Independent on Sunday editor John Mullin issued a robust defence when he was summoned to appear at the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon to answer questions over a story claiming Andy Coulson owned shares in News Corp while at No 10.

Mullin admitted seeing a copy of Coulson’s witness statement last Thursday, which is due to be published by the inquiry this afternoon, but insisted no information from it was used in the story.

Instead, he told the inquiry that the paper had already stood the story up with three different sources the night before.