Text of letter for people who can’t see embedded Google Docs:

Dear Mr Watson

Re: Email Hacking at The Times newspaper

Thank you for your letter dated 23 January 2012, and subsequent letter clarifying the position around the evidence given by The Times to the Leveson Inquiry.

I write to reassure you that the concerns raised within your letter are under investigation and officers from Operation Tuleta are dealing directly with the victim.

John Levett
Detective Superintendent
Operation Tuleta
pp Deputy Assistant Commissioner Akers

1. My intern is a student and paid above the minimum wage.
2. She is contracted for a year to work part time.
3. People have asked why I have not deleted the offending tweet. The reason is simple. It’s impossible to delete anything once it is published on the internet. To do so would just have lead to screen grabs of the offending tweet reaching a wider audience. I’ll delete it later today when the fuss dies down though. So if, for some weird reason, you do want to screen grab the tweet, do so quickly.
4. The Sun political team retweeted the comment. Given the grievance recently taken out against the Sun’s political editor Tom Newton-Dunn, this was foolish.
5. Journalists on the Times have been ringing people to find more information about the intern. Do you think I don’t know your motives? Please show some decorum.
6. Yes, she’s very embarrassed. She’s also a little intimidated by stories of the Times and the Sun trying to dig up stuff about her.
7. Three journalists have asked for more information. I have given them as much as I can whilst protecting the privacy of a young intern who is not seeking a public profile. I was surprised the BBC didn’t phone to check facts before they published their online story.
8. The intern has not been sacked nor was she ever going to be. She’s young. We all make mistakes.
9. I know her well enough to know she’ll never do this sort of thing again.
10. And yes, I know I should have logged out. I really do. Thank you to the people who pointed that out.
11. For those that have asked – all my tweets, other than the two this morning, are my own.
12. Though my account wasn’t technically ‘hacked’, yes, I do understand the irony of what happened.
13. Once again, I am sorry.

On a more serious note, don’t you think this parliamentary answer to a question about data deletion from Tim Loughton MP is unusually constructed?

23 January 2012

Dear Sue,

I write to ask you to investigate email hacking at The Times newspaper.

The Chief Executive of News International, Thomas Mockridge, has admitted to illicit email hacking in written evidence to Leveson on 14th October and 16th December 2010. Indeed, in his December evidence, Mr Mockridge makes the remarkable assertion that the journalist who hacked the email raised it with his managers before the decision to publish the article. The relevant passage from the evidence of Mockridge is here:

“At paragraph 20.2 of my first witness statement I referred to a reporter at The Times who might have gained unauthorised access to a computer in 2009. At the date of my first witness statement, it was my understanding that the reporter in question had denied gaining such access. Following further enquiries, I now understand that the reporter in fact admitted the conduct during disciplinary proceedings, although he claimed that he was acting in the public interest. The journalist was disciplined as result. He was later dismissed from the business for an unrelated matter. ”

The journalist, who used the illegally gathered information to identify the name of a serving police officer, claimed public interest guided his actions. His managers, however, clearly did not. This is demonstrated in the “The author of a blog vs Times Newspapers Ltd” 9th June 2009.

In an attempt to protect his privacy, the police officer in question sought an injunction. Far from putting forward a public interest defence, lawyers representing The Times claimed that the information was obtained through entirely legitimate means.

In his ruling of 16th June 2009, Mr Justice Eady makes it clear that the newspaper claimed that no laws were broken during the case:

“It was asserted in the Claimant’s skeleton for the hearing of 28 May that his identity had been disclosed to The Times in breach of confidence. By the time the matter came before me, on the other hand, Mr Tomlinson was prepared to proceed on the basis that the evidence relied upon from Mr Patrick Foster, the relevant journalist, was correct; that is to say, that he had been able to arrive at the identification by a process of deduction and detective work, mainly using information available on the Internet.”

