The Leveson Inquiry

A former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has told the Leveson Inquiry she refused to meet members of the media outside of Scotland Yard.

Lynne Owens, now chief constable of Surrey Police, said journalists found it strange that she would not meet them for lunch or in a social setting during her time at the Met.

She would not drink with journalists as there would be an expectation she would say something indiscreet, and said she found it “abhorrent” that officers could leak inappropriate information to the press.

She added: “The fact that people would be prepared to release that data is frankly beyond me and I don’t believe people like that should be in the police service.”

Robert Jay QC, inquiry counsel, asked the chief constable about her written statement, in which she claimed details of an investigation into a crime squad had been leaked to the media. It was not clear whether the information had come from the officers in question, someone else in the Met, or the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Owens said she had off-the-record conversations with journalists around the royal wedding, on the understanding information could be published after a certain time when it was no longer sensitive.

She said: “There's a balance at needs to be struck because it is clearly very important that the media have access to accurate, timely information because that does inform the public, and is therefore the heart of public confidence.”

She added: “It’s difficult to get balanced and measured responses from the media. The sensational and the exciting are the stories that tend to hit the headlines."

The phone hacking investigation was not reopened because of a "closed mindset in the force", a former Metropolitan Police commissioner has said.

Sir Paul Stephenson told the Leveson Inquiry the Met developed a “fixed mindset and a defensive mindset” in 2009, when the original investigation was reviewed by Assistant Commissioner John Yates. He said there was a flawed assumption that the 2006 investigation was satisfactory.

He added: “What we didn’t do is go back and challenge the reasons for those decisions in 2006. We didn’t go back and challenge the reasons why it was limited. Had that taken place we might have been in a better place."

In so much as it felt like a successful investigation, the fact this did not feel a priority was a relevant factor in terms of using resources. I then go on to think we got ourselves hooked on a defensive strategy that we would not expend significant resources without new evidence.”

“That was a perfectly logical situation to be in, provided your assumption about the original success of the operation was correct.”

On his written statement to the inquiry Stephenson said Kit Malthouse, chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, had referred to hacking allegations as driven by a “level of hysteria” created by politicians and the media, and said the force should not be devoting further resources to Operation Weeting.

In 2010, London Mayor Boris Johnson said phone hacking allegations had been substantially investigated and accused the Guardian and Labour party of whipping up the scandal to embarrass Andy Coulson, then David Cameron's communications director.

The Guardian published the phone hacking allegations in 2009 but Operation Weeting was not launched until January 2011. In his written evidence, Stephenson said he had been reassured by Yates that further investigation into the allegations was not needed.

He said: "I continued to have intermittent discussions with AC Yates as the Guardian maintained its coverage on this issue. I continued to be reassured by him that there was nothing new in the allegations that would warrant the reopening of the investigation.”

The statement said a "scoping exercise" had been undertaken by Yates after fresh allegations were printed in the New York Times in 2010, and the Crown Prosecution Service were informed by his team there was “insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution”.

Stephenson told the inquiry Yates was the natural officer to conduct a review of phone hacking evidence in 2009 but admitted Yates' friendship with Neil Wallis, former News of the World deputy editor, may have appeared inappropriate in the context.

He added: “[The investigation] was not a priority for me as a Commissioner. It remained as one of the many many pieces of noise. I think [Yates] acted in good faith. As far as I was concerned, it was being dealt with adequately.”

Stephenson was asked about his own links to Wallis, with whom he had met several times during his time as commissioner. He resigned last year after criticism for the hiring of Wallis as a consultant to the Met’s press office in 2009.

He told the inquiry he was not aware Wallis was a person of interest in the investigation until April 2011 and said he regretted entering into a contract with the former News of the World employee. He said it would have been “clumsy” to meet with Wallis after his name was associated with hacking.

He added: “I realised it was off a different order, I would have been much more circumspect with meeting News International.”

The former commissioner had also come under fire for an extended stay at Champneys in Hertfordshire following an operation, after it was revealed the public relations company run by Wallis had been hired by the luxury brand two months before his visit. He maintains he was not aware of the connection before or during his recovery at the spa.

Stephenson’s hospitality register, shown to the inquiry, recorded a significant number of meetings with national newspaper editors and journalists during his time as commissioner, including a 2009 dinner with Yates, Wallis and the Met’s head of press Dick Fedorcio. He said he sometimes personally paid for drinks with press as he was uncomfortable with the idea of billing the public purse for alcohol.

He added: “I would say for every journalist I've ever met they would be delighted if I was indiscreet. My job was to ensure I wasn't.”

Staff in the Metropolitan Police were “shocked” by the amount of hospitality received by senior officers, the Leveson Inquiry has heard.

Dame Elizabeth Filkin, former parliamentary commissioner for standards, said complimentary gifts from the press, including tickets to expensive sports events, were seen as excessive by lower ranking members of staff within the force.

She added: “Many of the police officers and staff were obviously highly shocked at the amount of hospitality that the senior people appeared to be receiving... many of the lower ranks felt people were ‘filling their boots’ and that was a very general view.”

“From what people had seen from the publication of the registers, most of the people that I spoke to within the Met felt that people had been receiving excessive hospitality.”

Filkin published a report into the relationship between press and the police, commissioned by the Home Office, in January this year.

Lord Justice Leveson told her: “The great advantage of the work you've done is that it rather foreshadows some of what I have to do, and therefore it would be perfectly in order, would it, for me to use what's been said to you for the purposes of the inquiry.”

