No one is above the law says PM as ex-spin doctor Coulson gets 18 months for hacking
THE 18-month jail term handed to David Cameron’s f ormer spin doctor Andy Coulson shows that ‘no-one is above the law’, the Prime Minister said yesterday.
Coulson, 46, was last night believed to be in Belmarsh high-security prison starting his sentence for his role in the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World.
The term means that as a non-violent offender, he could be out on licence in just over six months – less time than the £100million eight-month trial took to complete.
Mr Cameron commented on the sentencing during a visit to Scotland yesterday, saying: ‘What it says is that it is right that justice should be done and no one is above the law, which is what I have always said.’
Asked if he had sent any message to the disgraced spin doctor since his conviction, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: ‘Not that I’m aware of.’
It comes after Mr Cameron apologised for giving Coulson a job as the Conservatives’ director of communications in 2007 and then as the his own spin doctor in Downing Street after the 2010 election.
Coulson, his former news editor Greg Miskiw and ex-chief reporter Neville Thurl-
‘That was unforgiveable’
beck were all jailed after the court heard they had been at the centre of a plot to hack phones which ultimately led to the closure of the 168-year-old newspaper.
Ruthless ambition and competition to sell papers meant they pursued celebrities, and members of the Royal Family – but also ordinary members of the public whose lives had been thrown into the public spotlight by tragedy.
Trial judge Mr Justice Saunders said their hacking of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler was ‘unforgiveable’ because they had delayed telling police about information from the messages for at least 24 hours while they investigated it themselves, potentially exposing her to greater danger.
He said: ‘The News of the World delayed telling the police the contents of the voicemail until they realised that they were not going to find Milly. That was unforgiveable and could only, in my judgment, have happened with the knowledge of the person editing the paper that week, Andy Coulson.’
He added: ‘ Mr Coulson has to take the major share of the blame for phone hacking at the News of the World. He knew about it, he encouraged it when he should have stopped it.’ Coulson, a married father-of-three, stood upright and stared blankly ahead, although he did flinch as he was told he would be jailed for 18 months.
As he was taken down to the cells, he glanced back towards the public gallery. Although wife Eloise, 42, was not present, his former colleague, Sun columnist and television presenter Jane Moore, was in the public gallery.
She said she had spoken to Coulson ahead of the sentencing, revealing he told her he would ‘try to find some positives’ and ‘come out of it the other side a stronger person’.
But Graham Foulkes, who was hacked after his son was killed in the July 7 London bombings, said he had wanted a longer sentence. ‘We still can’t understand why anyone would think that cheap headlines or a good way to get a story would be to invade somebody’s life at the deepest and darkest point of their life,’ he told the BBC.
The CPS is considering whether to bring further hacking charges
‘Come out of it a stronger person’
against other journalists at the News of the World. A decision is expected at the end of this month.
Coulson is understood to have been taken to Belmarsh prison in south-east London, the top-security jail which holds terrorists and Category A prisoners deemed a high risk to the public.
It has a separate wing for offenders brought after sentencing at the Old Bailey, where Coulson and his co- defendants will be assessed. They are likely to serve their sentences in open prisons.
After facing a maximum of two years for the phone hacking conspiracy, Miskiw, 64, and Thurlbeck, 52, were jailed for six months. Another former news editor James Weatherup, 58, was given a fourmonth sentence suspended for a year and private detective Glenn Mulcaire was told his six-month sentence would also be suspended.
Mr Justice Saunders said there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to prove Coulson had introduced phone hacking at the News of the World. But he said it had ‘increased enormously’ after he took over as editor from his lover Rebekah Brooks.
He rejected arguments that the defendants had not known phone hacking was illegal but said he was reducing their sentences because of the delays in bringing the case to court. Miskiw, Thurlbeck, Weatherup and Mulcaire all received reductions to their sentences because they pleaded guilty.
Coulson and former royal editor Clive Goodman is still facing a retrial on charges that they made corrupt payments to police. Coulson also faces claims that he committed perjury at a trial in Scotland in 2010 and is awaiting a decision on when he will face a trial.