MPS. It was probably my focus, more than anything else.
20
1 I obviously got this email in a million others.
2 I obviously read it at the time and I responded,
3 I think, to find out when the Rubicon statement was. So
4 I think the email and my response speak for themselves,
5 really.
6 Q. Your response was, at 17.20 hours -- we have to go back
7 to the previous page:
8 "When is the Rubicon statement?"
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And then the answer came back:
11 "Probably Wednesday."
12 A. Mm-hm.
13 Q. Can you assist us further from your memory as to
14 Mr Michel's dealings with Mr Hunt and/or Number 10 at
15 this time?
16 A. Probably not any further than the evidence that
17 James Murdoch gave, really. I mean, Fred Michel worked
18 for News Corp and not News International. So he didn't
19 work for me. So my interactions with him were not as
20 frequent, so I'm not sure I can add anything
21 particularly.
22 I know Fred Michel's own statement was that
23 sometimes he overstated his case, but for all I know,
24 this could be directly from Jeremy Hunt or, as he says,
25 Number 10 here. So I just don't know.
21
1 Q. You say in paragraph 28 of your statement, talking
2 generally of your time as CEO of News International,
3 that your time became increasingly occupied with the
4 phone hacking issue. Do you remember saying that?
5 A. I do remember. Sorry, where am I going to now?
6 Q. Paragraph 28 of your statement, page 02576. I'm
7 (inaudible) concerned with the detail of your
8 investigation or your knowledge, Mrs Brooks. Were
9 relations between Murdoch father and son increasingly
10 fraught as this issue developed?
11 A. I -- I don't think it was between father and son. It
12 was -- I mean, the situation was fraught.
13 Q. Because you've been described in one article --
14 Vanity Fair, this time -- as being the go-between in an
15 increasingly fraught father/son relationship. Is that
16 true?
17 A. Well, Vanity Fair spend a lot of time covering the
18 Murdoch family dynamics and they're just like any normal
19 family. They have dynamics and they change. I wouldn't
20 put any store by Vanity Fair.
21 Q. Maybe one shouldn't, but just listen to the question.
22 Were you the go-between in an increasingly fraught
23 father/son relationship?
24 A. No, they could speak to each other.
25 Q. I didn't hear that.
22
1 A. I said no, they were very happy to speak to each other.
2 Q. It's also suggested that James was passing blame on to
3 subordinates. Is that what was happening?
4 A. No.
5 Q. He wasn't?
6 A. What is the context of the Vanity Fair piece? I'm
7 sorry, I don't --
8 Q. You've seen the piece. It alleges that you were now
9 under pressure to please and protect not only Rupert but
10 also James, who had both taken the position they had no
11 idea what was going on inside their company, and
12 particularly James, passing blame on to subordinates.
13 Is that what was happening?
14 A. No.
15 Q. So you can't throw any light on the truth or otherwise
16 of the -- well, you are throwing light on the truth of
17 this piece. You say it's untrue?
18 A. It's saying that I'm the go-between between father and
19 son in an increasingly fraught situation, I think the
20 paragraph was.
21 Q. Relationship?
22 A. Relationship. So what I'm saying to you is that
23 I reported both to James and Rupert Murdoch and I would
24 talk to them both about the issues unfolding at
25 News International. James and I had offices next door
23
1 to each other. I would be talking to Mr Murdoch every
2 day. So if Vanity Fair want to couch that as
3 a go-between, then fine, but I don't accept the premise
4 of what they're insinuating.
5 Secondly, the Vanity Fair piece, whenever it came
6 out, is saying that James tried to -- started to pass
7 blame onto subordinates and I'm not sure if that Vanity
8 Fair piece is -- is it referring to James Murdoch's
9 testimony at the Select Committee or his testimony here?
10 I just don't even know when the Vanity Fair piece ran,
11 so it's difficult for me to answer the question without
12 some context.
13 Q. Can I ask about the police and your meetings with senior
14 police officers.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. RMB1 again, this schedule you've prepared. It's towards
17 the back of it, I think. You've kindly provided
18 a schedule of meetings with senior police officers in
19 the Metropolitan Police Service.
20 A. Yes. Got it.
21 Q. The second page of that, it appears that you did not
22 meet with John Yates, Assistant Commissioner,
23 after December 2006. Is that, to the best of your
24 recollection, correct?
25 A. I -- I'm -- I don't think that's correct. I think I did
24
1 meet him, but I -- I mean, we hosted the -- we hosted
2 the Police Bravery Awards every year, for a start, and
3 I was always in attendance, and so I'm sure that he
4 would have been there, so I really do not think these
5 diary entries are the full picture.
6 Q. There's likely to be a difference, Mrs Brooks, between
7 a large function in which you might bump into people and
8 any conversation might be snatched, and a dinner in
9 a restaurant where they may only be a few of you and the
10 conversation would be expansive.
11 A. No, I do -- I do remember having a meeting with
12 John Yates in Wapping, a lunch, around -- I think around
13 the time of the cash for honours situation.
14 Q. We're back in 2005 --
15 A. Is that 2006? Oh right, okay. Well, then this diary
16 may be correct then. I didn't see much of John Yates.
17 Q. Are you able to say whether or not you discussed phone
18 hacking issues with him?
19 A. Because I don't remember a one-to-one meeting. I'm
20 pretty sure, though, I attended the Police Bravery
21 Awards right up until -- as you can imagine, right up
22 until 2011, and he was always there. And I can't
23 remember when the Guardian first -- I think the Guardian
24 broke their story in July 2009, and there was a Police
25 Bravery Awards -- it's usually in July. So I don't want
25
1 to absolutely rule out the fact that I may have
2 mentioned it to him, because he was often around, but
3 I don't remember a sitdown conversation where we
4 discussed it at any length.
5 Q. So you're admitting of the possibility --
6 A. I'm saying that it might quite probably have happened,
7 if those sequence of events -- if my memory serves me
8 well and those are the sequence of events, that the
9 Guardian story broke in July 2009, but I can't remember
10 what date, and the Police Bravery Awards was afterwards.
11 It could have been the other way around.
12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I think the Guardian story was 5th or
13 6th, wasn't it?
14 MR JAY: 8 July in the evening, and then into the print
15 edition on the 9th.
16 A. Right.
17 Q. The meetings with Mr Fedorcio which were more frequent,
18 what was the purpose of those meetings in your own
19 words, Mrs Brooks?
20 A. They would often be attended -- usually he would
21 accompany a Commissioner or a senior officer, or if he
22 came in on his own, it would be to discuss things with
23 me and my crime editor and senior team and it could be
24 a variety of issues.
25 There was also -- although it was an annual event
26
1 and, if you like, a well-oiled machine, there was always
2 quite a lot of organisation for the Police Bravery
3 Awards because the process continued for many months --
4 sorry, started many months before, and he would have
5 been involved in that, as I would.
6 But mainly the issues of the day or introducing
7 a new Commissioner or coming along with an update with
8 a Commissioner.
9 Q. Did you ever obtain information from him which formed
10 the basis of a story in the Sun?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Did he put you in contact with police officers who could
13 provide the basis and did provide the basis of a story?
14 A. Well, I think most crime journalists would -- you know,
15 I wasn't a crime journalist or a crime editor, but
16 I think the process was that we would often ring
17 Dick Fedorcio if we had a story that we'd got from our
18 own sources that involved the Metropolitan Police and he
19 was in a position to steer us away from it or give us
20 a comment if we'd got it right. So there was a sort of,
21 if you like, exchange of information, but it was -- in
22 the way you put it, it sounded like he'd come into me in
23 these meetings and give me a story. Sadly not.
24 Q. Mr Wallis, of course, was an employee of
25 News International until 2009. Were you aware of the
27
1 nature of his relationship with police officers?
2 A. No, only -- only insofar as -- I never worked directly
3 with Mr Wallis, but when I took over his position as
4 deputy editor of the Sun in 1998, I then assumed his
5 responsibilities in owning, if you like, the Police
6 Bravery Awards. So I was aware that he had started
7 those in the previous year.
8 Q. Okay, one general question about the nature of
9 hospitality. It has to be a very general question. In
10 terms of the nature of the hospitality you were
11 offering -- I'm talking about lunches, dinners -- did
12 you regard police officers really in the same way as
13 politicians -- in other words, it was appropriate to
14 take them to a restaurant of a certain stature or
15 distinction -- or did you see there to be any difference
16 between police officers and politicians?
17 A. Well, there are definitely distinctions between the two.
18 I think it would be fair to say that senior police
19 officers were more inclined to want to go to a neutral
20 venue like a restaurant, whereas a lot of meetings with
21 politicians took place either in Wapping HQ or at party
22 conferences or at Downing Street or various ministries.
23 So that was in my experience.
24 Q. Okay. The Inquiry has very little interest in the
25 retired police horse, you understand -- that's September
28
1 2007 -- but I should ask you this question so we're
2 clear about it: was there any exchange, as it were,
3 between the work experience offered for Mr Fedorcio's
4 son, which was also in the autumn of 2007, and the
5 acquisition by you of this horse?