Filkin spoke to police, staff, politicians and journalists, and told the inquiry she exercised her own judgment on whether what she was being told was reliable. She said Met officers had told her they would not use the force’s internal whistleblowing service because they feared being exposed.

She said: “There were concerns or fears about their future if they were regarded, in their terms that they used to me, as a troublemaker.”

Filkin went on to highlight several issues, including the favouring of some journalists and newspapers by the Directorate of Public Affairs, which would offer stories to certain reporters to keep others out of the press, and said transparency should be a priority for the Met in dealing with the media.

Also giving evidence was Roger Baker, Her Majesty’s inspectorate for the northern region and a former chief constable in the Essex police force. He told the inquiry that as chief constable, he never accepted anything more than tea, coffee or water from members of the press, saying he regarded meetings with the media as “on duty”.

He added: “It makes me sound extremely dull... I didn't need to be in a more convivial environment – we just got on and did business. In truth, there was never occasion to do that. I always found tea, coffee or water suffices.”

Baker said he recognised an “intensity” at the Met, due to the size of the force and it being on the doorstep of the national media. He advocated for more clarity in the relationship between police officers and journalists, and said off-the-record briefings should be limited and recorded in order to safeguard the public.

He added: “There needs to be a real clarity on what is appropriate and what isn't. If no clarity on rules, you can't regulate.”

Baker said there should be a greater understanding of social media within the police, describing an incident in which a police officer had published inappropriate pictures on Facebook.

He said: “Exposing your genitalia while identifying yourself as a member of X-shire police might not be the corporate image you are trying to convey.”

The inquiry heard the HMIC team compiling the ‘Without Fear or Favour’ report, headed by Baker, spoke to officers involved in Operations Elveden and Weeting, but did not want to interfere with current investigations.

Former senior Met police officers have been questioned at the Leveson Inquiry over their links to News International, after it was revealed they frequently socialised with News of the World journalists.

Ex-assistant commissioner John Yates, who resigned last year over a failed review of the hacking scandal, was shown to have had several dinners and private meetings with Lucy Panton, crime reporter on News of the World, and deputy editor Neil Wallis. Yates said Wallis was a close personal friend, and the pair would often go to football matches together.

He added: “I absolutely know and I guarantee that none of that played any part in my decision making. My conscience is completely clear on that.”

An email from News of the World news editor James Mellor to Lucy Panton shown to the court said Yates would be “crucial” to a story believed to be about a terrorist threat, adding: “really need an exclusive splash line, time to call in all those bottles of champagne”.

Yates denied an improper relationship with Panton, who he said he had known for over a decade, and other News of the World employees, although admitted he probably had shared champagne with the journalist in the company of others.

Several private meetings with Wallis, Panton, property developer Nick Candy and PR consultant Neil Reading, among others, were listed in Yates’s diary and hospitality register.

Former Met assistant commissioner Andy Hayman was shown to have paid for a £47 bottle of champagne with his Met American Express Card. He said he could not recall whether he had been with Panton, or a colleague of hers, at the time.

Hayman was questioned over a 2007 lunch with Panton and Wallis, but said he could not remember what was discussed.

Robert Jay QC, inquiry counsel, said the lunch had also been paid for on his work card. He was shown to have had several other dinners and meetings with Panton, Wallis and former editor Andy Coulson.

Hayman defended his column for the Times, for which he was paid £10,000 a year, following his decision to retire from the Met in 2007, but said he took the point it might create the perception of an improper relationship with News International.

Earlier today, Peter Clarke, former deputy assistant commissioner -- named yesterday as the man who decided not to widen the original phone hacking inquiry -- said there had been 70 anti-terrorist operations under way in the UK around the time Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were arrested in 2006. He told the inquiry he had to borrow police officers from forces all over the country to help terrorist threats and was unable to stretch resources to the hacking investigation.

He said: “These were precious resources which I had been dragging from across the British police for a number of years. I hope that gives some context to the scale of the threat”.

He later added: “Invasions of privacy are odious, distressing and illegal [but] to put to bluntly they don't kill you, terrorists do.”

Clarke said Lord John Prescott should have been told his phone could have been hacked but it would not have been his responsibility to inform the then deputy prime minster. He suggested John Reid, home secretary at the time, had been briefed on the investigation.

Lord Justice Leveson said he was disturbed that Yates did not know about the hacking of voicemail messages from Prescott until 2010. The former assistant commissioner said there had been an indexing problem with evidence relating to Prescott and his assistant.

The judge pointed out officers had questioned Mulcaire over Prescott's phone being hacked immediately after his arrest, and that by the next day they had established the information Mulcaire had on Prescott's assistant was linked to the former Deputy Prime Minister.

He added: “I am disturbed that your persistent requests didn't reveal the answer. People were bleeding over these papers for Mr Prescott for some time, but somehow this is all slipped through the cracks.”

Yates told the inquiry: "I cannot tell you the amount of times I checked and sought further and better particulars about the possibility that Mr Prescott's phone had been interfered with."

A Met police office who worked on the original phone hacking investigation told Leveson the “moment had been lost” to conduct a full search of Clive Goodman’s desk at News International.

Chief Superintendent Keith Surtees said officers had been obstructed by members of staff who feared they could be threatened with violence.

He said: “I wanted to search the desk, I wanted to search the financial areas, I wanted to find who was involved in this illegal activity.

“[Officers] were asked to go into a conference room until lawyers could arrive and challenge it. It was described to me as a 'tense stand-off' by the officer leading the search.

“Our officers were effectively surrounded and photographed and not assisted in any way shape or form. The search was curtailed and did not go to the extent I wanted it too.”

