Max Clifford drops News of the World phone hacking action in £1m deal

Tabloid accused of buying silence after persuading celebrity PR agent to drop case over interception of voicemail messages

Max Clifford. Photograph: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images

The News of the World was tonight accused of buying silence in the phone-hacking scandal after it agreed to pay more than £1m to persuade the celebrity PR agent Max Clifford to drop his legal action over the interception of his voicemail messages.
The settlement means that there will now be no disclosure of court-ordered evidence which threatened to expose the involvement of the newspaper's journalists in a range of illegal information-gathering by private investigators.
The case had potentially important implications for Andy Coulson, media adviser to the Conservative leader, David Cameron, who edited the News of the World at the time of the illegal activity and who has said that he does not remember any of his journalists breaking the law.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, who has asked questions in parliament about the affair, said: "This is a clear attempt to buy the silence of people who had their phones hacked by the News of the World's reporters. It would make more sense for the newspaper to come clean. The trouble with cover-ups like this is that they give no reassurance that the guilty parties have really changed their ways."

The settlement with Clifford is understood to be worth just over £1m, including legal costs and substantial personal payments which will not be described as "damages", leaving the News of the World free to claim that it has admitted no wrongdoing. It brings to more than £2m the amount paid by News International to victims of phone-hacking to secure their silence: in a separate case the paper paid more than £1m to suppress legal actions brought by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, and two others who had sued the paper over the interception of their voicemail. The paper had always denied all involvement but paid for a secret settlement after a judge ordered disclosure of paperwork which implicated some of its journalists.
The two men at the heart of the scandal – the paper's former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire – also have been paid money by the News of the World in settlements of unfair dismissal claims, the terms of which are believed to compel them not to disclose what they know about illegal activity at the paper.
Goodman and Mulcaire were jailed in January 2007 for intercepting the voicemail of a total of eight victims, including Clifford and Taylor. The News of the World originally claimed that it had no knowledge of any of the illegal activity. Coulson resigned on the grounds that he carried ultimate responsibility.
Since then it has emerged that other News of the World journalists were involved in handling illegally "hacked" voicemail messages and that there were numerous other victims. Three mobile phone companies found more than 100 customers whose voicemail had been accessed in the previous 12 months by the two jailed men.
Scotland Yard has admitted that in material seized from Mulcaire, it found 91 pin codes, which are used for the interception of voicemail, and that it warned people in government, the military, the police and the royal household that their messages may have been intercepted. Known victims include Prince William, Prince Harry, the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, the MP George Galloway and the former executive director of the Football Association, David Davies.
The Clifford case threatened to bring important new material into the public domain. In preliminary hearings, Mulcaire insisted that, contrary to the News of the World's denials, he passed information from the hacking of Clifford's voicemails to journalists on the paper. He did not identify them but on February 3, Mr Justice Vos ordered him to do so. The settlement means that Mulcaire is no longer required to name the names.
The judge had also ordered the Information Commissioner's Office to provide material seized from a second investigator, Steve Whittamore, which according to an ICO witness statement reveals "a widespread and unlawful trade in confidential information commissioned by journalists of the News of the World".
Through its barrister the News of the World accepted that contrary to its previous claims, Goodman's purchase of confidential personal information from a private investigator had not been an isolated incident. The ICO material would have identified individual journalists, but that, too, will not now be disclosed.
Finally, the settlement means the News of the World is no longer required to disclose the terms of its secret settlement with Taylor, nor the agreement with Mulcaire that is alleged to have bought his silence.
The settlement is unlikely to mark the end of the affair. Clifford's lawyer, Charlotte Harris, of JMW Solicitors in Manchester, said last night: "There are a number of public figures who are now contemplating issuing proceedings against the News of the World." Politicians, leading actors and sportsmen are believed to be among those who are preparing to sue. And MPs on all sides of the house are watching closely for the effect of the scandal on Coulson.
The House of Commons media select committee last month accused witnesses from the News of the World of "obfuscation" and "collective amnesia". A Labour member of the committee, Paul Farrelly, said last night: "This seems to be another settlement by the News of the World that preserves the cloak of secrecy and confidentiality around its affairs. It all mounts up to give the impression that silence is effectively being bought. People will draw their own conclusion about what are the real motives behind the settlement."
The News of the World declined to comment. Clifford said he was very happy with the outcome: "I'm now looking forward to continuing the successful relationship that I experienced with the News of the World for 20 years before my recent problems with them."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...-phone-hacking