Rebekah Brooks has returned as Chief Executive of News UK and Murdoch has made a bid for full ownership of Sky TV. Those at the top were not thoroughly investigated. They must be held accountable.
Rebekah Brooks has returned as Chief Executive of News UK and #Murdoch has made a bid for full ownership of Sky TV. Those at the top were not thoroughly investigated. They must be held accountable. We need #Leveson2 NOW. Sign our petition: https://t.co/VtMlc1tnx4pic.twitter.com/tV57BugbKr
Theresa May had private meeting with Rupert Murdoch
29 Sept 2016
PM Theresa May, met Times and Sun owner Rupert Murdoch last week in New Yorkdespite her reputation for keeping the media at arm’s length
May met the media mogul, who owns the Times and the Sun newspapers, as well as Sky in the UK, on a trip that lasted less than 36 hours. The meeting, less than three months after she was appointed prime minister, is notable given her previous reputation forkeeping the media at arm’s length.
And the Sun safe is not a theory, but testified to under oath…
At a trial in Kingston two years ago of several senior Sun journalists over allegations of payments to public officials, the former deputy editor of the country’s best selling newspaper, Ben O’Driscoll, made an interesting admission on oath:
“At the time I was there, there was an enormous safe, about 7ft high, like something out of a Wild West film, with big metal handles”, O’Driscoll explained to the court in Kingston. “It was full of 30 years of stories that are confidential and did not pass the public interest test. They remained there in that safe, and what’s in there is quite eye-popping, I have to say.”
…a legendary 7 foot high safe full of ‘eye-popping’ material on public figures that won’t be published, suggesting a form of blackmail is at the heart of the British press.
If the basic principle of journalism is disclosure of information for the public interest, then the Sun’s famous safe is anti-journalism – non disclosure for private gain.
Among Fleet Street hacks the Sun vault – known as the ‘black museum’ – has long been the subject of lurid speculation.
Rumours range of photos of members of the Royal family…
When she took over the editorship of the Sun in 2003, Rebekah Brooks would openly talk to friends about the scandals contained in the vault. Sources describe the names she mentioned as ‘Yewtree’ type material.
So far from ‘not being in the public interest’ does the Sun vault actually contain evidence of potential crimes?
Former News of the World journalist Graham Johnson claimed in his racy and revealing book Hack that News International had deliberately suppressed evidence that author and futurist Arthur C Clarke was a paedophile because he was a friend of the proprietor. As Johnson told the Independent the News UK journalist was told:
“Because Arthur C Clarke was a mate of Rupert Murdoch, the editor wasn’t having any of it and despite Roger getting a lot of evidence that Clarke was a paedophile they wouldn’t publish it.”
The editor at the time denies this claim. But this is not the first time that Murdoch’s newpapers have been accused of covering up crimes as a favour to friends.
Jeremy Thorpe, paedophile Sir Cyril Smith and Sir David Steel
Last year the Daily Mail reported that a file on the prolific child abuser who escaped conviction, Cyril Smith, the former Liberal Democrat MP, was also lodged in the Sun’s safe.
“Civil servants feared the secret Smith police file might be made public in 1982 – when a burglary at the Fleet Street offices of The Sun newspaper revealed the editor was in possession of a copy.
This revelation will lead to speculation that the break-in was linked to attempts to cover up Cyril Smith’s crimes.”
How many more potential crimes are hidden in the Sun safe? Any right to confidentiality is lost if a crime can be prevented or detected.
Are there victims of Cyril Smith or others from ‘Yewtree’ who have suffered as a result of non disclosure?
118. The fact that Cyril Smith’s public standing and professional career were never negatively impacted in any significant way by the suggestion that he was involved in child sexual abuse has given rise to considerable speculation that he was in some way protected by other politicians. We may consider the possibility that Smith was actively supported at the level of national politics, or at the very least, had a blind eye turned towards allegations against him, as part of the Westminster investigation.
Operation Yewtree is a police investigation into sexual abuse allegations,predominantly the abuse of children, against the British media personality Jimmy Savile and others.
Labour, the Tories, the Royals, the cops – Savilegate must have had the lot of them squirming. You can release all the shtick you like about there being “no pedophile ring” involved (I actually caught some BBC Savile coverage where this reassuring message scrolled ceaselessly across the foot of the screen) but his lifetime license to abuse and access the nation’s children without a hint of trouble suggested otherwise, while his manifest intimacy with the great and the good carried further uncomfortable messages into the national unconscious.