Surtees said it would have been virtually impossible to check whether the list of 418 potential victims had been hacked without a suspect in mind and a search could have been conducted with numbers known to have been used only by Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire.

Detective Inspector Mark Maberly said one of three mobile numbers of News of the World journalists appeared in Mulcaire’s phone bill.

He told the inquiry: “There would have been aspects of the case I would have liked to ask them about. I had no firm evidence of their knowledge of voicemail interception or them tasking Mulcaire.

“It would have been the case if we did bring them in for questioning the likelihood is they would have made no comment as did the other two employees of the News of the World. We would have got nowhere.”

Maberly said police had investigated Mulcaire’s office numbers and two “hub” numbers at the News of the World, which could have been used by anybody at the newspaper.

The phone hacking scandal would not have come to light without unofficial meetings between police officers and the press, the journalist responsible for breaking the story has said.

Nick Davies, who writes for the Guardian, told the Leveson Inquiry the police should not be prevented from speaking to journalists without authorisation from press officers, and that losing unauthorised contact would lead into “dangerous territory”.

He added: “Without unauthorised contact between the press and police the Met police would have been allowed to carry on misleading press, parliament and the public about the phone hacking scandal.”

Davies, appearing before the inquiry for the second time, said such relationships only become problematic if they prevent investigations, such as the original 2006 investigation into phone hacking, from being carried out correctly.

He said: “Something went catastrophically wrong in that inquiry and its subsequent public statements. If part of that failure was to do with cosy relationships which existed between the tops of those two organisations you can see how the relationship can go wrong.”

The journalist told Lord Justice Leveson that 90 percent of the work he does is off the record, meaning he will use the information in stories but will not attribute it to specific individuals. He said material provided from press officers can be inaccurate and “out of step” with the needs of the public, as they are employed to protect the interests of the organisation.

Davies told the inquiry last November he had developed a series of stories on the phone hacking revelations, published in the Guardian, from a briefing from Scotland Yard and consulting with human sources.

Also appearing before the inquiry for a second time was Chris Jefferies, the former landlord of murder victim Joanna Yeates. He gave evidence detailing his experience with the police and press following his arrest for the murder in 2010, of which he was later cleared.

The former teacher discussed evidence given by Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace, who said journalists from the paper were told in an unofficial briefing that Avon and Somerset police “were confident Mr Jefferies was their man.”

Lord Justice Leveson said he had received a letter from the police force challenging Wallace’s statements “in a number of respects”.

Jefferies said he believed police took a long time to lift his bail in order to suggest he had been arrested on the basis of stronger evidence that was the case. He was cleared as a suspect in March 2011 even though Vincent Tabak had been charged two months earlier, after confessing to manslaughter. Tabak was subsequently convicted for Joanna Yeates' murder.

Avon and Somerset police have denied leaking information to the press but admitted accidently disclosing Jefferies’s name to journalists. Jefferies told the inquiry information published in the Daily Mail the day before his arrest could only have come from his police statement. The paper reported Jefferies had heard Yeates leave the property with two other people, when in fact he had told police he could not identify the individuals, or whether one of them was his tenant.

He said it should be an imprisonable offence for police to disclose inappropriate information to journalists.

Senior figures at News International were aware of widespread phone hacking at News of the World as far back as 2006, the Leveson Inquiry has heard.

The evidence emerged as DAC Sue Akers from the Metropolitan Police appeared before the inquiry for a second time to provide an update on police operations into alleged criminality at News International.

She was asked about a 2006 email sent from Tom Crone, then head of legal at News International, to editor Andy Coulson detailing information received by Rebekah Brooks from the police.

It described payment records from News International to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire totalling over £1 million, and said police were going to contact “RW”, believed to mean Rekebah Wade, Brooks’s maiden name, to “see if she wishes to take it further”, referring to he potential for a widespread investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.

In a 2009 statement John Yates, then Assistant Commissioner at the Met, said an inquiry into the original investigation, claimed no further investigation was needed into phone hacking. He resigned over the matter in 2011 following further revelations discrediting his conclusion. The evidence of DAC Akers continues to demonstrate the inadequacy of that inquiry.

Akers said Operation Elevden had revealed one public official was paid £80,000 by a journalist over several years and another journalist had been given over £150,000 to pay sources including public officials, adding that the authority level for payments seem to have been made at senior level and a “culture of illegal payments” existed at the Sun.

The investigation would continue to look at “regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money” paid to public officials by journalists, and staff members are still examining a database of 300 million emails recovered from News International.

Neil Garnham QC, acting for the Met, said an increased terrorism threat during the summer of 2006 had drained resources from the original investigation into phone hacking.

Lord Justice Leveson said evidence gathered from Mulcaire offered up “veritable Aladdin’s cave of information” and said: “I would like to understand... why the police shouldn’t have gone to News International and said: ‘This is what is gong on... what’s been happening, what are you going to do about it, how are you going to make sure it doesn’t happen anymore’.”

Robert Jay QC, inquiry counsel, made an opening statement on module two this morning. He said the Met had a strategy to notify potential victims of phone hacking that had not been properly executed, and pointed out it could be viewed as a “deliberate failure” to avoid drawing attention to the relationship between the force and News International.

When an individual known only as ‘HJK’ gave anonymous evidence to the Leveson Inquiry last year, many people speculated over who it was. As it turned out it was not a cautious film star or politician but an ordinary member of the public, caught up in the hacking scandal after going out on a few dates with an unidentified celebrity.

