Phone hacking scandal deepens

[David Guyatt]

I've heard some bollocks in my time, but the former NoW Managing Editor claiming to be puzzled by Goodman's expenses claims, takes the blue ribbon prize for 2013 tosh.

Would a managing editor repeatedly sanction payments if he didn't know what they were for. Not bloody likely. The clue in the deceit, imo, is the word "managing" in his title. That was his job. Not to be puzzled, but to know.

Guilty m'laud. Guilty as hell.

But they'll all get away with I suspect.

Ex-News of the World editor puzzled by payment requests, hacking trial hears

Stuart Kuttner says Clive Goodman would ask for approval of payments of up to £300 for stories that were 'little snippets'

• Lisa O'Carroll
  
• theguardian.com, Tuesday 17 December 2013 14.49 GMT
  

Former News of the World editor Stuart Kuttner says he was puzzled by some requests for payments for stories by Clive Goodman. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Clive Goodman, the former royal editor on the News of the World jailed in relation to phone-hacking offences would rarely "stir himself" and go out and get stories, it was claimed at the Old Bailey.
Stuart Kuttner, 73, the paper's former managing editor, told police in an interview after his arrest in 2011, that he was puzzled with the payment requests by Goodman for stories and by his constant presence in the office.
He said Goodman was "irritated" by queries over his requests for payments because he was a former news editor who would have had the authority to sanction payments himself, adding that he never understood why he did not leave the office.
He continued: "I was not his line boss, but eventually, I learned that no matter what, he would not stir himself and go out and cover stories, that seemed to be a negation of a reporter's role."
According to a transcript of his police interview read out to the jury in the Old Bailey phone-hacking trial on Tuesday, Kuttner said eventually he, and the paper's then editor Rebekah Brooks, "did a job in Paris like two journalists that we'd wanted Clive to do."
He told police they went to see "a man called Johnny Bryant" who had had a relationship with Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and who "had come round to the view that in return for a lot of money he'd sell his story."
Neil Wallis, who was then working for the Sun, was also on the train. "Unfortunately, whoever ran Eurostar managed to make it the longest ever journey to Paris 17 hours."
Kuttner said Goodman would ask to approve payments which, he felt, were sometimes "out of kilter with what appeared in the paper" up to £300 for "little snippets".
In the 2011 police interview, Kuttner repeatedly denied all knowledge of phone hacking, including an alleged conspiracy with Andy Coulson, who was editor between 2003 and 2007, when he had to resign over the conviction and subsequent jailing of Goodman in relation to interception of the voice messages of members of the royal household.
Asked if he "ever conspired with Mr Coulson to hack in to mobile phones," he replied: "No, I did not."
Asked if he was "aware of him conspiring with others or actually hacking into mobile phones himself," he replied: "No, I am not."
He said he liked Coulson, who he described as "competitive, astute" and more "enthusiastic" than some others he had dealt with in his 29-year career.
Asked if he ever knew prior to Goodman's arrest that he was tasking Glenn Mulcaire to hack phones, he said: "Absolutely not". He said the first he heard of Mulcaire "possibly" was when he was arrested along with Goodman in 2006.
He also denied knowing that Goodman was putting through payments for a man called Alexander, a pseudonym used by Mulcaire.
"I trusted staff, I had no reason on earth to think that Clive Goodman or indeed anybody was inventing people," he told police.
"Why Mr Goodman should invent another person, I've no idea. If he was paying Mulcaire, he should have been paying Mulcaire."
Kuttner said he never knew the identities of the people he was paying "beyond the information on the docket".
Asked if there was a culture of inventing names for payment on the paper, he said: "Not that I'm aware."
The trial continues.