PRINCE IN SAVILE COVER-UP Daily Star Sunday 12-05-13, p6
PRINCE IN SAVILE COVER-UP Daily Star Sunday 12-05-13, p7
The science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke has met Prince Charles at a banquet in Sri Lanka just days after postponing a ceremony to be invested with a knighthood because of newspaper allegations saying he was a paedophile.
‘Paedophile’ Arthur C Clarke sparks protests in Lanka
Child right activists in Sri Lanka have expressed shock over science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke’s confession in a newspaper interview of a life of paedophilia and called for his deportation just around the time Prince Charles was to knight him.
Clarke, 80, widely regarded as a visionary and author of the celebrated 2001: A Space Odyssey and some 80 other books, was quoted as saying in the interview published in London’s Mirror that having sex with children was all right.
”Once they have reached the age of puberty, it is OK… It doesn’t do any harm,” said Clarke, who has lived in Sri Lanka for 40 years.
“I am trying to think of the youngest boy I have ever had because, of course, you can’t tell it here.
I think most of the damage comes from the fuss made by hysterical parents afterwards. If the kids don’t mind, fair enough,” he was reported to have said in the interview which was conducted at his house.
Maureen Seneviratne said her group had indeed heard rumours about Clarke’s activities, but being a small NGO, her organisation could not take it up as that would be like ”tilting at giants who have written books and been made chancellors of universities.”
”It would have been like signing our own death warrant,” she said in a reference to the official patronage enjoyed by Clarke, the first foreign celebrity to be given tax-free status on the island.
PRINCE CHARLES is long departed, but the furore over Arthur C Clarke’s sex life, which erupted nearly three weeks ago on the eve of the prince’s visit to Sri Lanka, refuses to die down.
The scientific visionary and novelist who has lived in the former British colony for 42 years was to have been knighted by the prince during the latter’s visit to the island for the celebration of the golden jubilee of Sri Lanka’s independence.
But days before the planned investiture, the Sunday Mirror accused Clarke of being a confirmed paedophile. Clarke asked for the ceremony to be postponed to avoid embarrassing the prince.
Dayanada de Silva, director of current affairs at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Authority, was quoted in the Sunday Mirror as saying: “Arthur likes casual affairs with lots of different boys. If I think he might like one of my boys, I give them his phone number, he asked me to. The last time I saw Arthur, a few months ago, he was still having casual sex with boys. The boys do it for money, and money is nothing to Arthur C Clarke.”
…the newspaper declared Clarke to be a self-confessed paedophile. He was quoted admitting as much, and a Sri Lankan “friend” – head of current affairs at the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Company – alleged that Clarke was still having sex with boys “a few months ago”.
Dayananda de Silva was a distinguished radio journalist who has enjoyed a career of 42 years in public service broadcasting, on the island of Sri Lanka.
Arthur Clarke had made his own advancements in the field of ‘satellite communication‘ particularly in respect of the theory…Murdoch would directly benefit from these ideas.
Quote:
Arthur C. Clarke, who dabbled in science fiction writing, floated the idea of global communications satellites in a 1945 letter to the publication Wireless World. It was the first publicly articulated vision of a technology that would change the world; in the annals of technological forecasting, it stands today as a letter of rare prescience.
Today the high-altitude geostationary orbit, known as the Clarke Belt, is the heartland of the world’s communications satellites.
Note…Clarke did eventually pick up his knighthood a couple of years later, in 2000.
…shows how individuals can be protected and allowed to operate…this bears some similarities to how Savile was protected by certain people and connections around him. This also shows us what we are up against.
Uril Geller with Michael Jackson and Greville Janner and David Blaine
Lord Janner: My friend Michael Jackson
June 26, 2009
Leading Jewish peer Lord Janner spoke today about his sorrow at the death of Michael Jackson, whom he regarded as “delightful company” and a good friend.
Lord Janner was introduced to the singer by psychic Uri Geller.
“He came to Parliament in 2002 and I showed him round,” Lord Janner recalled. “He had come to the UK to help fund-raise for Exeter Football Club, which Uri chaired.