Outside of the inquiry, HJK has never spoken publicly about their story. They have agreed to this interview with Hacked Off on the understanding their identity remain secret.

In 2006, HJK’s mobile network informed them their voicemail account security had been compromised. It was eventually discovered Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working for the News of the World, had transcripts of messages between HJK and the celebrity, HJK’s address, mobile and work phone numbers and a note of the text and call traffic between the pair. It is likely the intrusion carried on for some time after HJK had been notified. A phone hacking case against News Group and Mulcaire was settled in January when HJK accepted £60,000 damages plus legal costs. HJK maintains the police left them defenceless when officers were contacted several times and failed to respond.

This month a judicial review forced the Metropolitan Police to admit having acted unlawfully by not informing phone hacking victims that their privacy had been breached. The claim against them was brought last year by five prominent victims; Chris Bryant MP, Lord Prescott, Ben Jackson, the assistant of actor Jude Law, former Met deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, and HJK. HJK calls the judicial review “the victory of the Five Musketeers”.

HJK tells Hacked Off: “It’s a fantastic victory for privacy in this country. We had nothing to gain, we just wanted to hold the police accountable, and we did. Back in 2006 I was probably more annoyed, vocal and disappointed by the police than I was by the press.”

HJK decided to tell their story to the Leveson Inquiry and the judge handed down an order in November 2011 preventing their identity from being revealed. The press and public were kept out of the courtroom when HJK arrived to give evidence. A transcript and written statement were later released but the hearing itself was not broadcast. Later that day actress Sienna Miller and Harry Potter author JK Rowling had their turn in the witness box. Miller faced a barrage of paparazzi photographers at the Bell Yard entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice. As HJK had done, Rowling chose to enter the building through a side door.

HJK says: “I think people thought I might be some sort of celebrity who was appearing that day and didn’t want to disclose [who they were]. Me having testified under oath that I was an ordinary person calmed down the interest, because frankly there isn’t much of an interest to be had in this story.

“It was a pretty common story: a couple of dates with a celebrity and a nightmarish situation of me being caught in the crossfire of it. I was always of the opinion that the biggest story was not me having a couple of dates with a celebrity but the crimes that the press committed in order to get a tittle-tattle story.”

In early 2006, HJK met someone they refer to as “my celebrity friend” while doing voluntary work, and the pair went out on a few dates. That April, someone called HJK claiming to be from Royal Mail, saying they were trying to deliver a parcel with a torn label. HJK says the caller sounded overly happy when the address was handed over. A journalist turned up on the doorstep a week later to say their paper were aware of the relationship, and later called to offer money for the story. When HJK told the celebrity what had happened, the friendship cooled.

HJK says: “Because I didn’t speak to the press they must have thought there was more to [the friendship with the celebrity] because I wasn’t doing a kiss-and-tell.

“So they kept on digging and they kept harassing me. That lasted for around nine months.”

After being told by a journalist the story was going to be published imminently, HJK told their boss about the friendship. He was unsympathetic. Problems at work escalated when HJK missed important voicemail messages from a client. They had already been listened to and stored.

HJK says the situation led to bullying in the workplace: “It was a nightmare.”

After finding out the voicemail could have been hacked, HJK spotted another reporter across the road from their house when jogging in October 2006. In December HJK was photographed with a family member at a train station. When HJK looked behind to see what the photographer was shooting, they realised it was them. “There was nobody behind us. It was very clear that I was being harassed.”

“I started living behind closed curtains. I was in jail because I didn’t know when they were looking in, when they were not looking.”

Even though a story was never published, HJK resigned and left the country, believing the press was never going to leave them alone. During this period of isolation and paranoia, and like many other phone hacking victims, HJK had accused friends of leaking information to the press.

HJK says: “Eventually I didn’t trust anybody. It took me a couple of months to recuperate; the stress levels were so intense. Even when I was meeting people in bars I was so suspicious. I was thinking ‘are they a part of this, are they not part of it’. It made my life hell."

I’d been a victim and knew it was criminal – along with the destruction of my life – for six long years I was not able to say to someone ‘you did this to me, and you know what, you're going to pay for your crimes’. It was making me incredibly angry.”

HJK believes journalists could have accessed further sensitive personal information. They are keen to protect their anonymity to prevent disclosure of private details and keep the identity of the celebrity friend a secret.

“I wanted to protect the anonymity of that celebrity who has a right to not have a story being published through me going through that legal process. I do not want to appear that I am profiting or benefiting from this in anyway shape or form by doing a kiss-and-tell delayed in time but at the same time I wanted to give the full information to the court so they know exactly what happened.”

Lord Justice Leveson was provided with a confidential annex to HJK's evidence disclosing further details that will never be released into the public domain. HJK says compiling the evidence with lawyers was a draining experience that left them shaken for several days.

“It was stressful because it made me live through a year of my life which was very painful but I think it made me realise a lot of things, my isolation at the time, the fact that I started trusting less and less people - and I haven’t let a lot of people very close to me in the six years since it happened.”

The chance to tell the story at the Leveson Inquiry was crucially important to HJK. “There was a very therapeutic moment for me when I walked out of the inquiry,” they say. “I’d never had the possibility of facing these journalists and these newspapers, and the two that were involved were in the room. It was fantastic to think ‘I've held these people to account’. That was very important to me, always was.”

HJK explains how the intrusion has deeply affected their life. Whenever a stranger approaches the celebrity friend when the pair go out in public (HJK and the celebrity are still friends to this day despite the ordeal) HJK immediately thinks it could be a journalist and panics. “I don’t know how to handle it.”

