Leveson inquiry: Piers Morgan gives evidence - live
Full coverage as the former News of the World editor appears at the inquiry into press standards and phone hacking
12.13pm: On page 89 she describes a story that starts with an editor's request. It says the ditor's request was an odd one. The town of Banbury was to be given government funded sex education.
The reporter in the book was tasked with proving Banbury was "a hot bed of lust" and full of "lusty ladies".
She is asked if it was common for an editor to decide what the story was and then ask the reporter to go out and get it.
Yes it was typical - except the dialogue is a dramatisation
12.09pm: This is the extract from Marshall's witness statement referring to Gaffney and the "injoke" about Ross Kemp and Rebekah Wade.
Barr asks: At page 65 of your book you describe a colleague encouraging a caller who claimed to have slept with a television actor (Dean Gaffney) to call again immediately if there were ever two girls involved or "one of the Mitchells". Is this account of the telephone call true? Did your colleagues often encourage "kiss and tells" to engage in more salacious activity?
45. As above, this should be seen as a dramatisation of events. However, it is true that newspapers would publish a telephone number which encouraged readers to call in with any potential news stories, and it is true that as a result of this certain ladies would call in on this number and describe details of sexual encounters with celebrities
to see if the newspaper would be interested in printing a 'kiss and tell'.46. However all newsdesk conversations in the book should again be regarded as dramatisations given that it is several years since I worked in a newsroom and I was writing a book to sell, not a documentary. The phrases "one of the Mitchells" and "ever two girls involved" should be seen as a fictional storytelling devices.
47. In terms of Dean Gaffney in particular, my ! colleagu es received several calls over the years about his rather exotic personal life which resulted in headlines by other journalists including: "Naked Eastender wanted 5-in-bed bender," "I got Dean & dirty with EastEnder sweepers," and "ALBERT SQUARE STREET CLEANERS TEAM UP FOR 3-IN-A-BED EASTENDERS." The merits of the story itself aside, I was unaware of any ethical questions arising from the stories.
48. Further, as the journalism colleague I based this conversation on is now deceased I am unable to give you any more information about any conversations he may have had.
At no point did I witness any reporter actively encourage young women to try and engage with salacious activity with any other cast members of any soaps, whether "Mitchell" or otherwise for the purposes of a "kiss and tell."
My knowledge of the situation is that the only active encouragement of any kind that was engaged in was an encouragement to contact the newspaper and report it if it did happen
12.05pm: Marshall is being asked about a kiss and tell story about the former EastEnder actor Dean Gaffney.
Marshall says it was an "in-joke" in the book because the person who played one of the Mitchell brothers is married to someone she worked for.
(The former editor of the News of the World Rebekah Wade was married to former EastEnders actor Ross Kemp)
12.03pm: Barr says this Robohack story has similarities with the Max Mosley story.
Marshall says this has "nothing to do" with Max Mosley story.
Barr explains that Robohack's story is one of blackmail, something that the News of the World has been accused of deploying to get the story about the Max Mosley orgy.
No, merely heard this one pub anecdote, that's all I know
12.01pm: This is the extract about Robohack from Sharon Marshall's witness statement.
In terms of the tale on page 63, my source was a col! league w ho did not tell me where they got the story from, only that it was general knowledge in the industry. When I checked the story I discovered that it was true that a story was written in which a TV star's "frantic cocaine and sex session" is detailed. It is true that the individual whose byline appeared onthe piece was nicknamed in the industry as "love rat," and that the reason for this moniker was that he had conned his girlfriend at the time into giving
the story about her TV star friend by taping their conversations. As the basic facts were correct and the underlying narrative fit into the style of my book, I included it.43. As to the precise details quoted in the request, I have no evidence that they are true, they were included for dramatisation. I never asked the journalist directly whether the anecdote was accurate as to how he obtained the story and his moniker and I was obviously not present for any conversations he may or may not have had with any partner of his or of the other details concerning champagne and the tape recorder. It may well be that the truth was rather more mundane and that the story was obtained whilst respecting journalistic standards and following them to the letter.
44. Without a doubt, my account is a dramatisation of what may already have been an embellished account of the episode.
11.54am: There is no another slightly tense exchange with Leveson and Marshall.
She is being asked about a character to "robohack" in her book. Robohack got a headline story 'frantic coke and sex session' involving a TV star. He had conned his girlfriend at the time into revealing secrets about her famous friend by taping their conversations.
I was creating a heinous character...that was supposed to repel the reader. I thought it was a useful tale, a useful narrative. I didn't do any legal documents. It was a bit of top spin.
Leveson intervenes again.
What do you mean as top ! spin? Ly ing?
She says she got the story in a pub, but it was anecdotal.