As the story was eventually published the day after the court handed down judgment, this can only mean that The Times knew their defence was factually incorrect while the litigation was live or during the period the paper was waiting for the judge to deliver the judgment.

Further, the management team appear to have withheld knowledge of a crime being committed from the directors of parent company, News Corp. In his evidence of 10th November 2011 – one month after Mr Mockridge admitted knowledge of email hacking to a judge, Mr James Murdoch denied knowledge of it to Parliament. In answer to a question Mr Murdoch Jnr said: “I am not aware of any of the computer hacking that you have talked about in the past”.

It is clear that a crime has been committed – illicit hacking of personal emails. It is almost certain that a judge was misled. In turn, James Murdoch has misled a parliamentary inquiry into where Parliament had been previously misled by executives of News International.

A journalist and unnamed managers failed to report the crime to their proprietor or the police. This runs counter to the assurances of Rupert Murdoch that News International takes a “zero tolerance approach to wrongdoing.”

I must ask that you investigate computer hacking at The Times. In so doing you will also be able to establish whether perjury and a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice have also occurred.

In light of the seriousness of these allegations, I am copying this letter to the Attorney General.

At the recent News Corp AGM in Los Angles, Mr Viet Dinh, the director of News Corp responsible for good corporate governance, gave me his assurance that he would get to the bottom of all allegations of computer hacking. Out of courtesy, I am also copying this letter to him.

Thank you in advance for your assistance. I look forward to hearing from you.

Followed up by David Allen Green at Jack of Kent on 16 January 2012

Paul Waugh makes possible link with NightJack case

Noticed by Fleet Street Blues

David Allen Green asks at New Statesman whether this used in a published story

A source tells David Leigh that it was the NightJack case

David Allen Green raises serious questions based on this revelation

The Telegraph news story identifies the dramatic significance of the admission

The Times admission (see below)

David Allen Green’s post establishing that senior managers knew but did not tell High court

The High Court judgment – crucial paragraph is 3

The Telegraph report that John Whittingdale does not rule out bringing back James Murdoch to the DCMS Select Committee

Times admission in full:

The Times and the NightJack case

The Times published a report exposing the identity of an anonymous police blogger after a journalist at the newspaper had hacked into his e-mail account.

The report in 2009 revealed the identity of the author of NightJack, a popular blog by a police officer who gave behind-the-scenes insights into frontline policing.

The Times’s decision to expose the Lancashire detective Richard Horton was widely criticised at the time but the newspaper said there was a public interest in doing so because his blog contained details that could be traced back to actual prosecutions. A High Court judge agreed that there was a public interest in naming him and overturned an injunction Mr Horton had obtained against The Times.

The e-mail hacking has come to light because James Harding, Editor of The Times, and Tom Mockridge, Chief Executive of the paper’s parent company, News International, were asked questions by the Leveson inquiry about computer hacking.

Mr Harding referred to the incident in his statement, dated October 14 last year: ?The Times has never used or commissioned anyone who used computer hacking to source stories. There was an incident where the newsroom was concerned that a reporter had gained unauthorised access to an e-mail account.

“When it was brought to my attention, the journalist faced disciplinary action. The reporter believed he was seeking to gain information in the public interest but we took the view he had fallen short of what was expected of a Times journalist. He was issued with a formal written warning for professional misconduct.”

The witness statement was made public after Mr Harding’s appearance at the inquiry on Tuesday.

Mr Mockridge made two witness statements, the second correcting what he had said in the first about the computer-hacking incident. His first statement, also dated October 14, said there had been a “suspicion” that a reporter from The Times “might have gained unauthorised access to a computer”. The statement added that the reporter had denied doing so but had been given a formal written warning.

However, the reporter, Patrick Foster, who has since left the paper, had in fact informed his managers before the story was published that he had, on his own initiative, hacked into Mr Horton?s e-mail account. The incident raised issues about the approval process for newsgathering at the newspaper.

The role the hacking played in Mr Foster’s investigation remains unclear. Mr Foster identified Mr Horton using a legitimate process of deduction based on sources and information publicly available on the internet.