“Three years ago I went on a date with someone else. The person said to me afterwards ‘You started firing questions at me like a police officer, like “remind me who you work for”.’ It was just weird. My behaviour has obviously been deeply marked by this. It affects you to a degree that an ordinary person cannot understand.”

Although HJK feels vindicated by the Leveson appearance, they are still incredibly angry over how the Met handled the case and for a while lost trust in the police completely. They believe the intrusion would have stopped a lot sooner if information had been handed over at the time of the hacking.

“It felt a bit like my neighbours had told me my house was being burgled, I’d called the police and they’d said to me ‘Yes we know, we’ve got a police officer at your house and he’s right now helping the thieves to help themselves to your furniture and loading it into their van’. The collusion and closeness between the Metropolitan Police and the press was something that really got to me. One of the things that I hope will come out of the Leveson Inquiry is that you can’t have media groups which have so much power, that’s very dangerous.”

Despite wanting to protect their anonymity and personal details, HJK says they were compelled to take action after hearing former News of the World editor Andy Coulson had been appointed as a government advisor – “If the Prime Minister had spat in my face I think it would have been less humiliating” – and that Mulcaire had taken a literary agent. “When I heard that he was about to write a book that was it. I thought ‘this is where I draw the line’.”

HJK was also disgusted by comments from John Yates, assistant commissioner of the Met, in 2009. Yates was asked to review the original phone hacking investigation into the activities of Mulcaire and journalist Clive Goodman, following allegations printed in the Guardian. He found the investigation to be "satisfactory" and suggested no further action be taken. He resigned following the escalation of the scandal last year.

For HJK the chance to tell their story to the inquiry, the success of the judicial review against the police and the victory in the civil claim against News International means a line can be drawn under the past six years, the consequences of which have been deep and far reaching.

“In 2006 I was very angry that the press could dive into my life that much and that it lasted that long. I was a means to an end for them. It was a series of hit-and-runs, that’s how I felt.

“The handful of dates that celebrity had with me is definitely not in the public interest and it certainly didn’t justify the violation, harassment and surveillance that I was a victim of.

“If my case could show people an ordinary person can seek redress, and can obtain compensation and can hold the police accountable, then it’s been worth it. Maybe it will inspire people suffering in silence to come forward as well.”

Note: At the request of HJK, Hacked Off would like to make it clear we have formally undertaken not to reveal their identity, gender or personal details.

22 February 2012Dear Prime Minister, The Hacked Off campaign was surprised and concerned to hear the Secretary of State for Education’s comments in relation to the Leveson Inquiry made in a speech to the Parliamentary Press Gallery yesterday (Tuesday, February 21), and even more concerned to hear you expressing support to Michael Gove's statement during Prime Minister's Questions.

Mr Gove said he wanted to “concentrate on the big picture and the big picture is that there is a chilling atmosphere towards freedom of expression which emanates from the debate around Leveson." He added: "I think there are laws already in place which we should respect and principles already in place that we should uphold which are central to making sure that this country remains free." Mr Gove also said there was a danger the Inquiry would produce “a cure that is worse than the original disease”.

Mr Gove’s remarks show that he has not been listening to the evidence of widespread journalistic wrongdoing – whether criminal or merely unethical - emerging from the Inquiry. Nor has he heard the victims’ groups, academics, journalists, MPs and peers, and the judge himself who have all made clear that public interest journalism needs to not only be protected but nurtured in any improved system of regulation. His comments demonstrate that he does not understand the difference between protecting individual freedom of expression and opposing the unaccountable power of corporate press barons. They are also a reminder of the lazy and craven attitudes by senior politicians whose policies were often dictated by the need to appease powerful media proprietors, and formed part of the reason for establishing the Inquiry in the first place.

In your address to the House of Commons on July 13, 2011, as you announced details of the Leveson Inquiry for the first time, you said: “We want it [the Inquiry] to be one that is as robust as possible. One that can get to the truth fastest and get to work the quickest. And one that commands the full confidence of the public.” In light of your words, we would like an assurance from you that this government is still fully committed to the Leveson Inquiry and its validity and need. As you said at the end of your speech “no one should be in any doubt we will get to the bottom of the truth and learn the lessons for the future”. We sincerely hope you and your government keep to your word.

In the light of the importance of this matter we are publishing this letter on our website and we will also publish your reply.

With best wishes,Martin Moore and Brian CathcartFounders, Hacked Off campaignNote: Since sending the letter, the campaign has been reassured by Number 10 that the Prime Minister backs the work of the Leveson Inquiry and will take the judge's recommendations seriously.

Heather Mills has firmly denied allowing former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan to listen to her voicemails.

Morgan implied in his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry that Mills, or someone close to her, had played a recording of Sir Paul McCartney singing down the phone following an argument in 2001. He refused to reveal his source to the inquiry but said the recording had been legitimately obtained.

Mills said she had "never" played private messages from then-husband McCartney to anyone.

She added: "I can't quite believe that he would even try and insinuate [it]. A man that's written nothing but awful things about me for years would absolutely relish in telling the court if I had personally played a voicemail message to him."

A former Trinity Mirror employee, not a Daily Mirror journalist or someone working under Morgan, allegedly contacted Mills shortly after the argument over her charity work.

She was told journalists knew about the argument and that McCartney had phoned apologising and singing "a little ditty" to his wife. After Mills threatened legal action the story was never published.

Mills said details from Operation Weeting showed her voicemail, and that of her sister, had been hacked.

She added: "We were shown my PIN numbers, PUK numbers over three different telephones over a period of five or six years."