I shouldn't have allowed it to be called a true story, [I should have said] based on a true story.
11.52am: In the book she tells how she hid in a church for "three terrifying hours" to get a sneak peak at a wedding being filmed for the US series.
She explains it wasn't anything sinister and her version of what happened included a bit of top spin.
The church was built in a studio set, she had been invited to be an extra and the scene was being filmed in front of 600 people.
11.48am: Marshall is being asked about the occasion she "broke onto the Friends set" by carrying 50 Big Macs and chips.
Marshall says Leveson needs to put this story into context - it was not "blagging"; it was merely a bit of fun.
Let's put this into context... i went down to friends filming because I fancied Matt le Blanc.
.
She adds:
Take it as topspin that somebody told me to break into friends set. I blagged my way to front of crowd by carrying 50 Big Macs and chips, yes.
She says Friends was being filmed in Tower Hill in front of a public audience and it wasn't a "breach of confidence".
The story that ended up being printed was that top secret plots are being filmed for top show friends.
11.44am: Barr is asking her when she wrote "rest assured all these stories happened", was she telling the truth.
I was writing something somebody told me in the pub. But i didn't have hard evidence for [the stories] because I wasn't writing a witness statement.
Leveson has now intervened again to establish whether Marshall is providing "an accurate account" of the business she worked on.
It has got a bit of top spin. I have occasionally heightened reality to create a good tale. I would dr! amatise a conversation that appeared to be a good tale... but it's based on a true story
11.39am: Marshall says she used her own experiences and those of others to create the character's and their stories. She says the main character is an 'amalgamation' of various journalists.
I was writing a comedy, I wasn't writing a legal document.
She says a reference to "devious" tactics used by a character in the book is "because they managed to put a dead camel on expenses" not because they did something to ruin someone's lives.
She said she wrote it before the phone hacking scandal blew up and the events that led to the Leveson inquiry being set up.
Had I written it after, I would have written a different book.
11.37am: Sharon Marshall is now talking about her book Tabloid Girl. It is a dramatised book, a light comedy, she says.
Leveson asks her twice is it a true story.
Marshall says "it is based on a true story", but says "you shouldn't take this as gospel fact".
11.27am: Marshall says "you would be expected that on a weekly paper you would at least have one story in the paper every week."
She says a ruling by the PCC against a journalist was serious.
If someone got a PCC against them, it was seen as serious, it was not career-ending, but it was serious.
11.22am: Barr wants to know if "shifters" are under more pressure than staffers.
Marshall says most journalists are ethical regardless of their employment status. "Most journalists would absolutely bear the subject of the story in mind....what is the moral effect of the story, are you damaging their lives.
Barr asks "is that really right" given the stories the inquiry has heard [from the likes of McCanns etc]
Marshall says she didn't work on any of those stories.
11.19am:Marshall says she told the editor and deput! y editor in writing what she had been asked to do. The person who asked her to breach the PCC code stayed at the paper while she left.
I didn't feel I could work on the paper anymore. I guess I just fell out of love with the whole industry.
When I let other people on the paper know what had happened, the reaction was one of horror - it was not condoned [management responsibilty?]
I reported in writing to the editor and to the deputy editor. That ought to do it. I've made my bosses aware and I've made my resignation and I've walked. I've stopped the story going in and as far as I was concerned that's my bit done.
11.15am: Marshall reveals she resigned from the News of the World after being asked to write a story about a celebrity being cheated on by her partner, when the story wasn't true.
In her resignation letter she said she had been asked to breach the PCC code.
I didn't feel that I could work on the paper any more.
The story concerned a celebrity allegedly being cheated on.
I don't want the celebrity in question's name to be put into the public. She has children and it's a few days before Christmas
[The] celebrity who was pregnant at the time and I was told that her partner was cheating on her and photographic evidence [of this]...but the photograph was two years old, so I knew the story was untrue. ... I just made sure I killed it.
It was never going to be published, i would never have allowed it to be published.
11.11am: Robert Barr ask Marshall "what steps your editors took within the newspaper to communicate to staff that they must at all times act ethically."
Marshall:
You've got to remember I'm not in these high level editorial meetings.
The vast majority of people I worked for, I didn't see any evidence of people being unethical.
11.08am: Were any of h! er colle agues fired for ethical breaches during her time on tabloid newspapers?
"I left eight years ago, I can't recall any instance off the top of my head."
Can she recall any instances of line managers telling a reporter off or holding them to account?
"I can't think of any off the top of my head, sorry."
Was it common for editors to raise their voices.
I wouldn't say editors plural, there are individuals on newspapers... some individuals are angrier than others.
11.06am: Did she have any formal training about ethics? Robert Barr, counsel for the inquiry asks.
