News of the World accused of phone-hacking ‘amnesia’

A group of MPs have accused executives at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World of suffering "collective amnesia" over the extent of illegal phone-tapping by its reporters. The idea that Clive Goodman, the paper's royal correspondent jailed in 2007 for hacking into the private voicemails of royal aides was a "rogue reporter" and that no one else at the tabloid knew about or condoned the practice was "inconceivable".

That is the headline news from the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee' long-awaited report on press standards, privacy and libel published this morning.

But while the report is forthright and unequivocally critical of some of those who have given evidence, those like Max Mosley who were hoping for a clear, statutory definition of privacy, and the right to pre-empt its breach, will be disappointed.

So, too, will those who had hoped to see former News of the World editor and now Tory party spin-doctor Andy Coulson (pictured above, behind Rupert Murdoch and former News International executive chairman Les Hinton) hung out to dry for his supposed involvement in Goodman's royal voicemail hacking.

"We have repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall and deliberate obfuscation," says the 167-page report. "We strongly condemn this behaviour which reinforces the widely held impression that the press generally regard themselves as unaccountable and that News International in particular has sought to conceal the truth about what really occurred."

Nevertheless, says the cross-party committee, "We have seen no evidence that Andy Coulson knew that phone hacking was taking place."

Introducing the report in a Commons committee room yesterday, chairman John Whittingdale admitted that they'd had to accept at face value Andy Coulson's assurances that he had "no recollection" of a major royal story in his paper which could only have been obtained by illegal phone-hacking.

Beyond this most politically charged aspect of their report, Whittingdale and his committee have come to several well-considered and - if ever adopted - useful conclusions.

Unless the Press Complaints Commission is extensively overhauled and reconstituted, the report says, it cannot deliver satisfactory regulation of the press. They recommend that the lay (non-journalist) membership of the commission be increased from 10 out of 17 to a two-thirds majority and that its powers be enhanced, to give it effective teeth, although they stop short of advising a statutorily created body. They feel that this shouldn't be necessary if all the participants are willing.

The PCC should also be more proactive when they see abuses of the Editors' Code, and not wait for someone to lodge a complaint. They should ensure that all relevant bodies that liaise with potentially injured parties are fully aware of the services the PCC can offer. Victims like the McCanns and the families of the Bridgend teenage suicides should have been referred to the commission right from the start.

All the national press should participate in the funding of the PCC and their journalists should be mandatorily contracted to adhere to the PCC code.

The PCC should also have power to ensure that any apologies or corrections appearing subsequent to offending stories should have a prominence equal to the original story. In addition, the commission should be able to impose financial penalties and, in extremis, the power to order suspension of the printing of a publication for one issue. The committee recommends that PCC be renamed the Press Complaints and Standards Commission, to underline this broader remit.

Under the heading of Press Standards, there are recommendations that the PCC adjudicate over misleading headlines that don't reflect the content of the piece below them. Public comments on newspapers' websites should be more rigidly moderated, and offending text removed as soon as it comes to light.

The use of injunctions and parliamentary reporting was also scrutinised by the committee, especially as experienced last year in the Trafigura case and more recently in the John Terry case.

The committee had taken evidence last summer from Max Mosley who explained that, as a result of his own experiences, he had approached the European Court in Strasbourg in an attempt to establish, in England, the right of the potential target of a damaging story to have it injuncted until such time as the paper can demonstrate a genuine public interest, on the grounds that a retrospective judgment against a publication will not put the cat back in the bag.

The committee, however, concludes that it would be more appropriate to "encourage editors and journalists to notify in advance the subject of a critical story or report by permitting courts to take account of a failure to notify when assessing damages in any subsequent proceedings for breach of Article 8 [the right to privacy]". Which means the cat is still out of the bag.

Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw has responded to Whittingdale's report by saying it raises "extremely serious questions" for Murdoch and his executives. "This report... says lawbreaking was condoned and that the company sought to conceal the truth," he said. "We welcome the report and are considering what further action may be needed to be taken."

But any new legislation - or judicial reviews, as the Guardian is promoting this morning - will have to wait for the general election. ·