Phone hacking scandal deepens

[David Guyatt]

A blackmail safe?

ews of the World had a 'legendary safe' where 'stories were buried'

Former reporter Dan Evans tells Old Bailey hacking trial that top secrets were kept as a form of insurance

• Lisa O'Carroll
  
• theguardian.com, Thursday 30 January 2014 17.38 GMT
  

Journalist Dan Evans told the Old Bailey that the News of the World had a 'legendary safe'. Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA

The News of the World had a "legendary safe" where "all sorts of stories were buried" about the rich and famous, the Old Bailey has heard.
Former News of the World reporter Dan Evans claimed at the phone-hacking trial on Thursday that the safe in the newspaper was where the top secrets were kept as a form of insurance.
"The editor's safe is legendary where the secrets of the great and the good are kept for a rainy day when they might provide leverage for the paper," Evans said.
He referred to the safe after being questioned about a claim he made earlier in the week in the hacking trial that he had been instructed to make a copy of a tape of an intimate message left by Sienna Miller and put it in a Jiffy bag.
Timothy Langdale QC, counsel for former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, put it to Evans that there was no safe in Coulson's office. "This is another example of story-telling, of fiction, by you," Langdale added.
Evans responded that there was a safe in another former colleague's office if it was not physically in the editor's office.
Langdale challenged Evans's claim made earlier this week that Coulson had instructed Evans to make a dummy copy of the Miller tape, stick it in a Jiffy bag and send it to the paper's courier office, who would then send it back up to the office as part of an attempt to conceal its true provenance.
"There is not a word of truth in that is there?" Langdale said.
"Again, I didn't see you there [in the office on the day] Sir, " Evans replied.
Coulson's barrister went on to check if Evans was still claiming that he played the tape in an open plan office, even if this meant others could witness the editor listening to an illegally obtained voice mail.
Evans said he would not go as far as to say there was a code of "Omerta" at the office. It was "certainly understood, this was illegal, this was dodgy stuff we are doing and we are all doing it together".
"It's a relatively safe kind of closed circuit kind of place," he added.
Evans described how he tried to destroy any trace of the tape being put into the envelope. "I probably gave it a rub on my shirt to take any prints off."
It was put to him that he had told the police he had picked the jiffy up with a hanky. "Whatever," said Evans. "Hanky, rub a shirt, toilet roll."
Langdale asked Evans to review his call data from the News of the World office phones, which showed his history of hacking at his desk.
This showed he had hacked Jade Goody's boyfriend's phone at 10.47am on the same day he claimed to have played Coulson the Miller tape.
"This is your big day. You come in wagging your tail with this big story. What are you doing hacking Jeff Brazier? This has nothing to do with Sienna Miller, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig," Langdale said.
Evans replied: "I was just doing my job."
"There was nothing in existence to show you or anybody else doing anything to do with Sienna Miller" until Friday 30 September, Langdale added, three days after he said he had played the tape of her private message to Craig.
Evans responded: "I can only tell you how I remember it."
The former News of the World reporter, who has pleaded guilty to two charges related to hacking, was then asked about call data records which showed he hacked Craig's phone before and after he had said he doorstepped the actor that Friday.
Evans says: "At the time there was a sense that what we did at NoW as untouchable. There was an arrogance at the paper."
Coulson has denied being involved in a conspiracy to hack phones. The trial continues.