A short video was played in court showing Mills being pursued by paparazzi outside her Brighton home, including a car chase resulting in a crash. She told Lord Justice Leveson she and a friend had recorded 64 hours of footage. When asked her views on the PCC, she said power should be taken away from editors and “given to the public".

The editor in chief of the Daily Mail has returned to the Leveson Inquiry today to answer questions about actor Hugh GrantPaul Dacre was questioned by David Sherborne, counsel for the core participant victims, over a Mail on Sunday article claiming a “plummy-voiced executive” leaving messages on Grant’s phone had caused the breakdown of his relationship with Jemima Khan.

The editor said he would only retract a statement accusing the actor of “mendacious smears” against his company if Grant agreed to take back what he called “repeated statements” about the Mail.

In evidence to the inquiry Grant had speculated the story may have been obtained by phone hacking.

Dacre told Sherborne: “Our group did not hack phones and I rather resent your continued insinuations that we did.”

Referring to the News of the World, he said: “Mr Grant is obsessed by trying to drag the Daily Mail into another newspaper's scandal.”

Sherborne asked why Grant and Khan had not been notified of the story in advance. Dacre said he believed a reporter had contacted a spokesman. Jonathan Caplan QC, representing Associated News, said a sentence in the article which declared the couple had “no comment" confirmed this.

Dacre gave evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday but was recalled by the chairman who felt the issue should be examined “in the interests of fairness”.

Lord Justice Leveson told the editor he would appreciate his input as the inquiry continues.

Dacre replied: “I have shown this week I am prepared to devote a lot of time to it.”

The inquiry also heard from publicist Max Clifford, who explained he had settled his own phone hacking claim against the News of the World over a “quiet lunch” in Mayfair with Rebekah Brooks.

It was agreed he would receive £220,000 a year for three years plus legal costs and, as part of the arrangement, provide the paper with tips for stories.

He added: “The whole package came to just under £1m. We shook hands, there was no contract.”

Clifford said he had become increasingly aware of phone hacking “as the years went by” and journalists had become more creative in their methods to deliver results. He said the nation had been “shocked and horrified” by the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone by the News of the World.

He said: “That sent shockwaves throughout Fleet Street, particularly tabloids. [Newspapers] wouldn't run with something because of the Leveson inquiry.”

He described the story behind the infamous article “Freddie Star ate my hamster”. Starr, a client of Clifford, wanted to prevent the story being printed. The publicist told then Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie to run it anyway with the comedian’s denial.

He said: “I was looking after Freddie’s career and his PR and I believed it would be something that would help him.”

He added: “I couldn't ever justify [that story] as in the public interest.”

Clifford advocated a new regulatory body largely funded by Parliament, ensuring newspapers have less of a financial interest, which would protect members of the public.

He said: “I certainly don’t think that having a responsible body that is able to protect [against] the excesses of the media would in any way be damaging to them or their freedom. I think it would give them greater respect, and in the long term, possibly help the chances of their survival.

“If suddenly you're thrust into a potential media nightmare you need someone you can call straight away who is able to respond and hopefully stop a potential disaster which could destroy you and your family.”

Clifford told the inquiry he had been called by one of the women involved in the News of the World expose on former FIA president Max Mosley, concerned that the paper would publish her photograph and personal information.

He rang a man he believed to be Ian Edmondson, then news editor at the paper, telling him: “If I was you I'd leave them alone”.

He countered evidence given to the inquiry by former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and said a story revealing the pregnancy of Cherie Blair in 1999 was not obtained through hacking but from someone close to her.

The source told Clifford and he gave the story to Piers Morgan, then editor of the Mirror.

Also giving evidence today was Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists. She provided the inquiry with several written statements from anonymous journalists.

One testimony from a journalist with 30 years’ experience in national newspapers said there had been “tremendous pressure” when working at the News of the World and a "macho" culture had pervaded the industry.

Another said: “If you did what Sean Hoare did or Paul McMullan did [speaking out against the industry], you don't work in the industry again.”

Stainstreet said Paul Dacre’s proposal of accredited press cards for journalists was not a “practical solution”.

She added: “This is yet another examples of how an editor, a very high profile member of the industry, is trying to pin the blame on individual journalists.”

She told the inquiry private investigator Derek Webb had applied for an NUJ press card as a researcher, and had been recommended by two references, but agreed he should not have received accreditation.

The inquiry will now take a two-week break and return for module 2, to look into the relationship between the press and the police, on February 28.

A former News of the World news editor has claimed there was a culture of bullying at the paper.

Ian Edmondson said every part of the paper had been dictated by the editor and told the Leveson Inquiry editor Colin Myler, who replaced Andy Coulson following his resignation in 2007, continued a “culture of bullying” in the newsroom.

He said: “It’s a case of you will do what you are told and you live in that environment... It’s not a democracy at a newspaper. It's autocratic.”

Edmondson said he was uncomfortable with the decision to publish the diaries of Kate McCann without permission.

He told the inquiry he was asked by Myler to secretly record a conversation with Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, after the editor refused to approach the family to collaborate on the story.

He said he was told to “not make it clear what we had, tell him in general terms, something woolly”.

He added: “I liked Mitchell a lot. I felt uneasy, but I did what I was told.”

He denied drafting emails sent by Neville Thurlbeck to women involved in the Max Mosley case and said they were written in language he would not have used, contradicting evidence given by the reporter last year.

He added: “I have got no doubt whatsoever I would have asked [Thurlbeck] to contact the women. In fact with his experience I would have had no need to [but] it's more likely that I would have asked him.”