Mr Mockridge?s second witness statement, dated December 16, said: “Following further enquiries, I now understand that the reporter in fact admitted the conduct during disciplinary proceedings, although he claimed that he was acting in the public interest. The journalist was disciplined as a result. He was later dismissed from the business for an unrelated matter.”

In his original injunction application, Mr Horton said his identity had been disclosed to The Times “in a breach of confidence”. In his ruling overturning Mr Horton’s injunction, Mr Justice Eady said that Mr Horton’s barrister “was prepared to proceed on the basis that the evidence relied upon from Mr Patrick Foster was correct; that is to say, that he had been able to arrive at the identification by a process of deduction and detective work, mainly using information available on the internet.”

Mr Harding said: “The newspaper published the story in the strong belief that it was in the public interest even though concerns emerged about the conduct of the reporter. After the judge handed down his judgment overturning the injunction on the grounds of public interest, we published. We also took the decision to look into the reporter’s conduct and he was subsequently disciplined.”

“We’re all looking forward to the Diamond jubilee. The significance of the occasion should be celebrated across the country.

“But Michael Gove has shown he is out of touch with this proposal. When school budgets are being slashed, parents will be wondering how Gove came even to suggest this idea. This is not the time to spend £60 million on a yacht.”

Rebekah Brooks: No. None whatsoever.

Q438 Mr Watson: Would your former diary secretary, Michelle, be able to confirm that?

Rebekah Brooks: Michelle?

Mr Watson: Your former diary secretary.

Rebekah Brooks: I’ve had a PA for 19 years called Cheryl.

Mr Watson: Okay. Would your PA be able to confirm that?

Rebekah Brooks: Absolutely.

Q439 Mr Watson: Does she hold your diary for the last 19 years?

Rebekah Brooks: No, she probably doesn’t. We don’t keep that for 19 years, but she may have something from back then. I don’t know.

Q440 Mr Watson: Would it be in a paper format or an electronic format?

Rebekah Brooks: I did not meet Mr Mulcaire.

Mr Watson: I am talking about your diary. Is it in electronic format or a paper format?

Rebekah Brooks: It would have been in a paper format until very recently.

Q441 Mr Watson: Okay. Do you think Glenn Mulcaire would deny that he ever met you?

Rebekah Brooks: I am sure he would, although-yes; it’s the truth.

Q442 Mr Watson: Were you aware of the arrangement that News Group Newspapers had with Mr Mulcaire while you were the editor of News of the World and The Sun?

Rebekah Brooks: No.

Publication link

My attention is drawn to an article written by lobbyist Tim Allan. The Guardian’s Nick Watt picked it up in a story entitled “Ed Miliband leadership attacked by former Blair Aide”. Allan talks of Ed Miliband’s “anti business rhetoric”; presumably in reference to the conference speech that introduced the term “predators”. Mr Allan will no doubt know that many in the Labour Party believe there has been a wilful misrepresentation of what Ed Miliband actually said in that speech. I’m sure some colleagues will draw the conclusion that Allan is compounding the situation in his article.

I don’t think it unreasonable, in fact I see it as desirable, that political leaders point out that companies that always act in the short term interests of shareholders, rather than long term interests of the country’s economy, are acting in a predatory manner.

Portland Communications

So, interest aroused, I took a look at Mr Allan’s company, Portland Communications. And after taking a look, I’ve concluded that it was unwise for Mr Allan to draw attention to himself. Last month, Bell Pottinger were exposed for doctoring the Wikipedia entries of their clients, “violating multiple guidelines and rules” according to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. I fear Mr Allan’s company may have done the same.

Here is the current list of clients for Portland Communications. PR agencies who sign up to the APPC code of conduct have to register them every three month. To be thorough, I’ve produced a spreadsheet of previous clients too, based on the company’s quarterly reports to the APPC. I had a wry smile when Sky TV appeared on the register.