“I showed him all around the Lords; it was a Friday and the staff were thrilled. When we got to the place where the Queen sits when she opens Parliament, he looked at the chair and then turned to his assistant. He said: ‘I want one exactly like that for my home.'”
Lord Janner said he had not been familiar with Jackson’s music when they first met but had had the opportunity to see him in California at Universal Studios. “We had dinner together and then I watched him dance. He was an incredible dancer. It was absolutely astonishing.”
The peer said he would miss the entertainer, whose death was announced today.
New Michael Jackson Lawsuit Alleges Child-Abuse Procurement Ring
A new lawsuit alleges Michael Jackson’s businesses were a front for grooming children to be abused
10.26.16
The latest complaint, filed by a Jane Doe who alleges that she was abused by Jackson from 1986 to 1989, when she was aged 12 to 15, claims that Jackson secretly operated, “the most sophisticated public child sexual-abuse procurement and facilitation organizations the world has known.”
Michael Jackson child sex syndicate trial date set
March 13, 2017
Wade Robson received a trial date Monday for his blockbuster claims Michael Jackson and his inner circle operated the most elaborate child sex syndicate “the world has known.”The choreographer, who says he was just 5 years old when he first met the King of Pop, is set to begin his negligence trial against the late singer’s companies MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures on March 5, 2018, a Los Angeles judge said.A Robson lawyer said the next 12 months will be spent “gaining access to the materials needed for a much-anticipated trial.”“We look forward to completing that discovery and disclosing to the public, through trial, the full extent of Michael Jackson’s serial sexual abuse of children, which was facilitated through his companies MJJ Productions and Ventures,” lawyer Vince Finaldi said in a statement.An attorney for the companies, meanwhile, said he doesn’t believe the case will make it that far.“My opinion is that summary judgment will be granted in this case and there won’t be any trial, but the court did set a trial date for a year away just in case,” lawyer Howard Weitzman told the Daily News.Robson, who has worked for Britney Spears and N’Sync and appeared as a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance,” is one of three plaintiffs making similar claims in related lawsuits against Jackson’s companies.
The choreographer, 34, filed an amended complaint in September claiming Jackson and key staffers at MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures ran a “sophisticated child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation operation.”
Robson claims Jackson and his employees worked in concert to arrange his private meetings with underage fans, cover travel expenses and shower the youngsters with gifts.
“Make no mistake, Neverland Ranch was nothing but a well-orchestrated trap,” Finaldi previously told The News. “It was custom-built to attract kids so he could groom them and decide which to sexually abuse.”
The amended complaint, obtained by The News, added new negligence claims to his suit against the two companies.
Robson claims he was brought into Jackson’s orbit as a small child in the late 1980s after winning a dance competition in Australia organized by MJJ Ventures.
Two years later, a Jackson assistant contacted his family about meeting with The Gloved One and staying at Neverland during a trip to Los Angeles, he says.
The assistant served as Jacko’s “madam” or “procurer,” his filing states.
During that visit, Jackson allegedly sexually abused Robson. The abuse continued for eight years until Robson hit puberty and Jackson lost interest, according to the complaint.
During the pop icon’s 2005 molestation trial in Santa Barbara County, Robson denied he had been sexually abused. He later recanted, saying it took intensive therapy for him to come to terms with the abuse.
In 2013, Robson’s initial claims against Jackson’s estate were thrown out when a judge ruled he’d waited too long to sue. He is now pursuing the separate civil claims against Jackson’s companies.
A source in Jackson’s camp called the new complaint “too silly” to warrant a response.
Michael Jackson child sex syndicate trial date set
March 13, 2017
Wade Robson received a trial date Monday for his blockbuster claims Michael Jackson and his inner circle operated the most elaborate child sex syndicate “the world has known.”The choreographer, who says he was just 5 years old when he first met the King of Pop, is set to begin his negligence trial against the late singer’s companies MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures on March 5, 2018, a Los Angeles judge said.A Robson lawyer said the next 12 months will be spent “gaining access to the materials needed for a much-anticipated trial.”“We look forward to completing that discovery and disclosing to the public, through trial, the full extent of Michael Jackson’s serial sexual abuse of children, which was facilitated through his companies MJJ Productions and Ventures,” lawyer Vince Finaldi said in a statement.An attorney for the companies, meanwhile, said he doesn’t believe the case will make it that far.“My opinion is that summary judgment will be granted in this case and there won’t be any trial, but the court did set a trial date for a year away just in case,” lawyer Howard Weitzman told the Daily News.Robson, who has worked for Britney Spears and N’Sync and appeared as a judge on “So You Think You Can Dance,” is one of three plaintiffs making similar claims in related lawsuits against Jackson’s companies.
