Anger at end of Leveson inquiry misplaced and curious
Comment By John Mclellan
After a hearing costing more than £5 million and a police investigation which cost not far short of ten times more, the formal investigations into Fleet Street phone hacking and all the spin-off investigations into Press relations with the police and politicians are over.
Since the scandal first emerged in 2006, some 67 journalists have been arrested: 57 were cleared, ten convicted and six went to jail. In total around 100 arrests were made and 40 convictions secured including 11 police officers and 19 public officials. Yet still there was outrage last week when UK Culture Secretary Matt Hancock announced that the Leveson Inquiry was now finished, having been on hold since 2012 because of the number of criminal trials which were set to take place.
Part one was delivered six years ago and as a result of Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations there are now two newspaper and magazine regulators, one funded by the Press to which the vast majority belong, and another the stateapproved group funded by ex-motor racing chief Max Mosley with fewer than a hundred websites and community publications. Hancock also announced the repeal of Section 40 of the Crime & Courts Act, a measure – so far held in abeyance – which was effectively designed to force publications to join the Mosley outfit by imposing all costs of civil law suits on those publishers that refuse to join.
Ironically, one of the angrier outbursts in the Commons last week was from an ex-journalist, the new Edinburgh West Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine, who was formerly editor of the Press Association in Scotland.
“I am utterly dismayed by the Secretary of State’s statement,” she said. “Does he not see the sad irony in talking about how the press has held the powerful to account and then closing the door on our opportunity to hold the powerful voices of the press to account on behalf of the victims? Will the Secretary of State please reconsider thinking about the victims and giving them a chance to raise legitimate concerns under section 40?”
How Ms Jardine thinks Section 40 would help phone hacking victims to raise concerns is anyone’s guess, given that they are all filing compensation claims which it is estimated will cost Rupert Murdoch’s News Group over £0.5 billion and Trinity Mirror around £50m.
SNP culture spokesman Brendan O’hara gave a much more measured response. “We firmly believe that individuals have the right to redress when they feel they have been victims of malpractice,” he said. “However, the Scottish government has absolutely no plans to introduce statutory incentives to the press in Scotland to sign up to a state approved regulator.”
With journalists going to jail for breaking the law, the News of the World closed, millions of pounds in compensation still being paid and a tougher regulatory framework in place, all that seems to be left is a to blackmail reputable publishers to sign up to a scheme bankrolled by a discredited Grand Prix boss whose predilection for prostitutes was exposed by a newspaper.
That’s quite something for the Liberal Democrats to champion. ● John Mclellan is director of the Scottish Newspaper Society