6 A. Absolutely not.
7 Q. I move on to a different issue now.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Are you moving away from police
9 officers, Mr Jay?
10 MR JAY: Yes.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: There's a balance here as well, isn't
12 there? On the one hand, the need to keep an eye on the
13 stories that are coming out, but on the other, an
14 appropriate professional distance. Do you think there's
15 a risk there?
16 A. I think it's always up to individual conduct in these
17 matters, and so I felt that the contact I had with
18 police officers, particularly commissioners and senior
19 police officers, in that kind of context was always
20 appropriate. I never saw any of my dealings with the
21 police -- I never saw any inappropriate either
22 conversations or -- take place.
23 So my experience of it was relatively good and
24 particularly at the Police Bravery Awards, where we
25 would come into -- the Sun journalism team would come
29
1 into contact with police officers not just from the
2 Metropolitan Police but from all over the country, and
3 I always thought they were very useful for both sides
4 rather than inappropriate. But there is always a risk
5 that that is not the case.
6 Q. The Gordon Brown cystic fibrosis story. You did have
7 some involvement there, didn't you?
8 A. Yes, I did.
9 Q. The piece in the Sun is under tab 29. It's part of the
10 narrative, as it were. This is an article in 2006,
11 I believe.
12 "The Sun today exposes the allegation that we hacked
13 into Gordon Brown's family medical records as false and
14 a smear. We discovered the ex-PM's four-year-old son
15 Fraser had cystic fibrosis months after his birth. We
16 can reveal the source of our information was a shattered
17 dad whose own son also has the crippling disease and he
18 wanted to highlight the plight of sufferers."
19 Is that true?
20 A. Yes. I think, Mr Jay, you said 2006? The article came
21 out in 2006 but this was written in 2011.
22 Q. Yes, I think you're right there. The article
23 is November 2006. Did you have any involvement in this
24 article, although you were, of course, no longer editor?
25 A. No, I didn't. I think I may have even left the company.
30
1 Q. I don't have the exact date of this article --
2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Published 13 July 2011, according to
3 what's on the screen now.
4 A. Then no, sorry, I was still there.
5 MR JAY: Do you know where the "shattered dad" that is
6 referred to there got his information from?
7 A. I think we do, yes. Yes.
8 Q. Where did he get his information from?
9 A. He got it from the fact that he -- his own child had
10 cystic fibrosis and he was given this information when
11 information was sought about cystic fibrosis. I'm being
12 very careful to try and not reveal his identity, that's
13 all, hence the hesitation, but I think we sort of -- we
14 know what happened.
15 Q. That's all very vague, Mrs Brooks.
16 A. It is vague, but purposely so because I think when we
17 wrote this article -- I mean, although, like I say,
18 I was chief executive at the time, I remember the Sun
19 absolutely putting this together to refute
20 Gordon Brown's allegations, and we were incredibly clear
21 on it. We have an affidavit from the father where he
22 explains the story but I don't think that affidavit is
23 public, so I'm just being slightly hesitant not to
24 reveal his identity.
25 Q. We're not concerned with his identity. That wasn't my
31
1 question. The father's version is -- and we can see
2 this in the article:
3 "I have not had access to the medical records of the
4 child at any time. All of which is the truth as I shall
5 answer to God."
6 Apparently is what his affidavit says, is it?
7 A. I think it's longer than that, but that will be part of
8 it, yes.
9 Q. So how did the father get the information?
10 A. If I sort of put that back to reassure you -- we, at the
11 time, and again in July 2012, were absolutely satisfied
12 that the father had got the information from legitimate
13 means and we were very sure about that.
14 Q. How had he got the information?
15 A. He'd got the information because his own child had
16 cystic fibrosis and he'd got the information, I should
17 say, through a very small -- it's not a small charity,
18 but there is a charity aspect to the Cystic Fibrosis
19 Society, and he got it slightly by involvement through
20 there.
21 Q. What sort of involvement?
22 A. Mr Jay, I'm not going to tell you any more about the
23 source because I don't want to reveal his identity.
24 Q. But you're not.
25 A. Well, I feel uncomfortable answering that because
32
1 I think it could lead to his identity. You're asking me
2 where information came from and the source, and I think
3 they are matters that I have to respect in a source
4 coming to the newspaper. The main point of this issue
5 is Mr Brown accused the Sun of hacking into his son's
6 medical records to get this story and that wasn't true.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It wasn't accurate?
8 A. No, sorry, it wasn't accurate.
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But actually that's quite important,
10 because it plays into something else that is concerning
11 me, which I am just going to dwell upon. If I've taken
12 a question from Mr Jay, it's just too bad.
13 Mr Brown was concerned that information which he
14 thought was private had entered the public domain, and
15 he felt that the way that that must have happened is
16 that the Sun had got hold of his records in some way.
17 That's what he was saying; is that right?
18 A. That's what he said in July 2011.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes. Now, you knew that -- well, go
20 back one step. First of all, if you don't know anything
21 of how you got the story, it's not unreasonable, is it,
22 to believe that if private details of your child's
23 condition are being put into the public domain, they can
24 only have come from medical records? Because it's
25 diagnosis, it's medical detail. So it's not an
33
1 unreasonable view for him to form?
2 A. He formed that view or came to that assumption in 2011.
3 In 2006 -- in November 2006, way before the Sun
4 published the story, we discussed the story directly
5 with the Browns before publication, and the first time
6 I'd heard that he had a concern of that nature was when
7 he gave an interview to the BBC in 2011.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right.
9 A. So it wasn't something that he felt at the time.
10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, it may be, but until it went
11 into the public domain -- I'm not I'm not actually
12 focusing so much on that point. I'll come to the point
13 I want to make. You didn't explain to him, presumably
14 because you wanted to protect your source: "No, no, no,
15 we got all this from somebody whose son also has the
16 same condition, whose child has the same condition."
17 You just didn't discuss the source; is that right?
18 A. That is right, at the time.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Now, my question. Would you look,
20 please, at the first line of the Sun article:
21 "The Sun today exposes the allegation that we hacked
22 into Gordon Brown's family medical records as false and
23 a smear."
24 My concern is whether it's fair to describe that
25 as -- it may be incorrect, but as "false and a smear".
34
1 A. In the general point, I can absolutely see what you're
2 saying, sir, is correct, but this was not -- this was
3 a particular journey that the Sun had been involved in
4 since the beginning of the information coming into the
5 Sun newsroom and what happened after that and subsequent
6 to that.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But if he never knew how you got it,
8 all you can say -- and you're entitled to say, "He's
9 just got it wrong."
10 A. He came to the wrong assumption in 2011.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And that's absolutely fair. So the
12 issue is whether it's part of the culture of the press
13 that actually attack is the best form of defence. So
14 people don't just get it wrong; it's "false", in
15 capitals, and "a smear". Do you see the point I'm
16 making?
17 A. I do see the point you're making, but, sir, the context
18 of that article was written after Gordon Brown had --
19 first of all, I think his first appearance in Parliament
20 since he stepped down as Prime Minister was to come to
21 the House and speak incredibly critically and, in some
22 cases, made wrong assumptions through his testimony to
23 the House, and then the second thing he did, he then
24 went on, I think, the BBC -- I can't remember -- to do
25 an interview with another wrong assumption that the Sun
35
1 had got the story from Fraser Brown's medical records,
2 and I think combining the two, if you like, attacks from
3 Mr Brown that had never ever been raised by him in any
4 shape or form with any of us at News International or
5 Mr Murdoch -- he never once mentioned press ethics or
6 practices in his -- in our entire relationship -- that
7 the Sun felt that it was a smear, that he was doing it
8 five years later for a particular reason, and I think
9 that's why they wrote the story that they did.
10 Now, I was chief executive at the time. I didn't
11 write the story but I'm defending their right to write
12 the story like that.
13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right. You've provided an
14 answer, but actually what you've demonstrated is that
15 the Sun believed -- and they may be right or wrong,
16 I don't know -- that Mr Brown had added two and two and
17 two and got 27, whereas in fact, if you took each one of
18 the incidents on their own, it may have been he may have
19 made a mistake, he may be wrong to reach the
20 conclusion -- that's all fair enough, entirely proper,
21 but it goes a bit further than that.
22 A. I accept that this story does, but if you imagine for
23 the Sun, the Sun -- and I know I keep mentioning this,
24 but the Sun has a trust with its readership.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes.
36
1 A. And it's a very important trust and if that trust is
2 broken, then -- and a former Prime Minister had claimed,
3 I think harshly -- he'd come to the misconception that
4 we had got the story from Fraser's medical records. He
5 accepted -- and I think whoever broke the story --
6 I can't remember who it was -- the Guardian, probably --
7 that that was false, and there was a correction
8 subsequently published in the Guardian and I think the
9 Sun felt on that that they had to stand up -- because it
10 is a terrible accusation for a former Prime Minister to
11 make of a newspaper without being in possession of the
12 facts, that we had hacked into his medical records, and
13 I think that's why you are seeing the strong tone of the
14 rebuttal in the paper.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, I've asked the question. Thank
16 you.