The choreographer, 34, filed an amended complaint in September claiming Jackson and key staffers at MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures ran a “sophisticated child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation operation.”
Robson claims Jackson and his employees worked in concert to arrange his private meetings with underage fans, cover travel expenses and shower the youngsters with gifts.
“Make no mistake, Neverland Ranch was nothing but a well-orchestrated trap,” Finaldi previously told The News. “It was custom-built to attract kids so he could groom them and decide which to sexually abuse.”
The amended complaint, obtained by The News, added new negligence claims to his suit against the two companies.
Robson claims he was brought into Jackson’s orbit as a small child in the late 1980s after winning a dance competition in Australia organized by MJJ Ventures.
Two years later, a Jackson assistant contacted his family about meeting with The Gloved One and staying at Neverland during a trip to Los Angeles, he says.
The assistant served as Jacko’s “madam” or “procurer,” his filing states.
During that visit, Jackson allegedly sexually abused Robson. The abuse continued for eight years until Robson hit puberty and Jackson lost interest, according to the complaint.
During the pop icon’s 2005 molestation trial in Santa Barbara County, Robson denied he had been sexually abused. He later recanted, saying it took intensive therapy for him to come to terms with the abuse.
In 2013, Robson’s initial claims against Jackson’s estate were thrown out when a judge ruled he’d waited too long to sue. He is now pursuing the separate civil claims against Jackson’s companies.
A source in Jackson’s camp called the new complaint “too silly” to warrant a response.
David Blaine, the hysterical giggler. The David Blaine who rode around London in the back of my Chrysler Voyager with Michael Jackson, laughing so hard that he slid off the seats and almost choked on the floor. He’d just asked me for my opinion onSai Baba, the Indian mystic. (Rolf Harris’ guru) Now, I have great respect for the septuagenarian Sai, who has been making holy ash and oil drip from thin air for decades. Sai Baba has built universities and hospitals in southern India with donations from his many admirers, and that is praiseworthy. But I’d heard a much less praiseworthy rumour about the oil and… oh, I can’t tell you. Not in print. Not in a family newspaper.
But I told David, and he laughed himself sick, while Michael gazed at me in horror and then succumbed to giggles and hugged himself with glee. If I had space, I’d also tell you about Michael Jackson the giggler.
At the Houses of Parliament, where he sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Paul Boateng, the Foreign Office minister, Michael was entranced by Greville Janner’s conjuring tricks. He was like a ten-year-old, amazed by the entertainer at a children’s party. Every time the rubber ball vanished from Lord Janner’s hand, Michael giggled and goggled.
Even though I was there and David was there, it was Greville who performed magic. But you don’t want to hear that. You want to know about David Blaine. I wanted to know about David, too, because the first time he called me I had never heard his name.
This was about the time of his first ABC special, David Blaine: Street Magic (1997), before the spectacular, unique stunts which spread his fame worldwide. He told me he was desperate to meet me, that he had three heroes in his life, and they were Jesus Christ, Orson Welles and Uri Geller.
So I told him he was welcome at my home any time, and 16 hours later he had flown from New York and taken a taxi from Heathrow and was banging on my gate….
Power people: Ghislaine Maxwell and newspaper billionaire Rupert Murdoch, pictured together in at the Fifth Important Dinner for Women hosted by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Wendi Murdoch and Indra Nooyi in New York in September 2010
(Jan 27 2017 Disgraced Wall Street mogul Jeffrey Epstein is being accused by woman of luring her into his elaborate sex trafficking enterprise under the ruse he would use his wealth and connections to get her into college.
Using the alias ‘Jane Doe 43,’ the woman filed a federal lawsuit against Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen, Lesley Groff and Natalya Malyshev.
She describes then 64-year-old Epstein – then 50 – as a billionaire who usesd his wealth to commit illegal sex crimes in violation of the law. and accuses him of having a compulsive sexual preference for young girls as young as 13 and as ‘old’ as 25.
