Friday morning in court number four continued with Tommy Sheridan leaving his seat in the dock to cross-examine Bob Bird, Scottish editor of the News of the World (NotW) Mr Sheridan began by asking Mr Bird if his newspaper "always told the truth" The witness replied that it "did it's best. Mr Sheridan then asked Mr Bird if he had ever met Rupert Murdoch (the chairman of News International) The witness replied they had met "half a dozen times" but had never discussed this case with Mr Murdoch or any of his family. Mr Sheridan then asked what Mr Bird's salary was, to which the witness responded "six figures' Mr Sheridan then asked exactly how much he earned and at that point Mr Prentice for the crown objected to the question as irrelevant , an objection that Lord Bracadale upheld.
After a discussion about the management structure of the NotW, where Mr Bid confirmed that he reported to the paper's national editor. Mr Sheridan asked how many reporters the paper had employed on the "Sheridan story" Mr Bird replied that "half a dozen" of his 19 staff had worked on the story, but "not all at the same time" he did however agree that the newspaper had "put lots of resources" into the story. Mr Bird also confirmed that his "boss" until 2007 had been Andrew Coulson. Mr Sheridan then put it to the witness that News International was a "multi-billion corporation" that would have lots of "media and editing equipment" Mr Bird agreed.
Mr Sheridan then asked Mr Bird if he was a member of the "Society of Editors" to which Mr Bird responded that he personally was not. The witness was then asked if he had ever been to adjudication with the Press Complaints commission. Mr Bird said that recently the newspaper had run a story about a "7 year old in Aberdeen who was a bit of a tearaway" and that the PCC had upheld the father of the boy's complaints, and admitted "we occasionally get things wrong." Mr Sheridan then asked the witness if he was under pressure to increase the paper's market share which Mr Bird denied saying he was only under pressure to produce a "good newspaper that sells" the witness also denied that this account of watching the "McNeilage video" in his boxer shorts was "Sexed up" like the stories in his newspaper and insisted he had only been concerned to correct a "grave miscarriage of justice" (the civil trail verdict)
Mr Sheridan then produced excerpts from the Newspaper editors code of practice and asked Mr Bird if he complied with them. Mr Bird replied that the Notw "do our best to." Mr Sheridan highlighted the section on "clandestine devices and subterfuge" and asked if the NotW followed that section of the code and again Mr Bird said we "do our best to."
Mr Sheridan then asked Mr Bird if he had given a copy of the disputed tape to the police, to which the witness said no, it was being gathered as evidence for the NotW's appeal in the libel case. Mr Bird added that after the tape had been used in a story in September 2006 the police had contacted the paper and explained that it was not given to the police initially due to the "confidentiality agreement with George" [McNeilage]
Mr Sheridan then moved on to the issue of payments to witnesses in the case and asked if Mr Bird had disclosed all of the witnesses that had been paid or offered payments. Mr Bird responded "yes, we have now" Mr Sheridan then queried the word "now" in the answer and Mr Bird explained that in the libel trial he had stated that Katrine Trolle had not been offered any money by the newspaper but had found out after his testimony that she had. Mr Bird added that this was a "genuine mistake" and denied Mr Sheridan's assertion that this amounted to "perjury" Mr Sheridan then asked the witness if the police had ever cautioned him, the witness said they had not, but denied a suggestion that the NotW considered itself "immune from prosecution."
Mr Sheridan then if there were any other witnesses in the case had been given or offered payment by the NotW. Mr Bird told the court that Anvar Khan had been given £2000 for the original story, Mr Sheridan asked Mr Bird if this meant Ms Khan had "lied" in her evidence to the court when she had denied receiving any payment for her story. Mr Bird replied that she "could be mistaken" an answer Mr Sheridan described as "another honest mistake."
Mr Sheridan then asked if Andrew McFarlane had been offered money, to which Mr Bird replied "possibly" and that Gary Clarke was "probably" also offered a payment. When asked if any of the staff in Cupids had been offered payments Mr Bird replied he "couldn't put his hand on heart" and deny it adding that it was the policy of the News of the World to "buy people's stories" and he only heard about it when "someone said yes" to one of his journalists. Mr Sheridan then pointed out that the Editors code of conduct forbids payments to witnesses in "active legal proceedings" to which Mr Bird responded that he did not regard the case as "active" when the payments were made, adding that he knew there was an investigation but not a active case.