I came straight out of training. I did a media training course which would've covered aspects like the PCC code... went to my local paper and did shifts. I was told rule number one was look after your contacts.
11.04am: Marshall said as a specialist on the News of the World, she would guard her sources.
No, you never talk about your source. If someone from the TV industry has given me some great stories, you're not going to say [to another reporter] go talk to him, he sings like a canary.
She explains as a reporter you would not be quizzed about her source, but would be asked how she had "stood up" a story, had she put the story to the agent; had she got a quote.
11.02am: Marshall is being asked about competition within the paper.
She explains how if a story was working on the splash - front page - story, others in the office would not necessarily know about it.
Sometimes if they were working on a big story, they may even work out of the office.
11.01am: She says she doesn't think bullying is rife in newspapers.
I wouldn't say there's a culture of bullying. there are some managers who are less than idyllic. or maybe you have a disagreement about how story is [done].
11.00am: Marshall said the culture of the newspaper! "kind o f comes down to your boss".
She had a "fabulous" time at the Sun. "The vast majority of journalists are brilliant to work for and yes you can have some bad experiences if bad people are working there.
10.58am: She joined in the mid-1990s as a "shifter".
She worked at the Daily Star, the Daily Express, joined the Sunday People in 1998.
She worked at the News of the World between 2002 and 2004 and joined the Sun contributing to a humorous lifestyle column in 2006.
10.57am: Sharon Marshall, author of the book Tabloid Girl, is now giving evidence.
10.55am: Turner claims Express owner Richard Desmond is a bully.
There are bullies in newspapers and there's got to be an open way of dealing with those ... the present newspaper managements, in my experience, in all companies other than the FT and Guardian, don't want to deal with that; there aren't bullies at the Express group, other than the proprietor.
10.52am: Turner says one of the biggest problems in newspapers is the army of "second-class citizens" employed.
The biggest are of injustice in newspapers is the are of regular casuals where most national newspaper groups employ large numbers of people who they chose to call casuals ... who work for the same paper for 10 or 20 years.And they are treated like and 'as and when casuals' and when they are got rid of they either get no compensation or they get compensation that's inferior to permanent staff ...
There really should not be any army of second-class citizens working in newspapers, but they do.
10.51am: Turner says the constant cutting of costs is adding to the pressure.
If we carry on with the present commercial arrangements, it's going to be the demise of national newspapers and local newspapers.
10.49am: Turner says management back bullies up. !
It's almost distressing to see members expect to get justice through this process and it never happens... one level of management backs up the next...
10.47am: Bullying is still going on in newspapers, says Turner.
In one company fairly recently, one of our members went to management to complain of bullying and they said to him immediately 'you'd better leave'... the bully is still there, nothing's been done about it.
10.44am: Turner says legal action is not the answer to bullying.
It sounds a bit of an extreme measure but the consequence is to drive people out of a good job and a good career and that is pretty serious stuff. Litigation in the courts is only damage limitation.
Leveson intervenes: "So what you need is a culture change?"
Turner says:
What is really needed is for journalists to use their collective power through their unions to change working practices.
A culture change would be enormously helpful but I'm afraid we have cowboy management in Fleet Street and I don't see that happening at the moment.
10.41am: In the last three to four years about 15 people have to come to him with serious cases of bullying.
The majority of those have ended up leaving their newspapers.
10.38am: From 2005 and 2007, Turner was advising Driscoll.
After Driscoll's first disciplinary hearing, Turner wanted to ensure he was not troubled after this.
The reporter asked Turner to represent him at the second disciplinary hearing.
Driscoll became ill at the end of July in 2006.
They subjected to him with the most amazingly unpleasant behaviour, bombarding him with phone calls and wanting to send a nurse to his money.
They then stopped his pay but reinstated his pay about a month later.
10.37am: The inquiry is now turning to Ma! tt Drisc oll's case. The former sports reporter on the News of the World told Leveson yesterday how he had taken the paper to an employment tribunal and won a payout of 800,000.
10.32am: Another bullying example in an unnamed tabloid newspaper but not the News of the World is now being discussed.
A senior executive at this paper told a reporter:
"I don't want a story about a bent policeman I want a story about a whole bent police force."
The reporter concerned had been bullied over a long period of time and was ringing Turner twice a week to get advice.
Because I have seen so many of these things end in tears and possible job loss, Turner's approach was to counsel the reporter through the difficult time in the hope that the executive would move on to someone else.
10.29am: Turner is now being asked about a case he was involved in about fabrication of stories in an unnamed tabloid about five or six years ago. The newspaper made up stories and used "teenagers of 14, 15 or 16 who were only too willing to be pictured" to illustrate them.
It was one of those situations where the newspaper wanted to have a regular column about extraordinary happenings to people, but obviously was quickly going to run out of [genuine stuff].