Uri Geller Attends The Funeral Of Sir Clement Freud
Cliff Richard and Uri Geller
Ex-detective felt forced by BBC reporter to reveal Cliff Richard raid, court hears
Matthew Fenwick tells high court he felt he had ‘no option’ but to tell reporter about the search
Apr 16 2018
Matthew Fenwick, who was a detective superintendent with South Yorkshire police, said he believed reporter Dan Johnson would run a story about the investigation into the singer, leaving it “compromised”, unless he was told about the search.
Fenwick said it had been clear Johnson knew the force was investigating an allegation of child sexual abuse against Richard, because he described the singer as a “celebrity paedo” during a meeting.
1980 Uri Geller entertains transplant and kidney machine children at a lunch party to celebrate the 21st birthday of the National Kidney research foundation at the House of Commons.
Consider this in the context of NoW reporter Ray Chapman’s “infiltration” of PIE & Alex Marunchak’s subsequent reporting
Peter Jukes@peterjukes
Does NOTW political use of Kompromat for MI5 explain why the murderers of Daniel Morgan were allowed to get away with it? @AlastairMorgan
During the period News of the World operated Rupert Murdoch took a direct, personal interest in that newspaper, looking at key news stories especially political ones. He personally authorised a
number of payments for politically oriented ‘news’ and checked all payments over £100,000 in later years.
There was a direct link between M15 and the NOW editor, allowing that agency to drop off tips that, ultimately, were used for political blackmail.
The sudden closure of NOW had two hidden objectives.
First to conceal the scale of political surveillance by the paper, and the de jure blackmail operated by the paper. Secondly, to conceal the link with the Security Services and the Whips Offices in Parliament.
Between 2009 and the closure of the paper extensive ‘weeding’ was undertaken in order to eliminate signs of blackmail, especially in relation to political stories.
Rupert Murdoch’s personal interest in his UK media is political, not journalistic. This is evidenced by both the way he handled the NOW in particular but also in the news agenda of the Sun, Times and Sunday Times.
All run a right wing agenda but more profoundly all ignore, most of the time, stories that might expose this bias and which might damage or embarrass parties Murdoch is supporting in
Three men charged with private detective’s axe murder win malicious prosecution claim
The men, charged over the killing of Daniel Morgan, have won a legal battle with the Metropolitan Police
5 JUL 2018
Three men who were charged with the murder of a private investigator have won their malicious prosecution claim against the Metropolitan Police.
Jonathan Rees, Glenn Vian and Garry Vian had appealed against the dismissal of their case by a High Court judge, Mr Justice Mitting, in February 2017.
They were prosecuted after Daniel Morgan was found murdered in a car park at the The Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south east London, in March 1987.
Mr Morgan 37, from Llanfrechfa, Torfaen, was struck four or five blows to the head with an axe, which was left embedded in his face.
The men were arrested and charged in April 2008 but in March 2011 proceedings were discontinued and not guilty verdicts entered.
The evidence of a man called Gary Eaton, which was a major plank of the Crown case, had been excluded from the prospective trial because the senior investigating officer, Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook, was found to have compromised Mr Eaton’s 2006 de-briefing.
In the course of the process Mr Eaton, who had a criminal past and a personality disorder, moved from being unwilling to name directly any of the participants in the murder to naming Mr Rees and the Vian brothers.
Mr Justice Mitting said Mr Cook had done an act “which tended to pervert the course of justice” but his motive was to bring those he believed to be complicit in the murder to justice.
Allowing the appeal in relation to malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office Lord Justice McCombe, sitting with Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Coulson, said that Mr Cook, for whom the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis (MPC) accepted vicarious responsibility, was undoubtedly a “prosecutor” who acted maliciously.
“He knowingly put before the decision-maker a case which he knew was significantly tainted by his own wrongdoing and which he knew could not be properly presented in that form to a court.”
Lady Justice King added: “This is a case where no-one has been tried or convicted of a particularly brutal murder.
“It is of importance that where serious and damaging findings of malicious prosecution and of misfeasance in public office are sought against the MPC in such a case that the public can understand and appreciate the logic of the outcome.
“With respect to this very experienced judge the outcome which he reached, namely that although acting corruptly DCS Cook was not also acting maliciously, may well appear to be counterintuitive to any ordinary member of the public.