17 MR JAY: You're suffusing the Sun with virtue, Mrs Brooks.
18 Let's see how far I can get with this. Where did the
19 father's information come from?
20 A. I'm not going to say, Mr Jay.
21 Q. But why not, Mrs Brooks?
22 A. Because if you knew where the father's information came
23 from, it would identify the source, and I'm not going to
24 do that.
25 Q. Are you saying that the information came from a charity?
37
1 A. No, I'm not. I'm saying that because the source also
2 had a child with cystic fibrosis, he was aware and in
3 the -- it was the fact that he had a child with cystic
4 fibrosis is how he came to know.
5 Q. That would indicate that the father might, at some
6 point, have been quite close to the Browns, perhaps in
7 a particular hospital, but it wouldn't, without more,
8 demonstrate how the father got hold of the relevant
9 information. Do you understand me?
10 A. I understand your point.
11 Q. Did he gain the information by subterfuge?
12 A. No, he didn't.
13 Q. Did he gain the information directly from the Browns?
14 A. No, he didn't.
15 Q. Did he gain the information from a third party?
16 A. I suppose you could describe it as that.
17 Q. Was that third party an employee of the NHS?
18 A. No, it wasn't.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, did the third party have a duty
20 of confidence to hold the information? Let's just go as
21 simple as that.
22 A. No, I don't think so. I'm sorry, without revealing the
23 source, the Sun was satisfied that the information came
24 from legitimate means and I felt that that covered all
25 those questions, but --
38
1 MR JAY: Was the father paid for his time?
2 A. I think there was a donation made, but I can't be sure.
3 Q. To a charity, then?
4 A. I think he asked for it to be given to the cystic
5 fibrosis charity, which is why I have the charity in my
6 head, but I can't be sure. We can check with the Sun.
7 Q. How can the Inquiry assess whether or not the father's
8 source owed a duty of confidence without knowing not the
9 identity of the source but the nature of the duties that
10 source was discharging? Surely you can assist us to
11 that extent?
12 A. I can assist you to the extent, as I think Mr Lewis did
13 when he came here and you asked him a similar question
14 about the source for the MPs' expenses -- I can assist
15 you to the point that it was a legitimate source and in
16 any case, the way we conducted ourselves after receipt
17 of the information towards the sensitivity of that
18 information and how we handled that with Number 10 and
19 with the Browns was also exemplary.
20 MR JAY: Was it exemplary, Mrs Brooks? Did you have the
21 express agreement of the Browns, freely given, to
22 publish this story about their son?
23 A. Absolutely.
24 Q. And so they were entirely relaxed about it? This was
25 personal information in relation to a four-year-old boy.
39
1 They were entirely satisfied that this could be placed
2 on the front page of the Sun in November 2006? Is that
3 your position?
4 A. I think you used the word "relaxed", and I think, to be
5 fair to the Browns, you have to consider how traumatic,
6 clearly, for any parent this was.
7 Q. What was, Mrs Brooks?
8 A. The diagnosis.
9 Q. And what about including it on the front page of the
10 Sun? Is that helping or not?
11 A. So Fraser Brown was --
12 Q. Can you answer my question?
13 A. The question is ...?
14 Q. Obviously, there's the tragedy and pain of the diagnosis
15 but emblazoning this on the front page of the Sun is not
16 helping, is it?
17 A. Should I put it back to you, that if the Browns had
18 asked me not to run it, I wouldn't have done. There are
19 many examples where -- very tragic situations in
20 people's lives where people have asked me not to run the
21 story and I haven't and I wouldn't have done, and not
22 only was I -- they gave me permission to run it; it is
23 the only way we would have put that in the public
24 domain.
25 Q. Mr Brown's statement was:
40
1 "I can't remember of any way that the medical
2 condition of a child can be put into the public arena
3 legitimately unless the doctor makes a statement or the
4 family makes a statement."
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Do you agree with that?
7 A. I agree with that, yes.
8 Q. Was the conversation you had with Mrs Brown or Mr Brown
9 regarding consent for this story?
10 A. I think in the period of time of receiving the
11 information and publishing the information, which is --
12 which, by the way, went to all newspapers -- all
13 newspapers published it around the same day -- I spoke
14 to the Browns. I will have spoken probably to people
15 around them but I definitely had more of a communication
16 with Sarah Brown, as she was my friend, and I probably
17 discussed it with her more.
18 The sequence of events were: Fraser Brown was born
19 in July. I think the information came to the Sun in the
20 late October. I think the Browns' position at the time
21 was very much that they had had the tests confirmed, and
22 as Prime Minister and his wife, they felt that there
23 were many, many people in the UK whose children suffered
24 with cystic fibrosis. They were absolutely committed to
25 making this public and they were also -- one of the most
41
1 overwhelming memories of that time for me was the
2 Browns' insistence that when the story was published,
3 that we absolutely highlighted the positives in
4 association with the cystic fibrosis association.
5 Q. The story was published in November, when the child was
6 four months old -- I said four years old; that's
7 incorrect -- and before, I think, the diagnosis was
8 confirmed. Is that true?
9 A. No. I think -- and this is again from my conversations
10 back in 2006 with the Browns and people who advised
11 them -- I'm pretty sure we ran the story in the November
12 and the tests were confirmed some time in the October.
13 Q. When you spoke to Mrs Brown -- that's your evidence,
14 Mrs Brooks -- was it on the basis that: "Look, we've got
15 this story, we're going to run with it, let's see how we
16 can run with it in a way which is least harmful to you",
17 or something like that?
18 A. Absolutely not, and I think that -- as you've seen in my
19 witness statement, I was quite friendly with Sarah Brown
20 at the time. Very friendly. She'd been through a hell
21 of a lot already. I think my first thing I would have
22 said to both of them was -- would have been a much more
23 considerate and caring response to hearing the news
24 myself. I was very -- I was very sad for them.
25 I didn't know much about it and I wanted to find out
42
1 what had gone on.
2 You have to remember that the -- this is 2006. This
3 is only five years later that Mr Brown had ever said
4 anything -- that he was in any way concerned about my
5 behaviour, the behaviour of the Sun, how we handled it.
6 Indeed, after 2006, I continued to see them both
7 regularly. They held a 40th birthday celebration party
8 for me. They attended my wedding. I have many letters
9 and kind notes. Sarah and I were good friends. And so
10 I felt -- hence the story in the Sun in 2012 was quite
11 tough -- was that Mr Brown's recollections of that time
12 weren't the same as my own.
13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Actually, I've been reading it in the
14 print version, our tab 29, but if one looks at it on the
15 screen, which everybody can do if you have a screen near
16 you, there's an interesting comparison, isn't there? On
17 the left-hand side, it talks about the falsity of the
18 allegation and the fact it's a smear, but on the
19 right-hand side, there is a statement, and that
20 statement simply tells the facts. In other words,
21 saying, "They've got it wrong." So you're actually
22 there putting the side of the story that is purely
23 defensive:
24 "We're very sorry. You, Mr Brown, have got it
25 wrong."
43
1 So you didn't need the subedited line in the first
2 paragraph in bold on the left-hand column, did you?
3 Anyway.
4 A. It's difficult -- I don't have the print version.
5 I only have the online --
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You don't have the --
7 A. I have the online version here.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Do you not have on the screen the
9 version that has the Sun's statement?
10 A. I see it now. Sorry, yes.
11 MR JAY: Was there any correspondence with the Browns after
12 you published the first story in November 2006?
13 A. I saw them regularly after that and indeed discussed the
14 situation with them on many occasions.
15 Q. I move on to the Baby P story and the campaign against
16 the social workers involved, including at the top, of
17 course, Sharon Shoesmith, who was director of education
18 and children's services in Haringey. You remember all
19 of that, presumably?
20 A. I do, yes.
21 Q. Can I just give you the chronology so we understand the
22 dates. Baby P was killed on 3 August 2007. Two people
23 were convicted in relation to that crime on 11 November
24 2008 and Sharon Shoesmith was sacked by Mr Balls, the
25 then Secretary of State, on 1 December 2008. As it
44
1 happens that decision was subsequently held to be
2 unlawful by the Court of Appeal but that's a detail.
3 Did the Sun launch an e-petition calling for people
4 to be sacked?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Was a similar e-petition launched in the Sunday Times?
7 A. I can't remember so.
8 Q. Okay. Did you telephone Mr Balls during the week
9 commencing 17 November 2008 telling him to get rid of
10 Sharon Shoesmith or they would "turn this thing on him"?
11 A. No.
12 Q. Did you have any conversation with Mr Balls at about
13 that time?
14 A. I'm sure I did, yes.
15 Q. What was the conversation about?
16 A. Just discussing the contents, I think, of the crime
17 review, or perhaps it was the Haringey's own review into
18 what had happened to Baby P, but certainly not that
19 sentence you've just said.
20 Q. Did you say anything which came close to that?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Was it the Sun's view that Sharon Shoesmith should be
23 got rid of?
