The editors of News International titles have appeared for the second time at the Leveson Inquiry today.James Harding, editor of the Times, answered questions on former Times journalist Patrick Foster, who hacked into the email account of an anonymous blogger to uncover his identity in 2009.Richard Horton, a police detective, had written about his work life under the name Jack Night. Harding said he had recently learnt more about events surrounding the hacking.The inquiry were shown a series of emails between Times staff, including Foster and then legal manager Alastair Brett. The messages showed Foster saying he had managed to stand up the story with information about Horton from the public domain, after Brett and then home news editor Martin Barrow expressed concern over the origin of the story.In one email Foster wrote: “Alastair I've cracked it. I can do the whole lot from purely publicly accessible information.”He also said he wanted time to distance a published story from the “dirty deed”, which is believed to refer to the hacking of Horton’s email account.Harding said: “If Mr Foster had come to me and said at he had done this... we would have taken disciplinary action, that we did take, and I would have told him immediately to abandon the story.“I would have said that I did not believe that that intrusion was warranted in the public interest.”The editor said he was not aware of the story, or the fact the Times had gone to the High Court over an injunction taken out by the blogger, until a later date. He said Brett had apologised for not raising it with him before the injunction was heard in court by Mr Justice Eady, who refused to grant the injunction on the basis of public interest. The Times then published the story outing Horton as the author of blog Night Jack.Foster implied in a witness statement to the High Court that confidential sources and a process of deduction had lead him to Horton’s identity. He was given a formal warning of gross professional misconduct and later left the Times over another matter.Harding said he was shocked to hear Horton's lawyers raised on six occasions concerns about email hacking, and that Brett had “pushed them off”.He added: “I would have taken the view immediately that this was not right, this was not the way in which we pursued stories, and certainly we had no business doing it without being consulted in advance.”Horton is currently taking legal advice on a privacy claim against the newspaper.Harding apologised on behalf of the paper and said: “I sorely regret the intrusion into Richard Horton's email account by a journalist then in our newsroom. I'm sure that Mr Horton and many other people expect better of the Times; so do I."Dominic Mohan, editor of the Sun, was recalled to answer questions on the paper’s portrayal of women and transgender individuals.Robert Jay QC, inquiry counsel, also presented the editor with several articles from the paper referring to the phone calls of celebrities, including singer Liam Gallagher and Eastenders actor Sid Owen.Mohan denied the stories had been obtained by phone hacking, but said he could not say “100 per cent” as an internal investigation is being conducted by News International, the Sun’s parent company. He said he had no warning Sun journalists were going to be arrested in relation to Operation Elveden on January 28.The editor called Page 3 an “innocuous British institution” that celebrates natural beauty.He said: “I don't think the images are sexualised in the way that even some clothed images are in magazines, advertisements, pop videos and I think it's worth looking at Page 3 in a wider context.”He added: “Some of the allegations I've heard about the Sun being sexist in some way and not tackling women's issues I think is a false one.”Mohan was shown a 2004 article referring to Claire Short, then an MP, as “fat and jealous” after she criticised the paper’s portrayal of women. He was also asked to comment on a description of model Kelly Brook’s chest as “the Mitchell brothers”.He said the Sun had raised standards in terms of transgender reporting and admitted previous coverage of individuals was “not our finest moment”.The inquiry also heard from representatives of photographer agencies. Neil Turner, vice chairman of the British Press Photographers’ Association, said photographers at the agency acted in a professional manner and had to work in accordance with the Press Complaints Commission code.He advocated a four-pronged approach to regulating photographers; clear and strict pre-publication tests for pictures, the use of press cards, an enforceable code of conduct and a simply-written outline of the law.He said: “People holding UK press cards could be held to a much higher standard of ethics because they would have signed up to the relevant codes... newspapers could use their work without having to perform time-consuming and difficult series of tests.”Turner told the inquiry an agreement between photographers and the Royal Courts of Justice had been broken when several newspapers asked staff to take photographs of author JK Rowling as she left court building from a separate entrance, not wanting to be pictured.He added: “The BPPA is an organisation of professionals and we want to be part of the solution... We don't want to be seen as part of the problem, because we don't feel that we are part of the problem."Gary Morgan, a founder of the Splash news and picture agency, based in the United States, appeared by video link. He said the PCC code is not competent enough at dealing with photographers.He told Leveson the agency worked from a “no shoot” list detailing court orders taken out by celebrities to protect their privacy and said staff photographers were expected to know the law and abide by the code.Morgan was asked about a Splash photographer, Colin McFarlane, who allegedly drove at the mother of Tinglan Hong, who had a child with Hugh Grant last year. He said McFarlane, who denies the claims, had been interviewed by himself and the London picture desk and had given his version of events.He added: “At this point in time it's her word and his word... there's been no decision either way on who's correct.”
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