THE ORIGINAL investigation into phone-hacking by the News of the World was deliberately limited to ensure that Princes William and Harry would not have to give evidence in a trial.
The first, and since much criticised, investigation led to the prosecution in 2007 of the tabloid’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
The disclosure to the Leveson Inquiry was made by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, who was not in office when the prosecution was launched.
“What was meant was that the case should be circumscribed in such a way that Princes William and Harry would not have to give evidence, nor would the content of their voicemails become public,” he told the inquiry.
Instead, officials working for the princes were called to give evidence: “To that extent was not only successful but was, in my view, entirely justified,” he declared.
The DPP said lawyers working for the Crown Prosecution Service in 2006 had asked the Metropolitan Police whether there was evidence that “implicated” other News of the World staff, including editor Andy Coulson: “They were told that there was not,” he said.
He rejected the defence offered for a time by the police that it could not investigate some hacking claims because it was not clear whether a voicemail had been heard by the intended recipient. He said the CPS had not been shown before, or during the original prosecution, the so-called “for Neville” email, prepared by a News of the World journalist for one of the paper’s executives, Neville Thurlbeck, which included the transcripts of 35 voicemails.
When he finally did read them, he said it was clear that the phone-hacking was not limited to Mr Goodman. In July 2009, he met Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who told him that the “for Neville” was not “new material” and would “go nowhere”. Reflecting on his handling of events in 2010 and 2011, Mr Starmer said: “Had I known then what I know now I would have ensured that what took place was a full review of the kind I was subsequently to order in January 2011.
Meanwhile, the leading counsel for the DPP in the Mulcaire/Goodman case, David Perry QC, said he had been given no evidence by the police to justify widening it at the time, or, again, three years later.
In July 2009, he prepared a note for the CPS after the Guardian alleged News of the World journalists had hacked into, and then deleted, voicemail messages left on the mobile of murder victim Milly Dowler. Since then, it has emerged that the messages were not deleted by the reporters.
Notes from the trial indicate that Mr Perry had been told there could be up to 180 hacking victims, but that insufficient evidence existed to prosecute.