24 A. It wasn't particularly Sharon Shoesmith; it was
25 a variety of people. I think in the eight months that
45
1 Baby P was under Haringey Social Services -- Baby Peter,
2 sorry -- he was seen by Social Services and NHS
3 officials in that time where he sustained the 50 or so
4 injuries that he died of in the end, but also more
5 importantly -- and I'm not sure the public were allowed
6 to know this at this time, but in the review it was
7 revealed that the Social Services had allowed the
8 boyfriend, if you like, to live with Baby Peter, even
9 though he was on a charge of raping a two-year-old. So
10 there were serious failings, but it wasn't just Sharon
11 Shoesmith --
12 Q. We're moving well away from the subject matter of my
13 question, which was whether it was the Sun's wish to get
14 rid of Sharon Shoesmith. "Yes" or "no"?
15 A. I think we called for her and others to resign, yes.
16 Q. So you called for her to resign. Was that call the
17 subject matter of a conversation which you had with
18 Mr Balls?
19 A. I think he was well aware we'd called for the
20 resignation. It was all over the paper.
21 Q. Yes, but did you have a conversation with Mr Balls about
22 it specifically?
23 A. I can't remember when my call was with Mr Balls.
24 I think it was after he had -- I think in the end he
25 ended up firing Sharon Shoesmith.
46
1 Q. I told you that. On live television it was, on
2 1 December 2008. But I'm looking two weeks beforehand,
3 the week commencing 17 November 2008. Did you have
4 a conversation with Mr Balls about Sharon Shoesmith?
5 A. Yes, it will have been discussed.
6 Q. It would have been or was discussed?
7 A. Yes, it was discussed.
8 Q. Was the purpose of the call specifically to discuss
9 Sharon Shoesmith?
10 A. No, it wasn't. It was to discuss the case and also to
11 try and understand why Haringey Social Services were
12 allowed to do their own review into their own conduct
13 over Baby Peter.
14 Q. During the course of the discussion you had in relation
15 to Sharon Shoesmith, did you indicate to Ed Balls that
16 you wanted her sacked?
17 A. Mr Jay, I didn't tell Ed Balls to fire Sharon Shoesmith.
18 It was very obvious from the coverage in our paper that
19 we had launched a petition because the government were
20 refusing to do anything about the situation. So yes,
21 I had conversations with Ed Balls. I think I also spoke
22 to the shadow minister, who I think was Michael Gove at
23 the time, but I can't quite remember that. We were --
24 I would have spoken to anybody, basically, to try and
25 get some justice for Baby P, which was the point of the
47
1 campaign.
2 Q. Yes, but the person who could deliver justice for Baby P
3 in this way was the person who could make the relevant
4 decision. That was Mr Balls, wasn't it?
5 A. Ed Balls obviously had influence on that decision and --
6 but the paper was the main form of lobbying --
7 Q. No, he was the decision maker, wasn't he? He was the
8 person who could effect the sacking by direct
9 instruction to Haringey. That's the correct position,
10 isn't it?
11 A. I'm just picking up that I think the premise of your
12 questioning is that -- did I tell Ed because to sack
13 Sharon Shoesmith? And in fact in the newspaper, from
14 the day we broke -- the day we covered the Baby P story,
15 it was very clear that that was the Sun's editorial line
16 on it, so Mr Balls was under no illusion that that was
17 the point of our campaign.
18 Q. Yes, and you also -- he was also under no illusion that
19 that was the point of your telephone call as well.
20 Isn't that the case?
21 A. No, the telephone call was in part the petition. We
22 were also -- we also wanted to deliver the petitions to
23 Downing Street because nothing was moving on the
24 campaign, and we ourselves at the Sun were very
25 surprised by the level -- I mean, 1.5 million of
48
1 a percentage of a readership is a huge reaction. So it
2 will have been to feed back that. It would not just
3 be -- I don't think was -- it was a point of reference
4 because the editorial line of the Sun was very obvious
5 to Mr Balls. He only had to read the paper.
6 Q. If you were frustrated by his apparent inaction and you
7 had a mass of signatories on your petition, all the more
8 reason to bend Mr Balls' ear? Would you not agree?
9 A. Yes, but your premise of your question was: did I ring
10 up Mr Balls and say -- I can't remember how you put it,
11 but it was in a tone and a language that I wouldn't use,
12 but you said did I say, "Get rid of her or else", or
13 whatever you said, and I'm saying I did not say that.
14 The point of the campaign was pretty obvious to Ed Balls
15 because he only had to read the paper. I was actually
16 asking Mr Ed Balls for much more subtle information,
17 like the contents of the review that we weren't allowed
18 to see and the whitewash that I felt Haringey council
19 had done on their own review.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I think we'd better give the
21 shorthand writer a break. Just five minutes.
22 (3.15 pm)
23 (A short break)
24 (3.24 pm)
25 MR JAY: Mrs Brooks, we're on to some general points now to
49
1 conclude your evidence, if that's okay. Paragraph 6,
2 please, of your second statement. You set out your
3 credo on accountability. Our page 02573:
4 "I've seen at first hand the importance of the press
5 as a means of holding politicians and other public
6 figures to account and of influencing policies for the
7 public good."
8 Would you agree that editors, subject only to any
9 review by the PCC, have sole discretion as to what
10 constitutes the public good?
11 A. No, not -- no, I don't. I think editors do have some
12 discretion. As we discussed earlier, that it is
13 a combination of reacting to the readers, understanding
14 the readers, but also putting issues and stories in
15 front of the readers for their reaction. So not sole
16 responsibility, no. There's a huge team at newspapers,
17 all of which contribute through conference, through
18 ideas. I think sole responsibility is not right.
19 Q. In terms of assessing what the public good is, that
20 resides with the newspaper and ultimate responsibility
21 resides with the editor. Are we agreed?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. I think I was right in saying that in terms of this
24 particular assessment, subject only to review by the
25 PCC, responsibility resides with the editor. That's
50
1 correct, isn't it?
2 A. I don't think sole responsibility --
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: No, the ultimate responsibility,
4 because you look to everybody else for advice and then
5 everybody looks towards you and you decide: "This is
6 what we're going to do."
7 A. Ultimately, everything that's published in the paper is
8 the editor's responsibility, yes.
9 MR JAY: Do you feel that that is a satisfactory state of
10 affairs, given that the editor is bound to be parti pris
11 in assessing the public good because the editor needs to
12 have an eye on matters such as circulation figures?
13 A. Well, that is a role of an editor. An editor's judgment
14 is part of their -- is a big part of their role.
15 Q. And holding public figures to account in your lexicon
16 would include exposing the private weaknesses of public
17 figures; is that right?
18 A. I think I was referring there more to campaigns, which
19 I discuss a lot in my witness statement.
20 Q. Yes, but I'm not discussing that. I'm discussing the
21 issue of exposing the private weaknesses of public
22 figures. You would regard that as completely within the
23 bound of the public good, wouldn't you?
24 A. Not necessarily, no.
25 Q. So when would you not expose the private weaknesses of
51
1 public figures?
2 A. When there didn't seem to be a public interest in doing
3 so.
4 Q. And when would such circumstances arise?
5 A. Well, I think there are many stories that newspapers
6 haven't run about personal circumstances about public
7 figures.
8 Q. What are the sort of circumstances which would militate
9 against publication without, of course, giving us
10 details of individual stories which weren't published?
11 A. So if, perhaps, there had been no trust broken between
12 them and their constituents or -- where in fact, I think
13 you discussed yesterday, although that story was
14 published, maybe George Osborne could have argued that
15 it was before he became an MP. I mean, each editor's
16 judgment is their own in this.
17 Q. Which goes back to the point that it's a matter of
18 editorial discretion at the end of the day, isn't it?
19 A. You said "sole" and I just wanted to convey -- I'm sure,
20 you know, you're pretty au fait now with the workings of
21 a newsroom, but it is important to understand the
22 collective discussions that go on.
23 Q. Can I just take one particular campaign. Some would
24 say -- there are arguments both ways, but naturally no
25 view is expressed here. The murder of Sarah Payne and
52
1 Sarah's Law, which featured in the News of the World for
2 a number of years.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Is right that the News of the World published the names
5 and photographs of sex offenders in order to "protect
6 other children from them"?
7 A. Correct.
8 Q. Was that the editorial decision of someone like you?
9 A. Yes, it was.
10 Q. What do you say to the criticism made by the
11 Chief Constable of Gloucestershire that this was grossly
12 irresponsible journalism?
13 A. Well, I disagreed with it at the time.
14 Q. For what reason?
15 A. Because I felt that although there were some aspects to
16 the campaign that -- and there's always risk with any
17 kind of public interest journalism and there's always
18 risk with campaigns -- although there were some issues
19 with the campaign, I was -- I think the mechanic, in
20 a way to try and explain to the public what the point of
21 the campaign was, was effective, and I think there were
22 about 13 or 14 pieces of legislation brought in
23 subsequently on the back of it.
24 Q. Why did you need to publish the names and photographs of
25 known sex offenders in order to bring home what was
53
1 otherwise a legitimate point?