“To say that DCS Cook, a prosecutor guilty of perverting the course of justice by creating false evidence against the appellants was, on account of his belief in their guilt, not acting maliciously, is rather like saying that Robin Hood was not guilty of theft.
“One understands the motivation in each case but any seeming endorsement of such dishonest behaviour, particularly within the police force, leads, as Lord Justice McCombe puts it, to a serious and unacceptable ‘negation of the rule of law’.”
Daniel Morgan murder: three men lose case against ‘malicious’ police
17 February 2017
High court judge rules against Jonathan Rees, Garry Vian and Glenn Vian but Sid Fillary wins part of his claim
Three men charged with the 1987 murder of the private detective Daniel Morgan have lost their case that police maliciously tried to get them convicted. A fourth man has won part of his claim for damages.
The Morgan case is mired in claims of police and media corruption.
Morgan’s former business partner, Jonathan Rees, and his brothers-in-law, Garry and Glenn Vian, were tried for murder but the case collapsed in 2011. Sid Fillery was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice but eventually the crown dropped the case against him.
In the civil case the four sued the Metropolitan police, alleging that officers were so determined to see them convicted that the force’s pursuit became malicious.
On Friday at the high court in central London, Mr Justice Mitting ruled against Rees and the Vians while Fillery won part of his claim. A claim of misfeasance in public office went in Fillery’s favour because the only witness against him was deemed unreliable and had been mishandled by the detective leading the case.
Fillery was awarded £25,000 in interim damages. The judge said the final sum would be higher and would be decided later.
Morgan was killed outside the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south London, on 10 March 1987, aged 37. He was found with an axe embedded in his head.
The high court heard allegations from lawyers acting for the police that Rees paid Glenn Vian to carry out the killing, and that Vian struck two blows with the axe. The court also heard allegations Morgan had been looking into claims involving the drugs trade; it was claimed that one of the alleged killers said: “Morgan knew too much.”
Fillery was a former Met police officer, a friend of Rees. After Morgan’s killing he replaced him in the detective agency Southern Investigations, where Morgan had been a partner.
The News of the World and other media used Southern Investigations, and police suspected it was involved with corrupt officers selling information.
Daniel’s brother, Alastair Morgan, said: “Whatever the conclusions of this judgment, we consider that it would be a travesty of justice if David Cook is allowed to become the scapegoat for the failures of the Metropolitan police over the decades in failing to confront the police corruption that lay at the heart of this case.”
Morgan said he still had many unanswered questions about the death of his brother and the failure to bring his killers to justice: “Why did those at the highest levels of the Metropolitan police repeatedly fail to confront the police corruption that stared them in the face in relation to this case over the decades?
“Like us, the public at large can see how the sickness of such police corruption has been allowed to fester and spread through the ranks, and that is the real mischief for which the Metropolitan police must be held to account.”
The suspects were subjected to bugging, with one recording capturing Rees revealing he could use his corrupt police contacts to access top-secret information, including whether police working on the Morgan inquiry were monitoring him and any of the other suspects.
During the hearings, Jeremy Johnson QC for the Met told the court the murder and the alleged corruption in shielding the killers had “shocked the conscience of the nation”. He said Theresa May, while she was home secretary, had ordered an inquiry into the corruption claims. A panel is investigating and its report is due out this year.
The Met police assistant commissioner Martin Hewitt said: “We strongly believed that it was right and justifiable to pursue these men as part of the investigation into Daniel Morgan’s murder. The judge has found in our favour in relation to the three men that were charged with Daniel’s murder.
“In relation to Sidney Fillery we acknowledge the judge’s findings and what he said about ex-detective chief superintendent Cook. We are considering the appropriate next step to take.
“Whilst we welcome this judgment, I am mindful that the work of the Daniel Morgan independent panel is ongoing, and we continue to work with them as they seek to fully examine the circumstances of Daniel’s murder, and the handling of the case since 1987.”
While the detective leading the inquiry into the television presenter’s murder says the case will never be solved, Byline Times reveals a crucial clue the police missed.
As Graham Johnson and Dan Evans of the Byline Investigates team have exclusively revealed today, detectives investigating the murder of Jill Dando 20 years ago overlooked an important clue about her killing. In 1999, Scotland Yard investigated evidence that someone purporting to be her brother tried to access personal details from utility companies three months before the BBC presenter was killed.