Darryn Lyons, the founder of the Big Pictures agency, gave evidence to the inquiry via video link. He said his photographers tried to abide by the PCC code but the paparazzi often “don’t know where they stand” when taking pictures of celebrities.

He added: “I think that celebrities use these situations for their own self gain on a regular basis and I think that there’s two sides to every story, which I hope the inquiry looks at in great detail."

On their terms it’s fine but if they’ve done the wrong thing or it’s immoral and that’s been recorded in history, they’ve been photographed and they don’t like it.

“The problem is when you are photographing someone famous these days you don’t know if it’s right or wrong.”

Lyons, whose agency is sent over 3,000 pictures a day, was asked about legal actions taken by the actress Sienna Miller, singer Lily Allen and the late Amy Winehouse.

Miller complained after pictures were taken of her on a yacht in 2008.

Lyons told the inquiry it had been normal practice to take pictures of celebrities on holiday “since Brigitte Bardot was sunning herself on the beaches of St Tropez”.

An interim policy on the prosecution of journalists will be ready within a matter of weeks, the Director of Public Prosecutions has said today.

Keir Starmer QC told the Leveson Inquiry said he was “pretty sure” he has jurisdiction over offences relating to personal data breaches. He is expected to give further evidence at a later date.

He said: “It seems to me it would be prudent to have a policy that sets out in one place the factors that prosecutors will take into account when considering whether to prosecute journalists acting in the course of their newsgathering.”

Starmer said there were only a “handful” of cases where the Crown Prosecution Service had considered charging journalists and explained that statutory defences for journalists included an express public interest, public interest in terms of free speech and concerns over the Official Secrets Act.

The inquiry also heard from representatives of Trans Media Watch, an organisation campaigning against prejudiced and inaccurate depictions of transgendered people in the media, and the Northern Ireland division of Support After Murder and Manslaughter, an organisation supporting bereaved families.

Helen Belcher, from Trans Media Watch, said the trans community had “more or less walked away from the PCC".

She added: “The PCC has wanted to express support but for whatever reason is unable to actually deliver on that support... [The PCC are] like Pontius Pilate, that is, washing their hands with a sense of woe that there is nothing that they can do.”

Belcher said the press often uses demeaning language and before-and-after pictures in stories, and conflats murders of trans individuals with sex work regardless of facts. She said she struggled to understand the public interest in the media disclosing gender transitions of individuals.

She added: “We noted [Sun editor] Mr Mohan's suggestion that groups like us come and train their journalists in issues, but it's basic human decency and respect, and that's actually all were asking for. We're not asking for special treatment, we're asking for the same treatment as everybody else. "Pam Surphlis, from SAMM NI, told the inquiry press interest in murder and manslaughter victims often adds to the trauma suffered by bereaved families.

She described the funeral of her own sister and father, who were murdered in 1992, saying the church had banned press from coming on to the premise.

She added: “The road was lined with very respectful member of the public and all you could hear in that was just the clicking of cameras. Luckily... the church where the funeral was taking place had banned the press from stepping on to the property, but that doesn't always happen.”

Surphlis outlined a series of points explaining how journalists should approach bereaved families, including the use of official intermediaries, refraining from doorstepping and attending funerals and informing families if stories about a death are going to be run “weeks, months or years later”.

She recommended a regional press ombudsman for Nothern Ireland to ensure citizens felt represented in media regulation.

She added: “Families don't want to know how to handle the media because they don't want the media in the first place.

“I'm... immensely grateful to the inquiry being set up, that we at least have a voice somewhere that somebody is prepared to listen to bereaved families.”

A political blogger has made a series of allegations against politicians, journalists and editors this afternoon.

Paul Staines, also known as Guido Fawkes, gave alleged examples of dubious press practices when giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.

Staines said he sold a series of photographs of Foreign Secretary William Hague's special advisor Chris Myers in a gay bar to the News of the World, after publishing a story on Hague sharing a hotel room with his advisor Myers in 2010.

He said the pictures, which were never published, were bought by the paper for £20,000.

Staines implied the pictures had been bought up to take them off the market, linking the purchase to Andy Coulson, who was appointed as director of communications for the government by David Cameron that year.

When David Barr, junior inquiry counsel, suggested the pictures were not published was because Hague issued a public statement denying the allegations, Staines pointed out they had been purchased after the statement was issued.

The blogger went on to accuse Telegraph journalist Gordon Rayner of using private investigator Steve Whittamore, saying his name appeared in Operation Motorman files 335 times, out of 185 were in relation to alleged illegal transactions.

Staines alleges Rayner tracked down his address, and claimed to have done so using the land registry. The blogger said it was impossible to search the registry without an address and pointed out his personal details were not readily available in the public domain. Staines told Lord Justice Leveson victims of press intrusion identified by Motorman files should be informed so the journalists responsible can be prosecuted.

He added: "If you don't inform the alleged or possible victims that their names are on these records that arose from Operation Motorman then we're not going to get that tested in court."

He also said two journalists had told him Tina Weaver, editor of the Sunday Mirror, authorised staff to "spin" phones, a phrase referring to phone hacking, but that information published on his blog about Piers Morgan was derived from the former editor's writing.

The director of the Media Standards Trust has urged the Leveson Inquiry to implement radical changes in the regulation of the press.

Martin Moore, a founder of the Hacked Off campaign, said it is necessary to protect the public and journalism in the public interest, and said a review group formed by the MST plans to submit a report on regulation to the inquiry in May.