2 A. Because it was -- it was the point about information.
3 When Sarah Payne went missing, I was surprised that the
4 police team around the inquiry were pretty sure who they
5 thought the perpetrator might be because he was
6 a convicted paedophile living in the community, who had
7 just been released, having abducted another
8 eight-year-old girl in almost identical circumstances,
9 and it was news to me that convicted paedophiles of that
10 serious nature were allowed to live unchecked in the
11 community and parents didn't have any information on
12 that, and when I checked, back in America, after the
13 murder of Megan Kanka in 1994, President Clinton had
14 brought in a Megan's law, which had been working very
15 well, and so that's why I thought the mechanic was
16 right.
17 Q. One can understand the argument to this extent. Let's
18 agree that the criminal law might need to be
19 strengthened. Why is it necessary, as part of that
20 legitimate campaign, to publish the names and
21 photographs of known sex offenders?
22 A. Because in 2000 when we did it -- and I think it was
23 over a period of just two weeks -- it was a way of
24 highlighting the central issue of the campaign to try
25 and explain to the readers the huge gap between what
54
1 they thought was the situation and what was the
2 situation.
3 Q. Why couldn't you just explain it to your readers in
4 clear and simple language? Why sensationalise it and
5 create the obvious risk of reprisals?
6 A. Well, actually before we did it, having looked at
7 Megan's law, there was very, very limited -- there is
8 very limited vigilanteism. I wasn't predicting those
9 reprisals and I felt it was the best way to highlight
10 the central point of the campaign.
11 Q. Were there any reprisals?
12 A. There were two that are written about.
13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Does that include the paediatrician?
14 A. It does, sir, yes.
15 MR JAY: The natural and foreseeable consequence of
16 a sensationalised campaign, wouldn't you agree,
17 Mrs Brooks?
18 A. No, I think the -- I don't think anyone could have
19 predicted the paediatrician situation. And secondly,
20 I think on Paul's Grove estate, I think the residents
21 were quite shocked to discover that Victor Burnett had
22 been living there unchecked when his last words in
23 prison were: "I'm going to offend again", although
24 again, I didn't predict the outcome.
25 Q. It's been a recurring theme in the questioning over the
55
1 course of the day that I put to you a proposition which
2 might seem obvious as a matter of common sense and you
3 reject it each time. I'm going to try again with this
4 one. Is it not evidently inflammatory to publish in the
5 News of the World the names and photographs of known sex
6 offenders, with the foreseeable consequence that there
7 might be physical violence?
8 A. Well, if you published it on the basis that you knew
9 that that would happen, yes. But it was not the
10 intention. The incidents I can explain, as I've tried
11 to. The fact is that it was a very serious -- there
12 were very serious loopholes that needed to be closed and
13 it was a bold -- some people disagreed with it, some
14 people agreed with it in terms of press, but 98 per cent
15 of the British public continue to agree with the
16 campaign probably up until this day.
17 Q. It might not have been your motive, Mrs Brooks, but it
18 was the natural and probable consequence of your
19 actions, wasn't it?
20 A. No.
21 Q. If it wasn't, it means that you banished from your mind,
22 I would suggest to you, that which would be patently
23 obvious to anyone else and which ought to have been
24 obvious to an editor exercising your position, role and
25 power. Would you not agree?
56
1 A. No, I won't agree because I did not predict there was
2 going to to be a riot in Paul's Grove and I didn't
3 predict that somebody, a member of the public, would
4 mistake a paedophile for a paediatrician. I don't think
5 anybody could have predicted that.
6 Q. In many things, though, Mrs Brooks, one can't predict
7 the exact sequence of events which would lead to an
8 outcome, but you could certainly predict the outcome in
9 general terms. What I'm suggesting to you is that it's
10 plain as a pikestaff that this sort of outcome would or
11 at least might arise. Would you not agree?
12 A. No, and you have the benefit of hindsight, which
13 I didn't have at the time. I was merely constructing a
14 very bold campaign in order to change the sex offenders
15 act of 1997.
16 Q. Not just bold, Mrs Brooks, but sensationalised, designed
17 to inflame and designed to improve the standing of you
18 and the standing of the News of the World with those
19 crude objectives in mind. Is that not true?
20 A. Mr Jay, you seem to have taken the opinion of -- the
21 Guardian, I think, had that at the time. I disagree
22 with you. It is not my opinion, and I'm not going to
23 agree with you.
24 Q. Okay.
25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Let me make it clear that I have
57
1 absolutely no concern about the policy objectives of
2 a campaign that News of the World or anybody else wishes
3 to run. That's what freedom in our society means.
4 I have no problem about that at all. The only question
5 I might ask, following up on Mr Jay's question, is: if
6 you had appreciated that the public might react in the
7 way in which it did in the two incidents, do you think
8 you would have rethought whether that aspect of the
9 campaign should be run?
10 A. I do have some regrets about the campaign, particularly
11 the list of convicted paedophiles that we put into the
12 paper, because I felt that we'd made some mistakes by
13 just going on an appearance on the Sex Offenders Act,
14 which wasn't necessarily the right criteria. However,
15 I still thought that the mechanic that we used was the
16 right thing to do.
17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right.
18 MR JAY: Paragraphs 99 and 100 of your second statement,
19 02589, when you refer to a wider point. Do you remember
20 that?
21 A. What paragraph, sorry?
22 Q. Paragraph 99.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. You moved off the Andy Coulson issue and you have
25 scotched the myth there, do you follow me, and then
58
1 you're moving on to your wider point.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. You say in the second line:
4 "It is one thing to be a passionate advocate of
5 a free press but if you seek to defend an inaccurate
6 free press, you lose the moral high ground."
7 Are you intending to say there that there are some
8 aspects of our free press which might give rise to
9 criticism because our free press can be inaccurate?
10 A. I think that -- and you've discussed this in the first
11 module of the Inquiry -- that when a newspaper gets it
12 wrong -- one of the biggest complaints I used to get,
13 not necessarily about my own newspaper but about the
14 press in general, was the prominence of apologies when
15 an inaccuracy had taken place, and that's what I'm
16 referring to. The page 37, one paragraph type thing.
17 Q. In some respects -- and this is perhaps an ironical
18 aspect of your evidence. In the course of the day, I've
19 put to you stories which are said to be reliably
20 sourced, whether they are in the Times or Vanity Fair or
21 elsewhere, and very often you've said, "It's untrue",
22 but that, in a funny sort of way, is the sort of debate
23 we've been having at this Inquiry. If your evidence is
24 right, that is, so often sources don't stand up, based
25 on myth or half truth or a garbled version of the truth.
59
1 Do you see the irony there?
2 A. Yes, I do.
3 Q. What do you think the reason for it all is?
4 A. Well, Mr Jay, today you've put to me quite a few, shall
5 we say, gossipy items, for want of a better word --
6 Q. Same sort of stuff one reads or did read in the News of
7 the World --
8 A. And the Sun.
9 Q. -- and continues to read in the Sun. Isn't that true?
10 A. Yes, but we're not in a tabloid newsroom now, are we?
11 Q. No, we're not.
12 A. We're in an Inquiry. So you put a personal few
13 things -- my personal alchemy, my -- did Rupert Murdoch
14 and I swim? Where did I get the horse from? Did
15 Mr Murdoch buy me a suit? The list is endless and I've
16 had to refute a lot of those allegations because --
17 "allegations" is overstating the case -- they're wrong.
18 But I do feel that that is merely a systematic issue
19 that -- you know, I think a lot of it's gender-based.
20 I think that my relationship with Mr Murdoch -- if I was
21 a grumpy old man of Fleet Street, no one would write the
22 first thing about it, but perhaps otherwise I get a lot
23 of this criticism and gossip. But I wasn't complaining
24 and I wasn't making -- it would be the height of
25 hypocrisy for that last paragraph to mean that. All
60
1 I was saying is that in my experience as a journalist,
2 it is one of the biggest complaints I get where people
3 say that the apology never matches the inaccuracy.
4 Q. The systematic issue you referred to may not relate to
5 you, although I understand naturally you would have
6 particular concerns in relation to yourself. The
7 systematic issue as regards inaccuracy may be a function
8 of the commercial pressures the press is under, its
9 reliance on sources which do not always stand up, its
10 tendency to rely on stories which ring true but which
11 don't happen to be true, and finally the story itself
12 being more important than the truth. In microcosm
13 today, we have seen demonstrated the sort of phenomenon
14 which has occupied the life of the press for decades in
15 this country. Is that fair or not?
16 A. I don't think it's fair and I don't think any journalist
17 in the room would agree with the final summing up of
18 that statement, where you say the story's more important
19 than the truth.
20 Q. Are there other aspects of the culture, practice and
21 ethics of the press which you're looking at in
22 paragraph 99, such as harassment and intrusion, or are
23 these issues which you would either prefer not to
24 address or don't think are particularly important?
25 A. Well, no. Of course I think they're important. I mean,
61
1 I'm happy to discuss them, but just for the purposes of
2 this module, which was meant to be about the discussion
3 of the appropriate relationship between press and
4 politicians, I haven't gone into them in my witness
5 statement.