Operation Oxborough came to the conclusion this was most likely the result of tabloid journalists trying to track down her new address after Dando announced her engagement to Alan Farthing.
Byline Times can reveal…. voice mail interception is the most likely way Dando was targeted by her killer.
Byline Times can reveal…. voice mail interception is the most likely way Dando was targeted by her killer.
PICTURE OF JILL DANDO WITH SIMON BASIL. AT THE ROYAL GALA PREMIERE, OF ‘THE GOODBYE GIRL’ AT THE ALBERY THEATRE LONDON . P.H. WAYNE STARR.16/4/97
But thanks to expert analysis from former Sunday Times investigator turned whistle-blower John Ford, it is possible the detected blagging operation was to obtain mobile phone billing in order to access Dando’s voicemails.
The police were not to know at the time, but phone hacking was rife in the late 1990s among private detectives and journalists working for Britain’s tabloid press. Looking back, former detective Jacqui Hames, a co-presenter of Crimewatch with Dando and a victim of phone hacking herself, told Byline Times: “There was a lot going on in her private life. I’d be shocked if Jill wasn’t being hacked around the time of her murder.”
Byline Times can also reveal something even more disturbing about phone hacking beyond the privacy intrusion: voicemail interception is the most likely way Dando was targeted by her killer.
Timeline of the Hit
National Pictures. Jill Dando murder scene. 27/4/99.
Jill Dando was killed with a single shot to the head from a 9mm semi-automatic pistol within seconds of parking her car and approaching the door to her flat in Gowan Avenue in Fulham on the morning of 26 April 1999. Police have consistently been mystified about how her killer could have known she was coming, as the 37-year-old presenter did not live there anymore, having moved in with her fiance in Chiswick months before.
Despite exhaustive searches of CCTV and eye witness reports, detectives could not discover any evidence Dando was followed when she left her new home around 10.00 am before arriving at the doorstep of her old flat at 11.30 am. The only eye-witness evidence is from a postman delivering to her house in Fulham around 10.00 am who said he believed that he was being watched by a man in a dark suit.
However, analysis of Dando’s phone billing records reveals the most plausible way any killer could have known she was coming – voicemails.
At the time of Dando’s murder, the ‘dark arts’… were deployed by private detectives who worked simultaneously with Fleet Street, corrupt police, and underworld gangs
National Pictures. Jill Dando murder scene. Scenes of crime officers inspect the area in Gowan Avenue, Fulham, where Danodo’s body was found.26th April 1999.
Dando’s agent, the Roseman Organisation in Chiswick, had been pressing her to change the ink and the paper of her fax machine of her house in Fulham as an important contract was failing to come through. Allasonne Lewis from the agency left a voicemail on her phone at 10.09 am that morning, which Dando retrieved two minutes later.
Dando then drove to the Kings Mall shopping centre near to her new home, calling her agent back around 10.30 am as she bought fax paper from Rymans before trying to find an ink cartridge for her fax machine at Dixons. Her agent’s assistant left another voicemail on her phone at 10:44 am
Dando’s BMW was last caught on CCTV en route to Fulham around 11.10 am. On Fulham Road, she stopped to buy two fillets of sole from Copes Fishmongers. The last call on her mobile was at 11:42 am from the passerby who found her body and used her phone to call the ambulance.
Jill Dando was declared dead at Hammersmith Hospital an hour and a half later.
Stalker or Assassin?
Because of the near impossibility of anyone following or tracking Dando’s movements on the morning of the 29 April (as far as they knew then), lead detectives in the murder investigation soon began to gravitate to the idea that an obsessive stalker was the most likely suspect in the murder.
“I’d be shocked if Jill wasn’t being hacked around the time of her murder.”
Dando’s friend and colleague, former detective Jacqui Hames
Within a month, they brought in the forensic psychologist Dr Adrian West who eventually provided three offender profiles. Though the first concluded a ‘lone stalker’ was just one of many possibilities, the second moved closer to the theory.
A third offender profile was drawn up after police charged Barry George with Dando’s murder in 2000. The 33-year-old suffered from a number of mental disorders and learning difficulties and had an IQ of 75. George was convicted in 2001, but his conviction was quashed due to the unreliability of the evidence six years later.