There was a name in the office for these articles he said which would confirm these stories were fabricated.
10.27am: There is no doubt confidentiality agreements prevent people discussing this issue of bullying and victimisation.
One of the most important issues in the confidentiality agreements is that you can't take further action, such as an unfair dismissal case, against the paper.
Turner says:
I think that's fair enough but I think you should be allowed to talk about it.
10.24am: Turner says nervous breakdowns are not uncommon.
Matt Driscoll's case was 2006 and other cases he d! ealt wit h were in the previous five years. But others "decided to move on before there was any damage done to them".
It is not uncommon to have a nervous breakdown as a result of this unrealistic terrorising, because that's what it comes down to.
10.19am: He is now talking about bullying and victimisation at the News of the World.
He says many just leave quietly with a severance deal.
What happened with Matt Driscoll was he wasn't willing to be fobbed off.
10.17am: Turner says bullying is commonplace in newsrooms.
He says he has received many complaints about bullying over the years in the provincial and national press.
He says bullying would involve "an overbearing head of department who is demanding too much work from an individual with the effect their working life is a bit of a problem".
10.15am:Turner says in 1984 the technological revolution had caught up with Fleet Street.
He said there was a "double whammy to maximise profits while at the same time circulation was in decline".
There was enormous pressure put on reporters to produce exciting stories and more revelatory stories and as the staffing levels declined ... there was pressure on individual journalists to cut corners.
10.13am: Turner was a journalist before he joined the NUJ.
He worked as a subeditor in Fleet Street. He was an NUJ representative for many years at the Daily Mirror.
10.08am: Steve Turner, who represented the former News of the World journalist Matt Driscoll, is now being sworn in.
He is being questioned by Carine Patry Hoskins.
Turner was formerly a general secretary at the NUJ.
He then joined the British Association of journalists. Mirror Group Newspapers forms the majority of its membership base.
10.06am: The attendance note for the meeting 13 May 2010! was typ ed up on 15 June.
The typist had the document open for 6 hours and 16 minutes, Leveson hears.
There is no reference in the attendance note to the alleged relationship between Mark Lewis and Charlotte Harris, Robert Jay, counsel for the Leveson inquiry, observes.
Pike had previously said that was discussed.
10.04am: He has supplied the inquiry with historic emails which show notifications he got from various parties including lawyer Sarah Webb notifiying him that Miller was going to make a claim in May.
He also received a letter from the Metropolitan police in relation to the matter in May.
10.02am: Pike is being recalled in relation to an attendance note for a meeting in May 2010 which related to Sienna Miller.
He was asked about this last week after David Sherborne, counsel for Miller and other phone-hacking victims, queried how he knew about the actress's claim before it became public.
10.01am: The Leveson inquiry has started. It appears that solicitor Julian Pike, the Farrer & Co partner is on first.
9.50am: Roy Greenslade is reporting on his Guardian blog that Derek Webb, the private investigator who spied on people on behalf of the News of the World, has resigned from the National Union of Journalists.
Roy writes:
He quit the union last week amid continuing controversy over his membership.
Further to my posting yesterday, Come on NUJ, explain how a private eye became a union member, I am able to shed more light on the matter.
An NUJ spokesperson explained that the union had followed normal procedures in allowing Webb to join. He completed the same form that all applicants fill in.
He did not, of course, mention that he was a private detective, referring to himself as a "researcher", which the NUJ deems to be a perfectly respectable occupation worthy of membership.
9.25am: Welcome to the Leveson inquiry live blog.
Today the inquiry will hear from six witnesses including Piers Morgan, the TV host and former editor of the Daily Mirror and the News of the World.
He is expected to be the last or second last witness of the day as he is giving evidence by video link from Los Angeles.
Also up today is Julian Pike, partner at Farrer & Co, the law firm used by News International to negotiate its phone hacking settlements. He is appearing today for the second time.
Sharon Marshall, TV critic for This Morning, will also testify. She worked on the News of the World as the TV editor but it is understood that Leveson has called her as a witness to discuss her book Tabloid Girl.
Chris Johnson a journalist with news agency Mercury Press will give evidence after 11.30am. He is there in his capacity as the treasurer of the National Association of Press Agencies.
He was mentioned as a representative of one of the "reputable" agencies by the former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis.
Steve Turner, who represented a former sports journalist at the News of the World in an employment tribunal, is also testifying today.
The sports journalist, Matt Driscoll, yesterday told the inquiry how the paper dismissed him after years of being considered one of the paper's top reporters. It ended up paying out 800,000 in an employment tribunal.
Journalist Matthew Bell is the sixth witness today. He has written for the Daily Express and MailOnline.
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