View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Media Law
February 17, 2011

Accident defence on 2009 phone-hack claim ‘nonsense’

By PA Mediapoint

The phone hacking row between Kelly Hoppen and the News of the World went to the High Court today.

Mr Justice Eady was due to rule on the disclosure of information to Ms Hoppen and her lawyers by the newspaper’s suspended journalist Dan Evans, who is alleged to have attempted to access the interior designer’s voice mails in June 2009 with a phone registered to News International Supply Company (NISC) Ltd.

But there was no need for his intervention after Evans’s lawyers said a “pragmatic decision” had been taken to permit Hoppen’s team to carry out further searches of his computers, although they did not accept it was justified.

It was agreed that this would be subject to careful control as it involved access to private and irrelevant material.

Hoppen was in court to hear counsel David Sherborne say the case was of considerable importance as it drove a “coach and horses” through News Group’s claim that the criminal activities of former Royal editor Clive Goodman who – with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire was jailed over royal phone taps in 2007 – were “historic” and that the “single rotten apple” had been removed.

He dismissed as “extraordinary” Evans’ claim that the calls were accidental as a result of sticky keys, and said his case was “torpedoed” by new evidence which had emerged from the Metropolitan Police, which “could and should have been provided earlier”, showing that Mulcaire had obtained private information about Ms Hoppen in 2005.

“The suggestion that these calls to her voice-mail were an accident is simply nonsense. She was a target of the News of the World in 2009, the same way she was in 2005/6,” Sherborne said.

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

The judge, sitting in London, heard that the Metropolitan Police had consented to the disclosure of the Mulcaire material relating to Hoppen.

Sherborne added: “We say that where there is a defence of an innocent state of mind, as Dan Evans says, the contents of his computer – what he was looking at to do with Kelly Hoppen and when – is critically relevant.”

He said Hoppen’s claim would amount to breach of confidence, data protection and harassment.

Michael Silverleaf QC, for Evans and NISC, said that the claim as it stood was “completely speculative”, and went on: “The claimant has no coherent evidence and needs a positive outcome from these searches to proceed. That is why this is a fishing expedition.

“Dan Evans says he was not doing anything in relation to the claimant in June 2009 and had no reason to call her phone and, as far as he is aware, didn’t do so.”

His computers had already been subject to extensive investigation which showed nothing incriminating, but there was evidence that he carried out a number of searches about Ms Hoppen after he was told of the allegations against him.

“Viewed with an unbiased eye, the evidence on his computer is not only consistent with complete innocence but indicative of innocence,” Silverleaf added.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network