agricola
a genuine importer of owls
I doubt it. They will probably leave it alone when/if Coulson resigns and pretend it was all confined to his time at News International, and ignore everything else.
N.o.W. reporter jailed
- Thread starter TAE
- Start date
I doubt it. They will probably leave it alone when/if Coulson resigns and pretend it was all confined to his time at News International, and ignore everything else.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
TBH he is probably right to - for a start, this practice is not confined to the NOTW, nor did Coulson implement it (either media-wide or at the NOTW itself).
Secondly, other directors of communication have done much, much worse than Coulson has - as the helpful CiF contributors pointed out on Campbell's astonishingly hypocritical piece in the Guardian today. It would be daft to sack Coulson for doing exactly the same as nearly every other editor in Fleet Street has done solely because Labour have chosen to make a political issue of this.
This issue is not and should not be confined to Coulson.
But Coulson didn't do it - he has constantly denied all knowledge of it being done by anyone in his newsroom ... but if, as everyone seems to say, it's such a widespread and routine tactic and all that went wrong here is that someone got caught and hung out to dry, that means he's either (a) lying or (b) incompetent.
So Cameron would be well advised to bin him as soon as possible (though personally I'd be quite happy for him to remain as it will only be a matter of time before he implodes and, hopefully, causes significantly more damage to the Tories in the process).
Having read quite a lot of what the Guardian has printed, I've got to say that I don't see a huge amount to justify their headline about 3000 people's phones intercepted. I suspect there is nothing there that the police weren't aware of at the start (after all, it was police documents revealed to Gordon Taylor's lawyers that set this whole thing off again) and that it has taken them no time at all to review what has been printed to see if there is anything new and, if not, to simply say they stand by their original investigation (and it would not surprise me to find they had thought through the implications of what they supplied to the lawyers going public at the time they supplied it, and so had done all the thinking and planning of how to respond in advance).
Would be interested to know the actual evidence against any others and who exactly was referred to the CPS for consideration of what though. And whether or not there was any actual (as opposed to conspired) compromise of John Prescott's phone and, if so, why they decided not to inform him (something that would seem to be a pretty inexplicable decision if that is what had happened).
Just watched it now (missed it last night) - he sounds about as confused as me about what's going on ... I suspect his comment about maybe both accounts being true (i.e. there is no enough evidence for a criminal case (which requires evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt) but enough for a civil case (which only requires evidence to prove on the balance of probabilities) is at least part of the explanation.
But as for why people weren't told - it sounds like he's saying where there was (any) evidence that their phone had been compromised then people were told ... which sort of suggests there was no evidence of actual (as opposed to attempted) compromise of everyone else's ... in which case The Guardian's "3000 victims" will turn out be something a bit different from how it is currently portrayed.
Time for a clear, detailed release of the result of the police investigation I think - exactly what was looked at (i.e. what were the parameters of the investigation) and exactly what was found (i.e. numbers of compromises or whatever and numbers of people involved (as suspects or victims) and what became of them (and why)). Until then I suspect it'll swirl around with everyone talking at cross purposes.
And I really wish they'd stop referring to "phone tapping" - so far as I have seen there has been no evidence of that (i.e. the actual technical interception of communications) at all - it's been unlawfully accessing voicemail boxes.
I was thinking more of the stuff he said about how the investigation was parcelled out to a special operations branch who are principally concerned with protection of the royal family and anti-terrorism.
He imagined that once the initial investigation, involving the royals, had been put to bed the special operations branch lost interest because the rest of the evidence didn't fall under their remit and consequently they might have dropped the wider investigation with no one coming in to pick up the leftovers.
It sounds plausible to me.
He imagined that once the initial investigation, involving the royals, had been put to bed the special operations branch lost interest because the rest of the evidence didn't fall under their remit and consequently they might have dropped the wider investigation with no one coming in to pick up the leftovers.
It sounds plausible to me.
Not so sure about that ... if it was the case that a single journo / private detective, dealing only with the Royal family had been brought to notice, and during the investigation of that nothing came to the notice of the investigating officers which implicated anyone else in any way then yes, I'd agree that would be a plausible explanation (all investigations have to have some sort of parameters set or they just wander off in all directions).
BUT it appears that there was clear evidence of other journos / private detectives / victims that DID come to light (as is apparent by the fact that stuff relating to Gordon Taylor was revealed to his lawyers) and so no competent detective would just leave it hanging, certainly not something that serious / explosive. At very least the initial investigating officer would bring to the notice of a senior officer that they had taken their initial investigation as far as it could but there was loads more that needed to be done and so someone else would need to be found to do it.
As it would be perfectly plain to any senior officer that this was a disaster waiting to happen unless it was dealt with properly I can't see that it would just have been allowed to sit there half completed. If it was, someone's in the shit big-time. John Yates is no fool (and is one of the most competent senior officers in terms of detective experience) and his statement suggested to me that whatever was done was done as thoroughly as necessary and it was brought to a standstill at a reasonable and justifiable place ...
... but there is still something that is not right - there is a piece still missing from what we know I'm pretty sure.
(Brian Paddick was never a detective ... the lids may be unprofessional and just leave a job half-done when their shift ends or whatever ... but the detectives are a bit more professional than that!
p to Brian if you're still hanging around here!))No idea, to be honest. It's quite rare for me to be presented with something and not be able to read pretty clearly between the lines at least to some extent but there's something definitely a bit odd here. I've got one idea but I think it's unlikely and I wouldn't want to speculate about it publicly at the moment.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
One would imagine that the Met know (indeed, anyone who has read Flat Earth News and various issues of Private Eye will know) that any investigation into this will not stop at Coulson and his time at the NOTW. It will require looking at every paper who bugged phones, every paper who corrupted / helped to corrupt employees at public and private concerns in order to get information, in short every paper who practiced the "dark arts". In terms of journalists, its worth pointing out that one agency used for these dark arts - targetted in Operation Motorman
- was used by 305 journalists from 20 papers.
One would imagine that such an investigation would require hundreds of officers, dozens of silks, a great deal of time and be conducted against an almost entirely hostile Press. Indeed, the experience of Operation Motorman - in which the two private detectives, one ex-PC and an ex-CAD operator were found guilty of lesser offences and given a two year conditional discharge (and none of the journos were charged) - will probably act as further disincentive to act.
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