6 Q. Okay.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I understand that, Mrs Brooks, but
8 one couldn't have listened for the day -- and indeed
9 read the material that has been published and written
10 about you that forms this lever-arch file -- without
11 wondering a little bit about the extent to which the
12 press have intruded rather beyond your public position
13 into your private life, and I wonder whether you have a
14 comment, speaking with all the experience that you have
15 as an editor of the News of the World and the Sun, as to
16 the extent to which the press does now get further and
17 further into issues of privacy?
18 A. Well, look, for a start, I consider myself to be
19 a journalist and therefore I -- as I said to Mr Jay, it
20 would be, I think the height of hypocrisy for me to
21 complain. However, I have had those complaints from
22 people in my career as journalism and I've always tried
23 to understand and always tried to use my judgment to
24 where that line fell.
25 As to my own situation, well, you know, it's been
62
1 a difficult year and -- but a lot of the questions that
2 I've had from Mr Jay I felt concentrated on quite
3 a trivial side. I was happy to discuss them, but it was
4 all -- you know, I'm not sure it helps this Inquiry
5 whether Mr Murdoch bought me a suit or not, or I went
6 swimming with him.
7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: What might help is the nature of the
8 relationship and the influence that it generates, and
9 they're all bits and pieces. I wasn't asking you to
10 complain, because you've said in terms that it would be
11 hypocritical of you to do so in the light of your past
12 experience, but because I'm trying to find the way
13 through the various modules, including the political
14 one, I wanted to give you the opportunity of saying
15 anything you wanted to say on the subject.
16 A. Well, I think -- I think on the -- on the politicians,
17 I do think much has been made of cosy relationships and
18 informal contact, and I believe that if journalists meet
19 politicians, the -- it's going to be incredibly hard to
20 be -- the journalist to be transparent about that or be
21 forced to be transparent because often they are exactly
22 the ways that we get information. So if you see an MP
23 for a drink and then have to print your schedules the
24 next day, that's quite difficult.
25 On the other hand, I understand from this government
63
1 that they have improved their transparency from their
2 part, and so I suppose it was to urge you that actually
3 there really shouldn't be -- there shouldn't be, if
4 everyone's individual contact is correct -- I have
5 a never compromised my position as a journalist by
6 having a friendly relationship with a politician. I've
7 never known a politician compromise their position
8 particularly with their friendship with me or with
9 another executive.
10 So I'm not saying the system is perfect, far from
11 it, but a review and understanding of the current laws
12 might be a start, or enforcing of the current laws,
13 before we put any more restrictions into it.
14 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: In relation to a press and the
15 politicians, I don't know that it's a question of law.
16 A. I'm talking about the Ministerial Code, which is
17 changing all the time, and it changed in July last year.
18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But you said to me before lunch --
19 when I asked you: can you understand why it might be
20 a matter of public concern that the very close
21 relationship between journalists and politicians might
22 create subtle pressures on the press, who have
23 a megaphone on the politicians who have the policy
24 decision, you agreed that you could understand that.
25 A. I could understand your point very clearly, sir, because
64
1 I think in every walk of life and every kind of
2 relationship you have, there are subtle pressures.
3 I think that's human nature. And it is up to
4 individuals' conduct and how you respond to those
5 pressures. So I accept what you're saying as a fact,
6 but I do think that both the press and politicians need
7 to make sure that they have their professional life in
8 front of anything else so they don't compromise.
9 I mean, the big point about sort of
10 a prime minister -- if a prime minister ever had put
11 a friendship or a relationship or a cosiness with
12 a media group before their duties to the electorate,
13 then that would be a terrible failing.
14 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Of course. But it might be that
15 they're convinced that it is consistent with their
16 duties to the electorate. In other words, the nature of
17 the relationship is such that they become honestly and
18 completely convinced, because of the respect they hold
19 the people that they're dealing with, who may be their
20 friends -- and therefore they're not doing anything that
21 is improper but they are slightly, perhaps, less guarded
22 with people in the press, particularly those who may be
23 their friends, than they will be when they know there's
24 a lobby group coming. The example I gave to Mr Coulson
25 yesterday was from the coal industry, and then there's
65
1 a lobby industry from Greenpeace to talk about a new
2 colliery. That's a part of our process that different
3 interest groups get the opportunity to make their point.
4 But I don't suppose many colliery owners get the
5 opportunity to make as many points as the most senior
6 journalists get to make, and the colliery owners don't
7 quite have the same ability to provide -- if I use the
8 word "something in return", I don't want you to
9 misunderstand me. I'm not saying there's a Faustian
10 bargain necessarily, but it is, as I think has been said
11 at this Inquiry before, rather more subtle than that.
12 It's just a recognition that actually, if two people --
13 a journalist on the one hand and a politician on the
14 other -- are on the same page and therefore support each
15 other, they might generally support each other. Not
16 improperly, not because they've made a deal, not because
17 they've been given cash or anything like that, but
18 because people can be persuaded.
19 Now, that may be fair enough, but the question is
20 how one can ensure there is sufficient openness and
21 transparency about that so that everybody is satisfied,
22 in this day of mass media communication, that all
23 decisions are being made openly and transparently,
24 without influence that people don't know about. That's
25 my point.
66
1 A. And that would be -- that's correct in terms of business
2 and commercial interests, which is, I think, where the
3 coal manufacturing comes in. All I would say -- I'm not
4 disagreeing with that point -- is that from
5 a journalist's perspective, you're not trying to get to
6 see a politician for your own personal or even your
7 company's commercial interests; you're trying to gather
8 information -- to put it, you know, at its lowest,
9 you're trying to get a good story.
10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But you might be doing it for your
11 commercial considerations. We've talked enough about
12 the BSkyB bid or the anti-bSkyB bid. It doesn't really
13 matter which. That's where the whole thing gets just
14 a little bit fuzzy, doesn't it?
15 A. I have never known anything like the anti-Sky bid
16 alliance and indeed our natural reaction to it -- but
17 I've never heard of every media group in the country and
18 British Telecom and the BBC getting together against one
19 commercial bid.
20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You could take another example. You
21 could take the example of the meeting in 19 -- I have to
22 get the year right.
23 A. '80?
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: The meeting between Rupert Murdoch
25 and Mrs Thatcher, thank you, about the takeover of the
67
1 Times. I'm not suggesting that that's improper. I'm
2 not reaching any conclusion about any of it, but it is
3 another example. The anti-bSkyB bid alliance not merely
4 had the ability to lobby; it had the ability to use its
5 press interests. News International had the ability to
6 use its press interests.
7 A. Well, we didn't, actually, but yes.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Whether you did or you didn't is not
9 my point, as you understand.
10 A. Yes, I do.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So it's a question of ensuring for
12 the public that that pressure, the megaphone on the one
13 hand and the policy decisions on the other, does not get
14 out of hand.
15 A. That's correct, but I really do believe -- I know I keep
16 going on about it, but it's the ordinary people's views
17 that make a newspaper powerful, and if I can just give
18 you one example, where the Daily Mirror ran a very good
19 campaign that chimed with the readership at the
20 beginning, anti the war in Iraq. I think it was called
21 "Not in our name". And the Sun, being pro-military,
22 always kept a very sort of supportive -- you know,
23 backing our troops on the ground. Once the war started,
24 the Mirror continued with the campaign, and I think ran
25 a headline saying, "Why Mirror readers are wrong", and I
68
1 think it's in Piers Morgan's book that I was asked to
2 read again for this inquiry -- he talks about how the
3 circulation of the Mirror plummeted because in fact he'd
4 continued to drive an editorial line in the paper which
5 was against the readership, and they reacted pretty
6 swiftly.
7 I accept that's an extreme example and you were
8 asking me about subtleties in these kind of pressures --
9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And that's why we spoke earlier
10 before about: is it responsiveness or leadership? And
11 there's a bit of both.
12 A. There is absolutely both. I mean, on Sarah's law, for
13 example, although many people questioned the mechanic --
14 and I completely understand that, it was
15 controversial -- the fact is that it was again -- I put
16 a piece of information in front of the readers that
17 I found astonishing when I heard it, was that, for
18 whatever reason in the system, that convicted
19 paedophiles could live in the community unchecked, and
20 that was something I just didn't know and I presented it
21 to the readers in the way I did, and so that was
22 a situation of me putting something in front of them.
23 However, I did know that they were incredibly moved by
24 what happened to the Payne family from their reactions
25 earlier on, so I knew they would be responsive to it.
69
1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's all a bit like that, isn't it?
2 A. It is. It makes it very difficult.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes. Thank you. Is there anything
4 else that you want to add on the subject?
5 A. No, that's fine. Thank you.
6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right. All right, thank you.
7 A. Thank you.
8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right. There's something else we
9 have to deal with, but I'll let Mrs Brooks and anybody
10 who wants to leave. (Pause).
11 Right. Well, we have a little time to continue the
12 issues that were raised by Mr Sherborne. I appreciate
13 he's not here, but he will have the opportunity of
14 reading what everybody says and replying shortly when we
15 next get an opportunity. As long as we're working hard
16 and keeping to the timetable, I don't mind.