Mr Sheridan then turned to a meeting held between Mr Bird, Kenneth Lang ( a legal advisor to the NoTW) and a Detective chief inspector Barrie at Fettes police station in Edinburgh in the week after the initial 1st October 2006 story on the tape. Mr Bird was asked if the police had asked him not to run any more stories about the tape as there was an ongoing police investigation connected to it. Mr Bird replied that he did "not recall" Mr Sheridan asked if Mr Bird was claiming the police had called him in "to say hello" and asked if the police had told him that promoting the tape further would be 'contrary to the interests of justice" as it could prejudice any future trial. Mr Bird again answered that he did not recall but added that in his belief publicising the tape was in the "public interest" as it "exposed you" and "people who voted for you had a right to know" Mr Sheridan then asked Mr Bird about a police statement he had made in which he had said the jury in the libel case where "not a normal jury" the witness stated he did "not recall" saying that.
Mr Sheridan then returned to the subject of the meeting at Fettes police station and put it to Mr Bird that a senior police officer asking him not to run further stories would be a "memorable thing to say" The witness again said he did "not recall" that being said. Mr Sheridan put it to Mr Bird that he was only interested in "causing maximum damage regardless of the police" and that he had "no interest in justice" and only wanted a "good story for the paper" Mr Bird replied that "we were after justice too" to which Mr Sheridan replied that "if your bosses had the slightest integrity you should have got your jotters" Mr Bird responded "that is only your opinion.
Mr Sheridan then produced a copy of the NotW from October 1st 2006 and had a page displayed on the court's video screens where readers were invited to "hear him confess" by phoning a premium rate telephone number at 50p per minute. Mr Sheridan put it to the witness that the NotW Scotland had an audience of around 1 million people and asked how much money the line had generated. Mr Bird said he had no idea.
Mr Sheridan ended the pre-lunch session of court by asking if the NotW had employed any private investigators in his case. Mr Bird replied that they had once, to try and track down Duncan Rowan before the 2006 libel trial. The witness added that the investigator had failed to find Mr Rowan.
With that the court rose with Mr Sheridan due to continue his cross-examination after lunch. A report on that session will follow later this evening.
25 comments:
Good stuff James, I was getting worried earlier with lunch time poet. Was there any comment regarding TS's medical condition? abd was there any space in the public galleries morning/afternoon?
Hello gom, there was space today in the morning, nothing about ts medically in front of the jury.
That must have taken a long time but I haven't a clue where he's going with this. So the NOTW is a tabloid that sells itself on stories (some of which they pay for) that appeal to debase interests and not the quality of its journalism, so what? It doesn't even touch on the question of the tape's authenticity. Does anyone else agree that Lord B is being awfully generous in allowing time for TS to take the court on all these meanderings?
@ Lynn, I think that TS's point is that News International (Owners of the NotW) are a vast multi-billion empire media empire with the very latest in tape-editing technology. The point being is that they have the technological know-how and capability to "concoct" the disputed tape.
I disagree. If Tommy can show that the NOTW is repeatedly lying and encouraged/paid others to do so, it shows that he correctly won the libel case on the balance of probabilities. In which it is hard to see how he can be jailed for lying beyond reasonable doubt while the NOTW is apparently getting away with it. It also undermines all other witnesses with NOTW connections (hence the money line).
This would leave only the SSP witnesses against him, and given what everybody knows about leftist/socialist factionalism, I don't think that is enough for a criminal conviction.
It is impossible to tell Lynn.
LB can not really say whether this is "meandering" or will be relevant to evidence produced later. I've heard this complaint a few times on this blog but it is not for the Judge to decide that something is meandering. He will rule if something is being repeated too often, if someone is being asked to give an opinion on other evidence or witnesses, or if Mr Sheridan asks for personal details that are not relevant to the case (as he did today re Bird's salary) but I cannot see him intervening simply because he does not know where Mr Sheridan "is going".
He might ask if it is relevant, but then Sheridan can easily reply that it relates to evidence that will be heard at a later date.
To me it looks like Mr Sheridan is doing the correct thing. He is showing the jury a picture of a paper that is willing to 'stretch the truth' and use questionable methods to secure stories. That is what any defence QC in his position would do.
Mr Sheridan has a very real point re the tape and handing it to police, Newspapers do have a duty to hand evidence to police and publishing edited versions with verdicts on it's contents CAN be "contrary to the interest of justice". I would be very surprised if the Police had not asked Bird to hand over the tape and to stop publishing any more about it. I would have expected them to be angry that the paper had published it before consulting with police. In some cases this could have jeopardised the police's ability to turn their investigation into a trial. Although I am sure this ground will already have been covered in the pre-trial hearings.
If the report here is accurate I do not see Mr Sheridan's strategy as meandering at all.
Even if it was a premium line to begin with, a week or two later you could download the tape for free.
You couldn't stitch together such a long and complex load of speech, with appropriate background noise and acoustics like the one on the tape, without it being noticeable; it would sound unbelievably strange. Speech is not just tiny units of sound mashed together with neat spaces, each phoneme is affected by its neighbours, and each runs into each other.
