COULSON IN FRAME
NOTW editor ‘gave his permission to hire phone hacker’
FORMER News of the World editor Andy Coulson gave permission to employ a private investigator who was hacking phones, a court has heard.
The paper’s royal editor Clive Goodman, 57, said he was told to use Glenn Mulcaire to access private voicemails on a “trial basis” for £500 a week. Asked if Coulson knew the payments were for a phone- hacking operation, Goodman said: “Yes.”
Coulson, 47, is on trial for perjury. He is accused of lying in court in the 2010 trial of former socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan.
Prosecutors say he falsely stated he did not know about phone hacking at the NOTW after being sworn in as a witness, and falsely stated he did not know that Goodman was involved in intercepting voicemail messages before his arrest in 2006.
Coulson, who later became director of communications at Downing Street, denies the charges.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Goodman began working directly with Mulcaire in 2005. He said Mulcaire suggested that, for £500 per week, he could access voicemails of people around the Royal Family.
Goodman said he wanted to take the newsdesk “out of the loop” and take the proposal to the editor directly.
Richard Goddard, prosecuting, said: “For the avoidance of any doubt, who was the editor?” Goodman said: “That was Andy Coulson.”
Goodman told the court he took the proposal to Coulson in his office at the end of October 2005. He said: “We agreed to it on a trial basis and would review after a month.”
He added: “I didn’t know it was illegal.”
The trial continues.