17 Right, Mr White, do you want to start?
18 Response to Mr Sherborne's Application
19 MR WHITE: May I? May I also raise one other matter that
20 Mr Jay's mentioned to you, which is on behalf of
21 News International. We would greatly appreciate an
22 opportunity to make a short opening statement on
23 Module 3 on Monday morning. Mr Jay's opening of this
24 module was focused to a very large extent on
25 News International and its conduct and that was, as one
70
1 would expect, widely reported, and we would be very
2 grateful indeed for the opportunity to make a short
3 opening statement.
4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes. In principle, I have no
5 objection to that, Mr White, except I'd need to know
6 where it was going to get me to. I mean, I did ask some
7 weeks ago whether anybody wanted to make opening
8 statements and indeed I think at one stage the Guardian
9 wanted to, and then decided that it wasn't necessary.
10 I'm just a little bit troubled that once I open the door
11 again, then everybody will decide that it's about time
12 they marched through. In one sense, I don't mind that
13 either, except that I have a timetable to deliver and
14 I'm going to deliver it.
15 Have you discussed that with any of your fellow core
16 participants?
17 MR WHITE: I haven't, but may I make this observation: that
18 there was little attention on anybody else and their
19 interaction with politicians in Mr Jay's opening, and
20 therefore I suspect that our desire to say something in
21 response may be somewhat more pressing than other
22 parties'.
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I understand the point. All right,
24 briefly you have that opportunity.
25 MR WHITE: Thank you very much.
71
1 May I then turn to Mr Sherborne's application on
2 Wednesday afternoon? Transcript pages 74 to 5,
3 Mr Sherborne sought a direction. It was be a
4 application of which there had been no advance warning.
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, I know. That's one of the
6 reasons why I was very happy to give everybody the
7 chance to think about it. I'm the only one that should
8 get things thrown at them without knowledge. You should
9 at least have some forewarning. It's one of the perils
10 of judicial life. Yes?
11 MR WHITE: It's a very minor grumble. The application was,
12 as I understand it, for a direction that the newspaper
13 core participants should answer two questions in
14 relation to the Operation Motorman data, if I can use
15 that compendious term. The first we question was what
16 happened to the journalists who used Mr Whittamore's
17 services, in terms of whether they were disciplined or
18 any other action. The second was what steps had been
19 taken to identify whether any information from that data
20 is still being retained or used, and the closing words
21 Mr Sherborne used were: "If it is still being used, this
22 must stop."
23 May I say first of all we were surprised that that
24 application was made more than five months after
25 News International filed its very detailed evidence in
72
1 relation to the Operation Motorman data. That was in
2 the second witness statement of Pia Sarma, the editorial
3 legal director of the Times, which was read into the
4 record of the Inquiry without objection or response from
5 Mr Sherborne's clients, I think five months and two days
6 ago.
7 The first question, what happens to the journalist,
8 seems to us to break down logically into two questions
9 in fact. Firstly, what happened to them back in 2006,
10 when the report "What price privacy now?" was published,
11 and secondly, what might have happened to them at any
12 later stage.
13 Sir, the first question or the first part that,
14 namely what happened in 2006, proceeds, I think it's
15 necessary to remind the Inquiry, on a false premise.
16 The false premise is that the individual journalists in
17 question were either identified or identifiable from
18 "What price privacy now?". In fact, that report, when
19 published in December 2006, simply contained a table
20 which set out names of publications --
21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, I have the point.
22 MR WHITE: Yes.
23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So they couldn't do anything then and
24 indeed they contended that they were wrongly identified
25 anyway. At least certain of the entries in relation to
73
1 clients of yours were challenged.
2 MR WHITE: Yes.
3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: So I understand that. Yes?
4 MR WHITE: You have in mind the Sunday Times was said to
5 have 52 transactions involving seven journalists. When
6 we asked who those were and what they were, it was
7 "corrected" to four transactions involving one
8 journalist.
9 But we also expressly asked for the information to
10 enable us to investigate it and were refused it, and all
11 that is set out in detail in Pia Sarma's witness
12 statement. The MOD reference is MOD10049133,
13 particularly at paragraph 12. I don't think we need to
14 get it up on the screen. But we couldn't do anything in
15 2006.
16 Ms Sarma's witness statement also addresses whether
17 we could have done anything from our own records to try
18 and see whether we could match the table and she
19 explains later in the witness statement, I think at
20 paragraph 16, why, given the age of the data -- which,
21 as you may recall, by December 2006 was between about
22 four and seven years old already -- that simply wasn't
23 practical.
24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I remember. I had forgotten, but
25 I remember now, yes.
74
1 MR WHITE: All of what I'm saying is essentially by way much
2 reminder. Ms Sarma also explained why the unidentified
3 journalists may well have not have been aware of
4 any illegality and what I did want to remind you of was
5 that the vast majority of the Operation Motorman data in
6 relation to my clients consisted simply of ex-directory
7 telephone numbers and our evidence was that those were
8 obtainable through legitimate sources. Indeed, we
9 exhibited some websites providing exactly that service
10 which continue to operate, and one of them claims with
11 the approval of the ICO.
12 So that's one point about whether there was any
13 actual wrongdoing disclosed even against the
14 unidentified journalists but Ms Sarma went further and
15 explained that without knowing the particular
16 transaction, it is was impossible to see whether there
17 was a public interest defence -- an apparent offence or
18 prima facie offence -- under section 55. She did so not
19 in the abstract but by exhibiting at PS6 certain stories
20 which we linked to particular lines in the data, where
21 we said there was a public interest. It's
22 a confidential exhibit but it's in evidence. We didn't
23 do the exercise for every line but doing it for some was
24 an indication of how difficult it is to oversimplify the
25 problem and suggest that any journalist using the
75
1 services should have been disciplined.
2 Then one asks: should we have done something at
3 a later date? I suppose the first question is when, but
4 let us take the example of you when all the participants
5 obtained, through the Inquiry, the relevant data. The
6 position at that stage, sir, is the transactions were by
7 then at least nine years old and since some of them were
8 probably much older, it would have been difficult at
9 that stage to look into them. More difficult.
10 More importantly, I think we had only one or perhaps
11 two journalists named in the data still in employment at
12 any of our titles. But we also took the view that to
13 take disciplinary action against employees for
14 transactions more than nine years old would have been
15 completely indefensible in employment law terms and they
16 were far too stale to start disciplining people.
17 There's a further point that we wanted to emphasise
18 which is that both the former Information Commissioner,
19 Mr Thomas, and the present one, Mr Graham, confirmed at
20 your seminar on 12 October last year, and again in their
21 evidence, that they didn't perceive any problem of the
22 press purchasing illegally obtained information had
23 persisted after 2006. So the problem those gentlemen
24 both identified and the earlier one brought out in the
25 report they saw as historical.
76
1 In those circumstances, we suggest that disciplinary
2 action, either in 2006 or in 2011, wasn't actually
3 realistic against individual journalists and exploring
4 the issue of why it did or didn't happen won't assist
5 your Inquiry at all.
6 As far as the second question is concerned --
7 namely, the retention and possible current processing of
8 the data -- the first point is similar to the one I have
9 been putting forward, namely that in 2006 we couldn't do
10 anything because we didn't know what the data was. By
11 2011, the data is very old. It's got to be at least
12 nine years old. It would be a huge effort,
13 a disproportionate effort, to try and identify what in
14 most cases is this low grade personal information,
15 ex-directory numbers, see if they're on the systems
16 separately from their presence on the systems through
17 other avenues, and again, we question how much you'll be
18 assisted by exploring that issue, certainly now that
19 we're well downstream from Module 1.
20 There's a final point I wanted to make, which is
21 a harder edged point. You have a lot on your plate in
22 this Inquiry, as you say from time to time, and
23 I certainly recognise it myself. There are other
24 officials under the Data Protection Act who have the
25 duty of seeing whether our current processing is lawful,
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1 fair, appropriate. Any individual who is concerned can
2 make a complaint under the Data Processing Act. The
3 High Court as jurisdiction to rule. The ICO has
4 jurisdiction to rule. Fortunately, you may think, you
5 don't.
6 If our current processing, such as it is, is lawful
7 under the Data Processing Act, the press can't be
8 criticised for any retention and continuing processing
9 and I'd respectfully invite you to put aside this
10 invitation to add yet more to your workload, largely
11 because it won't take you anywhere but also for the
12 reasons I've given.
13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, I understand. Thank you very
14 much. Right.
15 MR BROWNE: In cricket I'd be called the nightwatchman.
16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I would never describe you in that
17 way, Mr Browne. Other ways, yes, but not that way.
18 MR BROWNE: The first point I want to make -- and I have
19 five -- is the issue, as Mr White says, is now
20 historical. The search warrant which seized the
21 Whittamore documents was executed as long ago as 8 March
22 2003. Subsequently, as we heard from Mr Gilmour, the
23 seven journalists are interviewed under caution. None
24 of them were ever arrested. Within a matter of, weeks
25 on 6 March 2004, the Crown Prosecution Service had
78
1 concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge
2 any of them. Mr Gilmour explained in his oral evidence
3 that that was because they couldn't establish guilty
4 knowledge on the part of any one of the journalists.