If the tape has been edited, it would be immediately apparent upon inspection even just of the spectrogram of sounds.
Is it possible that Walking with Dinosaurs is real footage after all as well?
Christian, it's not quite as clear-cut as that, there are independent witnesses who dont come from NOTW or SSP, Elizabeth Quinn, the retired school teacher for example and the couple with whom Katrina Trolle shared a house. All three claim to have seen TS in places he said he had never been and with people he claims he wasn't having a relationship with (at that time in the case of A K). So we would therefore have to believe that they are also lying and willing to perjure themselves for nothing? There are a lot more strands to this than this and it will be very interesting to see how the AP pulls them all together.
Addendum to Lynn - not to mention things like phone records, video tapes, and I suspect more to come
Firstly, thank you Mr Doleman for bringing us this coverage of the trial. It's much appreciated, You always give a first class account.
As for the case....TS might have some success in besmurching the cheque book journalism and motives of the NOTW, and even a few former friends and colleagues, but all the Crown have to do to prove their case in chief, is convince the jury of TS's attendance at Cupids nightclub, ergo he was not libelled by the paper in 2004, ergo, he brought a wrongful defamation case against the NOTW....during which he lied under oath. From the varied Crown witnesses who have appeared so far, TS is not imo doing such a great job at empeaching them or raising a credible motive as to why so many people would collectively lie about either attending the club with him or hearing him admit to it later on. The only person who seems to have made a significant amount of money out of this is McNeilage who is a bit of a maverick imo. Right now as things stand, it doesn't look too good for TS. Maybe that will change when the Crown rests and TS presents his own witnesses. We shall see.
Not Politically Affiliated,
Agree, TS has already mentioned during cross examination of Anthony Cumberbirch that he will call owner of Cupid's who will confirm he wasn't there that night and also said during discussion of tape that he has expert witness who can prove tape is a fake. Could he not have produced these witnesses at that stage or does he have to wait till Crown rests and he defence takes over? I know zilch about courtroom procedures but I'm learning a lot from James and the bloggers on here. Does anyone know how much it costs to do a law degree these days?
@ Lynn not prove that the tape was a fake, but prove that he tape was "selectively edited" whatever that means.
Hello Lynn, the defence can not call witnesses until the prosecution has ended it's case. They can however put things to witnesses now so that they can bring evidence later.
So for example in cross-examination of a prosecution witness they ask, "I put it to you that we will be presenting witnesses later that will say blah de blah, what have you got to say" Which then allows the defence to bring that point back up later.
James
Thanks for clearing that up.
Anonymous
'Selectively edited' - could that mean that TS accepts it is his voice but tape has been cut and pasted to produce a different meaning to that which was originally intended? If so couldn't that be proven or otherwise by forensic examination and surely the NOTW would have done that before shelling out 200k?
Lynn. Re. selective editing.
It should be remembered that the NoTW are practiced in providing dubious information and do not hold back with regard to money they will spend in this regard. In my opinion they would not baulk in using anything in their armour even if they had doubts in authenticity, to them the ends justify the means.
@ Lynn, there are lots of "spliced" recordings, of usually politicians, on places on you tube. Here is one of "Dave" Cameron http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quKdpAyc7TM, there are kind of obvious and it's easy to spot the "joins", maybe Bob Bird has been taken for a ride.
What we need is a "TS in the bunker" tape along the lines of those Hitler parody videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPN0i2Ubv5E&feature=related
It could be something as simple as editing out one word, there is a big difference in meaning between "It was a huge f!"£$%^ mistake" and "it wasn't a huge f!"£$%^ mistake".
This was a piece of analogue magnetic cassette tape which is a lot more difficult to "tamper" with than newer digital media; and even that leaves tell-tale traces.
Lynn,
Yesss, point taken. In fact I wonder if in the end a lot might depend on the credibility of Ms Trolle. In which case, if TS is not convicted that contact police officer will have a lot to answer for. For I can understand Katrina Trolle saying "I'm not a professional, I'm just me", but boy that officer should have been professional and didn't look it in James' reporting!
Sorry Christian, had to not post your last bit not because it was bad but it did state your beliefs about the motives of a witness.
Rememeber that words like "supposedly" and "allegedly" are your friends.
OK, lets try again:
Lynn, I forgot that it has been alleged that the NOTW has offered money to Ms Trolle. Now even if she refused, if the NOTW has offered her some money, then in my view this might possibly cast some doubt over her statement.
As for the premium rate "confession" phone line that Bird had idea how much money was being made. this seem to lend more towards TS assertion that as an editor Birds main consideration is a story by any means necessary, it does necessarily has to be correct, just a story that sells papers.Just how many premium rate phone lines were in operation that week,month, year? which Bird, as editor authorised but did not have a clue how much money was generated by them.
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