Yet the company that first jumped off the page at me was “Anheuser-Busch InBev”. They are the giant brewing company that owns and produces the Stella Artois brand of lager. I took a look at Wikipedia. Something interesting popped up.

On the face of it, it seems that Portland have at least two connections on Wikipedia. The first is a user account called ‘Portlander10′ and the second is the IP address 83.244.252.242. A reverse DNS lookup of this IP address resolves to mx9.portland-communications.com and the IP address also crops up as cross referencing against the same edits as the ‘Portlander10′ account.

The ‘Portlander10′ account also set up the Wikipedia page for Portland Communications, created links from both the pages of Tim Allan and fellow Portland staffer former political editor of the Sun, George Pascoe-Watson to the Portland-Communications Wikipedia page.

Yet more interesting, ‘Portlander 10′ also removed reference to Stella Artois from the Wikipedia page entitled ‘Wife-beater’ and replaced it with a generic reference to lager or beer. This is factually inaccurate because in Britain, unpleasant a term as it is, Stella Artois is known to many as “wife-beater”. The term isn’t used generally to describe all lagers or beers. Interestingly the reference to wife-beater remains on the Wikipedia page for Stella Artois itself after it looks like sharp eyed Wikipedians spotted the edit and reversed it, only for it later to be completely removed by someone at the 83.244.252.242 IP address to then 3 minutes later undo their deletion – perhaps they thought someone might notice?

Stella Artois seems to have a huge advertising budget. This year, the powerful brand won awards for the campaign “she is a thing of beauty”. http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1109369/

Maybe this is why ‘portlander10′ felt they should remove the “wife beater” phrase. If it subsequently transpires that ‘portlander10′ is linked to the lobbying firm of the same name, then there is a potential PR disaster that outweighs the risk of breaking Wikipedia’s editing rules. In deleting the phrase, or rather, in being caught deleting the phrase, “portlander10″ risks the integrity of the whole advertising campaign as attention is brought to the contrast of the “She is a thing of beauty” message vs the pejorative term “wife beater”. It’s not quite a Gerald Ratner moment but it’s not far off.

There is a more serious issue though. For some time now, party leaders – all three of them – have expressed concern about lobbyists, particularly those paid to promote the interests of foreign governments. Bell Pottinger came under pressure after the very impressive expose by the Bureau of Investigative journalism and the Independent newspaper just before Christmas.

Tim Allan’s Portland Communications works for at least two foreign governments: Russia and Kazakhstan. Think about that for a moment. The former political editor of The Sun and the former spin doctor for Tony Blair work for the Russians. Truth indeed that irony is alive and kicking in politics.

The IP address 83.244.252.242 appears as the source of edits to a number of Wikipedia articles. These include the Wikipedia pages for:

BTA Bank, Mukhtar Ablyazov, Timur Kulibayev, Mo Ibrahim, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Ibrahim Index of African Governance, ITV News at Ten, Wife-beater, Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.

In the case of BTA Bank, a registered client, there are specific edits to add information in regards to their seeking legal action for corruption against a Mukhtar Ablyazov.

The entry of Mukhtar Ablyazov is of note. He once was the head of the BTA Bank. It appears he was the subject of court proceedings in the UK. Someone using the above IP address removed references to alleged links to the Government of Kazakhstan being politically motivated in their pursuit of Ablyazov which was referenced through the UNHCR to Amnesty International.

They also removed a section that noted the impact Mr Ablyazov’s request for asylum in the UK was having on UK-Kazakhstan relations that was referenced to the Daily Telegraph newspaper – which is considered as a appropriate source for referencing by Wikipedia.

There is also an edit that adds that the Russian Interior Ministry has requested a warrant for Ablyazov’s arrest. Not to mention some other interesting edits along the way.

In fairness to Tim Allan, we only know about his distasteful clients because unlike Bell Pottinger, he has done the right thing and signed his company up to the lobbyist’s trade body, which obliges members to list their clients. Yet his commitment to transparency appears to end there. It certainly doesn’t appear to extend to Wikipedia.