5 You'll recall from exhibit RJT49 to Mr Thomas' first
6 witness statement that when Mr Whittamore and two others
7 appeared in front of Judge Samuels at Blackfriars Crown
8 Court, the judge made it clear that there was no halfway
9 house in the matter and the presumption of innocence
10 applied in relation to each of the journalists in
11 respect of whom a decision had been taken that there was
12 insufficient evidence to charge them.
13 Secondly -- I can take this quickly too; it's a
14 point made by Mr White -- such alleged misbehaviour as
15 had taken place prior to 2006 appears to have ceased in
16 the view of not merely the current Information
17 Commissioner but also his predecessor, Mr Thomas, and
18 indeed you'll recall that in your ruling at the end of
19 last year on access to the evidence submitted by
20 Alexander Owens, you said at paragraph 3 that there was
21 no basis for suggesting that the conduct that had given
22 rise to Operation Motorman had been repeated, and
23 doubtless you derived that from two passages in
24 Mr Thomas' first witness statement at paragraphs 44 and
25 46, where he said that what he was getting from his team
79
1 was that press misconduct of the type that had led to
2 the two ICO reports in the second half of 2006 had
3 largely ceased thereafter and that the allegations that
4 had surfaced since July 2011 appeared to predate 2006.
5 Mr Thomas confirmed all of that when cross-examine by
6 Mr Caplan, Day 14, page 117.
7 More recently -- and we can hand up a copy of this
8 if it is necessary -- Mr Graham, the current Information
9 Commissioner, told the Commons Justice Committee
10 in September last year that so far as the ICO's office
11 was concerned, the activities of the press recently have
12 not particularly come to their attention and the concern
13 that he had about Section 55 was really not very much to
14 do with the press as opposed to those in the financial
15 services sector.
16 Thirdly, when the Inquiry comes to consider culture
17 practices and ethics of the press in relation to my
18 client, a relevant consideration will no doubt be that
19 the editors of the Daily and Sunday Mirror accepted in
20 cross-examination by Mr Barr that given the sheer volume
21 of requests, it would be surprising if every request to
22 Mr Whittamore by their journalists was covered by
23 a public interest defence. That, we say, is really as
24 far as you need to go, and when the question arose on
25 day 37 during the evidence of Mr Dacre of much the same
80
1 question, you indicated that what interested you and the
2 Inquiry was whether it was accepted that there was
3 a possibility that some the inquiries could not be
4 justified. If I can just quote a sentence from what you
5 said. At page 56 of Day 37 in the afternoon, you said
6 this:
7 "I'm not concerned to ask how many or who because
8 that's a detail which, for the purposes of my Inquiry,
9 I don't believe I need to go into."
10 You said something very similar in response to
11 Mr Sherborne on Wednesday afternoon at page 76 when you
12 said that the purpose of the Inquiry cannot be to answer
13 all the factual issues and you said this:
14 "It would be quite impossible to look at ten years
15 of journalistic endeavour across a wide range of titles
16 and do balanced and fair justice to individual
17 incidents."
18 Fourth point --
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Sometimes I say things which appeal
20 to me even now.
21 MR BROWNE: That comes as much comfort.
22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm not so sure, Mr Brown.
23 MR BROWNE: I think (inaudible) is the adjective that comes
24 into my mind.
25 Fourthly, the requests which Mr Sherborne made,
81
1 which are effectively to reopen and extend the ambit of
2 Module 1, come far, far too late in the day. I had to
3 ask somebody to tell me but I had to be reminded that
4 hearings in Module 1 ended as long ago as Thursday,
5 9 February, and I wish Mr Sherborne was here so I didn't
6 have to say this behind his back, but it really is
7 disingenuous to suggest, as he did when he opened this
8 application, that it was made in the light of
9 DCI Gilmour's evidence. The detective chief inspector
10 had said nothing in his oral evidence or in his witness
11 statement to suggest, for example, that offending
12 journalists had been promoted to senior positions, a
13 point that Mr Sherborne wishes to pursue in the first
14 set of questions.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You haven't said it behind his back.
16 He'll read it.
17 MR BROWNE: Good. He may even be watching me live.
18 Indeed, just reverting to DCI Gilmour, he was at
19 pains not to mention the names of the journalists
20 questioned, in accordance not only with your
21 self-denying ordinance but also the stance adopted by
22 Mr Thomas and the ICO. You'll recall that Mr Thomas, in
23 his second witness statement, said that the ICO had
24 always regarded the names as personal data and he
25 emphasised the sensitive nature of that data by reason
82
1 of the fact that the names had been obtained by reason
2 of the exercise of the search warrant in March 2004, the
3 journalists had not been prosecuted, let alone convicted
4 and they'd had no chance to defend themselves.
5 The other point in relation to delay is this. Back
6 on 13 March 2012 at the beginning of Day 49 in the
7 morning, you, sir, made a ruling declining to make
8 public the submissions received in private on 2 December
9 last year in relation to Mr Owens' evidence and you
10 added to that, as one sees between pages 2 and 3 of Day
11 49 in the morning, that if Mr Sherborne wished to argue
12 that it was appropriate that the Inquiry should publish
13 the documents seized in Operation Motorman in 2003, you
14 would set aside time formally and in public to consider
15 the issue, but in the same ruling, having emphasised yet
16 again that the Inquiry was not concerned with individual
17 conduct, you said it would be unfair to name the
18 reporters identified in the Whittamore records seized
19 during Operation Motorman.
20 Finally on this issue, the sheer volume of
21 information would make answering these enquiries
22 impossibly burdensome at any time, let alone so late in
23 the day. There are, on any footing, a large number of
24 transactions, a large number of journalists who would
25 have to be investigated, and there is no easy way into
83
1 that process because there's no database as such of the
2 information from the Whittamore documents.
3 My fifth and final point, turning to the detail of
4 the questions as applicable to Trinity Mirror --
5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I've got up to six points, Mr Browne,
6 but never mind. Yes.
7 I found I couldn't count yesterday, I counted the
8 wrong number of families, as somebody was quick to
9 correct me. Yes?
10 MR BROWNE: First of all, the group in questions one, we
11 already know the answers to the majority of those
12 questions. They were covered in the evidence of the
13 editors and of Sly Bailey, our chief executive, on
14 16 January. No one at the Mirror was fired, no one was
15 disciplined, and just to summarise very shortly, what
16 Mrs Bailey said was that in 2006, following the
17 publication of the ICO report "What price privacy?",
18 Trinity Mirror had adopted what she described as
19 a forward-looking approach, not declaring an amnesty and
20 making very, very, very clear, she said, what was
21 acceptable and what was completely and absolutely
22 unacceptable. If, back then in January, there had been
23 relevant additional questions to ask, they should have
24 been submitted then.
25 In relation to the last of the four subsidiary
84
1 questions in question one, namely are the journalists
2 still working for the newspaper and even being
3 appropriated to senior positions, the Inquiry's
4 consistent approach, rightly in our submission, has been
5 not to identify individual journalists.
6 In relation to question 2, the procedure of this
7 Inquiry is, we submit, not a Trojan horse to fish for
8 disclosure which cannot be obtained by other means.
9 I think that's a terrible mixed metaphor, but I hope my
10 meaning is clear. You will doubtless be aware that the
11 ICO has established, I believe since the commencement of
12 this Inquiry, a fast-track service whereby individuals
13 can find out, by means of a subject access request under
14 the DPA, if the Whittamore notebooks contain any
15 information about them. That is route that is open, and
16 there was certainly nothing in Mr Gilmour's evidence to
17 suggest that information was still being retained, let
18 alone used, nine years after it had been seized.
19 Indeed, very much the contrary, in the light of what
20 Mr Thomas and Mr Graham have said.
21 My final, final point is this. Following the
22 hearing on 2 December last year, the data sticks with
23 the Whittamore information on them were released to the
24 core participants, including Mr Sherborne and his
25 client. They were released precisely so that, having
85
1 analysed them, they could make submissions on the
2 contents. It appears that that is an option that they
3 have declined to take. They have chosen not to do so,
4 and now, very, very late in the day, nearly six months
5 later, they adopt this procedure, which will involve
6 going back over Module 1 and involve a massive exercise
7 both for the participants, if they are ordered to
8 undertake it, but also for the Inquiry subsequently to
9 analyse it. In my submission, it is a simply hopeless
10 application.
11 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you.
12 MR CAPLAN: I adopt all of that. I don't know whether I can
13 usefully add anything, but I think it's all been said,
14 if I may say so.
15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much. I'll let
16 Mr Sherborne read it all and at some stage when we next
17 have a break and I feel we need to do some more work,
18 he'll get the chance to respond.
19 Anybody else want to say anything else on this
20 topic?
21 Thank you very much. 10 o'clock on Monday morning.
22 (4.22 pm)
23 (The hearing adjourned until 10 o'clock
24 on Monday, 14 May 2012)
25
86