Moore told Lord Justice Leveson he advocated a voluntary system, possibly with statutory or non-statutory incentives to comply. He and chairman of the MST board Roger Graef met with Lord Hunt, chairman of the PCC, last year.

He said the inquiry has heard clear examples of intrusion into many aspects of different people’s lives and warned Leveson not to follow the path of the 1990 Calcutt report. He praised journalism in the UK but said irresponsible reporting had lead to a lack of public trust in the media.

He added: “I absolutely think it's incredibly important to talk about the enormous amount of excellent journalism across the country, and particularly I think at a local level.”

Will Moy from Full Fact gave evidence at the same time, and said his organisation tried to raise awareness of issues rather than making judgments about journalism, but said accuracy was a “huge problem than the public has recognised”.

Moore accused the current PCC of airbrushing the picture on complaints, saying 47 against the Daily Mail last had resulted in clarifications, corrections or apologies, and yet no adjudications against the paper were shown as upheld.

Moy added to Moore's evidence: “There is a sense that newspapers can play games with the PCC and the PCC can't do much about it."

Lord Justice Leveson told the pair: “Your organisations have both thought about these issues for many years and will have very developed views and perspectives which are for me forming rather than formed, and I am sure that the product will be better for your input than without it.”

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.”

The editor in chief of the Daily Mail has been recalled to give evidence before the Leveson Inquiry this week.

Lord Justice Leveson said he expected Paul Dacre, who appeared before the inquiry yesterday, to answer further questions about issues relating to Hugh Grant.

He is due be asked about a Mail on Sunday story regarding a “plummy-voiced executive” leaving voicemail messages for the actor, who claimed the Mail on Sunday may have hacked his phone, and the harassment suffered by the mother of Grant's child.

David Sherborne, the barrister representing core participant victims, said Grant had been accused of perjury by Associated Newspaper, adding the conflict was an "illustrative example of the press as whole”.

Jonathan Caplan QC, counsel to Associated Newspapers said the editor had co-operated fully with the inquiry and should not be expected to return. He said these issues should be dealt with in writing.

He added: “This is going to create an imbalance and avert from the way in which this inquiry has been conducted.”

The chairman apologised but said the issues should be heard before the inquiry in the interests of fairness. He told the core participants they had until 2pm this afternoon to decide how to proceed with the matter.

He added: “I am not willing to allow what is an obvious conflict between one of the core participants and another to divert attention from my concern about the customs practices and ethics of the press. To some extent that conflict may evidence customs, practices and ethics, but there is a limit.

“I am not entirely happy that the inquiry was bombarded on Friday with a variety of statements dealing with historical and other issues going to the conflict.”

Jemima Khan has denied any knowledge of a "plummy-voiced woman" leaving Hugh Grant messages in her written evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.

Khan, who dated Grant from 2004 until 2007, categorically denied having been the source of the story about a "plummy-voiced woman" who left messages on Grant's mobile phone voicemail.

The Mail on sunday claimed the story came from a source close to Khan as a defence for running the article, after Grant suggested the story might have originated from phone hacking while giving evidence to the inquiry.

Khan's statement read: "I wish to make it clear that I did not talk to anyone about some 'plummy-voiced' woman calling Hugh. Indeed, the explanation given by the Mail on Sunday cannot be correct since the first I heard about any 'plummy-voiced' woman calling Hugh, or anything similar, was when I read it in the Mail on Sunday."

I therefore could not have spoken to anyone about such matters prior to the article, because I knew nothing about it."

Grant told Hacked Off he was in America for much of the time the messages were being left, but that his phone was still on UK time. Hence messages saying “see you soon” would have been voice-stamped as the middle of the night, even though they were left in the middle of the day in California.

Khan finished her statement saying she would be "keen for the suggestion that the origin of this story was me to be publicly corrected" and that she would be "happy to give evidence to the inquiry under oath on this matter if necessary".

A deputy assistant commissioner of the Metroplitan Police has updated the Leveson Inquiry on several investigations into press practices. DAC Sue Akers QPM, who is heading several police investigations into illegal press and police activity, said the team investigating police bribery would be expanded from 40 to 61 officers, in order to deal with allegations regarding journalists from the Sun. The investigation carried out by Operation Elveden saw 14 journalists arrested last month, and one in 2011. Four of those arrests were based on information handed over by News Corporation's managing standards committee. DAC Akers said: "If the public think that information is being leaked by police officers to journalists then it is investable that public confidence is eroded, so as far as we're concerned there's is a very legitimate public interest in investigating this."

She told inquiry 581 "likely" victims of phone hacking had been contacted by the police in relation to Operation Weeting, and that a further 231 were uncontactable. Seventeen had not been told for undisclosed operational reasons.

Documents obtained by Met Police from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, including email exchanges and audio tapes of hacked voicemails, suggested they are 6,349 potential victims of phone hacking. Around 2,900 people have contacted the police to ask if their voicemails have been hacked. Of these, 1,578 appear in Mulcaire's 11,000 pages of notes.

Akers said that two of the 17 journalists arrested in relation to Weeting had been released and would not be facing further action, and the remaining 15 had been bailed until March. She added a number of key witnesses had come forward, and a database of 300 million News International emails had been reconstructed by experts. An investigation into email hacking, Operation Tuleta, is currently examining 57 allegations of data intrusion. Akers said a team of 20 officers were assessing whether a full investigation should be launched, and that some claims of blackmail, breaching of anonymity and telephone interception had been discarded. The team will continue to work from four terabytes of digital information. Lord Justice Leveson said police officers would be questioned more throughout on operations between 2006 and 2011 in module 2 of the inquiry.