Allan’s company have a lot of clients who are not foreign governments – Google for example. Strange bedfellows. The global company who believe in transparency in the same client-list as the Government of Russia. I wonder if the people at Google know what company Tim Allan keeps?

UPDATE: Francis Ingham has been in touch. He runs the PRCA, a different but similar trade body to the APPC. He points out that Bell Pottinger are members of this body and they do register their clients with them. I wasn’t aware of this at time of writing and am happy to put the matter right here. The best way to do this is to publish Francis’s email message. He’s given me permission to reproduce it in full:

“BPPA joined us in March 2010. Entries are retrospective so first entry probably after election. Not sure as I’m at home right now. Like APPC members, all PRCA ones register all PA clients, directors and PA staff every three months. Some agencies join us; some APPC; some both. But our requirements and codes are very similar. Main difference is we have in house teams as members too, and they are required to register PA work too. Last month, we left UK public affairs council due its failures, and called for statutory register held by independent (non industry) body. We hope govt now moves quickly on this.”

UPDATE 2, 3rd January: The list of clients was playing on my mind last night. Then it hit me. “Falcon and Associates”. Never heard of them. Nearly every other company on the list – Virgin Media, Tesco, National Grid, MacDonalds, Coca Cola, Cable and Wireless – they’re not just big companies they’re household names. The only other Falcons I know are a chain of kebab shops in Hull. So who are Falcon and Associates? Turning to Portland’s other client, Google, I found an article that begins: “His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, has issued, in his capacity as the Ruler of Dubai, a law establishing Falcon and Associates.”

So basically, Falcon and Associates is the company established by the Government of Dubai to represent the interests of Dubai. Tim Allan’s Portland communications is working for the Government of Dubai through Falcon and Associates. You wouldn’t have known this unless you’d spent a considerable amount of time digging around. Just as well I did.

It is now more that 36 hours since my car was reported to the breakdown service I paid for with the annual insurance renewal. How long have we been together now, is it two or three years? In all that time, never have I troubled you.

That is, until the day before yesterday. 14 calls later, my car has still not been delivered to the Toyota garage in South London as agreed on call number one. It’s almost like you have kidnapped my vehicle.

This is not the level of service I expect. Indeed, it is shoddy and unacceptable.

Your failure to apply the most basic standards of service has not just inconvenienced colleagues at work, it has caused difficulty for my family.

I must ask that you pull your socks up, sort out my problem and come back to me with some proposal for how you can put this matter right.

The car registration is XXXX

One last thing: It may be a pointless endeavour but I have started to raise your poor service across an array of social networks. It relieves the ennui of dealing with the passive aggressive people you employ to take “service” calls at the contact centre.

Q78 Jim Sheridan: How would you describe you relationship with Lucy Panton?

John Yates: I have known Lucy for a number of years. I have been around crime and serious crime for probably the best part of 15, 20 years. I have known Lucy for ages, actually.

Q79 Jim Sheridan: Do you have any other friends at News International?

John Yates: Currently?

Jim Sheridan: Well, even then. Old friends/new friends?

John Yates: Yes, probably – I have to think about who has been there, who has not been there and where they have gone since. No, there would be a number of people I know. Again, I have been around serious crime for 20 years; you are going to come across journalists in every walk of life. It is not unusual.

Q80 Jim Sheridan: But do you not think it would be unusual, given the circumstances at that time for you to have dinner and social arrangements with people who are being investigated?

John Yates: Hang on, News International is a big firm. It is like saying someone cannot have dinner with me because a detective inspector in Bromley has been nicked for corruption. It is absurd. If they were suspects, absolutely not right, but they were not at that point, as far as I am aware they are not now, and if they did become then clearly that makes a huge difference.

Q81 Jim Sheridan: Have you met any of the Murdoch family?

John Yates: Not that I am aware of.