There was no collusion between newspaper editors and the industry regulator, a former director of the Press Complaints Commission has told the Leveson Inquiry. Tim Toulmin, director of the PCC from 2004 to 2009, was questioned today over the relationship between PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer, Les Hinton, former executive at News International and Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre.He said claims there had been a "tri-partite axis" in operation were an "absurd conspiracy theory". He added: "There was never any interference by those two men, or indeed anyone else in the industry about what the PCC should say about individual complaints. That was entirely up to the PCC."If that sort of subversive relationship had been going on at that level, people would have spotted it - members of staff, members of the commission. It clearly wasn't there."He denied public members of the board were chosen for complying with industry desires.He said: "People who work at the PCC... are motivated by trying to assist people who are having difficulties with the press, particularly those vulnerable people who cannot perhaps afford a lawyer. But it would be impossible to work there if you took the view that there should be no free press."Toulmin was also asked about the PCC's involvement in the phone hacking scandal. He told the inquiry that the body was responsible for examining journalistic culture, but not the details of Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire's arrests in 2006.He said: "The press and editorial content is subject to a number of rules and laws. "There are a number of laws which regulate what the pres can do, and then there's the PCC over and above that, if you like, which is concerned with those other issues that the press are sort of imposed on itself."The PCC was faced with a decision... about whether to do nothing on the grounds that the police had looked into the matter... or whether it was in a position to establish what was going to be done to make sure it didn't happen again. The whole industry took note."He added: "All the questions that the PCC asked have been well established in the public domain...with the sorts of general public interest in mind that the public had a right to know that these things weren't ongoing or going on elsewhere and that sort of lessons would be learned more broadly."Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked Toulmin about a letter sent to the PCC by the editor of the Guardian in 2005. Alan Rusbridger had outlined concerns that journalists at other organisations were engaging in illegal activities. Toulmin said taking action may have lead to speculation and "talking in circles", when asked why the body had not taken steps to investigate the allegations. He added: "This is about something that doesn't involve a complaint and does involve a legal problem...I suppose the PCC could have asked yes but what [the reply to Rusbridger] is saying is that it's likely in the circumstances...to have ended up being fruitless."He later told the inquiry that it had been a mistake to ignore the Guardian's evidence.Jay said the PCC had taken a "somewhat restrictive and timorous approach" following the resignation of Andy Coulson as editor of News of the World in 2007.Toulmin said Coulson had not been asked questions by the body and he feared they would have held "little traction" with the former editor. He added: "I said to Parliament that I think that was a mistake, and at least the PCC should have been seen to ask him even if he'd said: 'No, I'm not helping you'."Toulmin was questioned on the PCC's response to Operation Motorman in 2004, and a request by then-Information Commissioner Richard Thomas that the commission issue a guidance note to journalists on ethical practice. He said the matter was largely outside of the PCC's remit and that Thomas had "come to the wrong place".He added: "Richard Thomas had all the information. He came and said, 'This is what's been going on', but there was no detail to it at all.""The PCC's role should be fairly obvious from the title of the organisation...We tried to support Richard Thomas. It was his campaign and the Data Protection Act was his responsibility. And we did what we were asked to do by him in furthering the campaign."On regulation, he said: "I think that the word self-regulation does have a virtue, in that it explains to the public that the industry is behind what's going on. It's not making any claim to be any sort of formal statutory regulator."When pressed by Leveson he added: "I don't think it's a regulator, no."He said the consensus around the PCC had been "fractured" by Richard Desmond's decision to withdraw his papers from self-regulation, and the cultural landscape around the commission had changed.Toulmin defended the PCC, saying it is able to adapt and change structurally because it has no statutory basis.He also said the PCC had improved considerably at handling complaints, based on "powers of persuasion". He said: "I think at the start the press probably was, if you're talking in total generalities, eager to publish these things with less prominence than they should have been."He added: "One thing that used to strike me and upset me was hearing from members of the public who had perfectly reasonable complaints to make, or we could have helped them in some way in stopping harassment...they'd never heard of the PCC. That was a matter of regret because although it does have a quite high name recognition it's by no means universal."Toulmin said third-party complaints were very rare, preventing the privacy of individuals who have not complained directly. He said: "What we tried to do was not use this rule as an excuse, but to reach out to people that we could see might be having some problems and try and get them to complain and come to us...If people don't want to complain to a complaints body then ultimately that was what had to be respected."The point of the code, so far as it protects the public, is about the people who are in the newspapers and magazines...it's about protecting their rights."