Coulson’s cover-up bid, by reporter who hacked 007’s phone
ANDY Coulson ordered an elaborate plan to cover up a hacked voicemail in which Sienna Miller told Daniel Craig she loved him, a court heard yesterday. The former Downing Street communications chief was allegedly played a tape of the message while he was editor of the News of the World.
He was then said to have masterminded a plan to ensure he could use it without revealing it came from illegal phone tapping.
Giving evidence at the hacking trial, journalist Dan Evans claimed the tabloid editor was ‘ very animated’ after hearing the tape, in which actress Miss Miller told the James Bond star: ‘I love you.’
Evans told the Old Bailey: ‘ Andy wanted to preserve the tape but not in the original recording. He said to make a copy of the tape, stick the copy in a Jiffy bag and have it sent down to the (newspaper’s) front gate, (and to) have them ring up and say it had been dropped in anonymously.
‘The idea was that if push came to shove we would say someone sent it in and that’s what sparked it off.’
The plan was put into action and minutes later a journalist came into the newsroom holding the Jiffy bag with a look of ‘mock surprise’, the jury heard.
Evans said he then destroyed the orig-
‘Good work, they said’
inal tape and the Dictaphone he used to record it and was sent to confront Mr Craig, who denied the affair.
Faced with a denial, Evans continued to hack his voicemail, and said he heard a ‘bitchy’ message from actor Jude Law, Miss Miller’s then long-term boyfriend, saying: ‘ Thanks mate, hope Satsi doesn’t find out.’ Evans said he thought this was a reference to Mr Craig’s girlfriend, film producer Satsuki Mitchell.
The newspaper ran a 2005 front page story revealing Miss Miller had cheated on Mr Law, with Mr Craig.
Evans, who has admitted phone hacking, also claimed he won praise from senior journalists including Coulson after he played the recording of the incriminating voicemail in the newsroom. He said: ‘Andy was there, I played the tape a couple of times. Andy became very animated, “brilliant”... Everyone’s having a bit of an adrenalin kick. They said “good work”.’
Evans told the jury another senior journalist had grabbed him by the elbow and told him: ‘You’re a company man now, Dan.’
Coulson, 46, resigned after the paper’s royal editor and a private detective were jailed for phone tapping in 2007 but has repeatedly denied knowledge of hacking at the tabloid. He later became David Cameron’s head of communications in Downing Street.
Evans, 38, named Coulson as one of ten journalists at the Sunday paper who knew he was hacking the phones of celebrities.
He said he was ‘terrorised’ into targeting countless stars because of the pressure to uncover exclusive stories, and claimed he was told to get a front page or ‘ you might as well jump off a cliff’.
The reporter said he heard the message on Mr Craig’s voicemail during his trawl, saying: ‘I hacked every phone I could think of, including an actor called Daniel Craig, who might be better known as James Bond.
‘I heard a female voice saying “Hi, it’s me, can’t speak, I’m at the Groucho with Jude, I love you”. When I checked the number, it came up as Sienna Miller’s.’
Evans said Mr Law and Miss Miller were ‘hot property’ at the time as the actor had recently been caught cheating with his children’s nanny.
‘There had been lots and lots of pictures of Sienna making a big play of being the hurt woman,’ he said. ‘This was the next instalment in the soap opera.’
Evans said Mr Law was ‘obviously bouncing’ with anger over Miss Miller’s infidelity and effectively sanctioned the article about the affair, as it was approved by his publicist
He claimed Mr Law, 41, had made it known through the publicist that Miss Miller ‘had me jumping through hoops, saying I had to do this and that to keep the relationship, but really she’s a female Casanova’.
Evans has admitted conspiring to hack phones at the Sunday Mirror and News of the World between 2003 and 2010 and two charges of conspiring to commit misconduct and perverting the course of justice by lying in a witness statement to the High Court.
He described the ‘ palpable
‘Everyone was on tenterhooks’
sense of shock’ at the News of the World after its royal editor Clive Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire were arrested for phone hacking in August 2006, the year after the article about Miss Miller’s affair.
Journalists embarked on a ‘purge’ to hide evidence, he said, adding: ‘Everyone was on tenterhooks. There was a lot of fear and anxiety. Everyone was getting ready to cover their tracks.’
Evans said he destroyed notebooks and tapes of messages and hid his own master copy of his list of hacking targets, which he wrapped in black gaffer tape and hid in a friend’s loft.
It included celebrities such as Cilla Black, Robbie Coltrane, Shane Richie, Jade Goody, Rolf Harris and Kate Moss. Broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald and singers James Blunt and Duncan James were also on the list.
Evans told the court he wanted to apologise to those whose privacy he infringed.
Coulson denies charges of conspiring to hack phones and commit misconduct.
All seven defendants in the trial, including former Sun and News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, deny all the charges against them. The trial continues.
Sarah Vine – Page 15