Had the police known what we all know now about the vulnerability of voicemail messages and the industrial use of phone hacking at the time, it’s unlikely they would have relied so heavily on the obsessive stalker theory, and instead would have turned to a different set of suspects.
Now it looks more likely that Dando’s voicemail was hacked, and that could have given away details of her whereabouts to her murderer(s), the focus turns to organised crime and its media connections.
Criminal Media Nexus
There is no suggestion that any tabloid newspaper would have deployed phone hacking in order to target Dando for anything but salacious gossip. But their failure to admit what they were doing could well have obstructed the original police investigation.
According to John Ford, the ‘omerta’ or code of silence around phone hacking in Fleet Street meant the police back then had no idea Dando’s mobile could have been targeted. If they had, detectives might have checked if her voicemails had been intercepted and tracked the number of whoever intercepted it.
At the time of Dando’s murder, the ‘dark arts’ of obtaining confidential records by deception (‘blagging’), phone and computer hacking were deployed by private detectives who worked simultaneously with Fleet Street, corrupt police, and underworld gangs.
Though there’s no suggestion they were at all involved in the Dando murder, the notorious detective agency Southern Investigations in South London was a prolific supplier of confidential information to journalists at both the News of the World and the Mirror Group at the time of Dando’s murder.
At this time, in 1999, a bug had been placed in its Thornton Heath office by specialist police investigating the axe-murder of the founder of the detective agency, Daniel Morgan, 12 years earlier. The surveillance tapes caught his former partner, Jonathan Rees, boasting to journalists about his personal contacts in the Dando investigation, and telling a senior Mirror journalist that everything they were doing was ‘illegal’.
Had the police known what we all know now about the vulnerability of voice mail messages… it’s unlikely they would have relied so heavily on the obsessive stalker theory
Meanwhile, Rees and his partner Fillery were reported to have worked for several underworld organisations, including helping to track down an undercover officer who had caught the South London gangster Joey Pyle importing heroin. According to an undercover informant and former police officer, Derek Haslam, Rees told him once that he had helped track down someone from Eastern Europe who was later assassinated.
But Southern Investigations was only one of many organisations involved in tracing, hacking and blagging around the end of the millennium. A top secret report into police corruption in North London Operation Tiberius notes that, in 2000, a major trafficker of Class A drugs was using a contact at The Sun newspaper to obtain ex-directory numbers and ‘checks’ to see if he was under police surveillance.
While the hunt for Dando’s killer is not resolved, and with eyes turning away from the lone obsessive to the possibility of an organised hit, the links between phone hacking, corrupt private detective agencies and London’s criminal underworld should not be ignored.
A former detective who spent four months in jail after he was accused of corruption in a notorious murder inquiry has won a huge compensation payout from the Met Police.
Sidney Fillery, 70, was accused of trying to cover up the axe murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan in a pub car park in 1987.
It was claimed that Fillery had attempted to corrupt the investigation by threatening a witness.
He was charged with perverting the course of justice, but the case against him collapsedin 2010 when the witness, a serious criminal, was shown to be unreliable.
He had been ‘coached’ in his evidence by DCS David Cook in his desperation to see the case solved, the High Court heard.
Sidney Fillery, 70, has won a huge compensation payout after he was accused of trying to cover up an axe murder
In a case which has run up £1.6m in legal bills, Mr Justice Mitting ruled that Cook was guilty of ‘misfeasance in public office’ and ordered London’s Met Police to pay Mr Fillery damages.
He will receive £25,000 up front, but his barrister Nicholas Bowen QC said the full claim, to be assessed later, was for ‘many multiples of that’.
In 2003, Fillery admitted possession of indecent images of children and was sentenced to a community rehabilitation order.
However, three men who spent two years in jail before being acquitted of the actual murder saw their damages claims dismissed.
‘Mr Fillery was pursued in this way when there was absolutely no evidence to support it,’ Mr Bowen told the court.
‘The only evidence against him was a thoroughly compromised, corrupt individual, who had been coached by a senior investigating officer.
‘The way Mr Fillery has been treated in this case – as the focus of effectively police corruption – is an outrage.’
Mr Morgan, from Llanfrechfa, Torfaen, was 37 when he was found with an axe embedded in his head after an attack outside the Golden Lion, in Sydenham in southeast London.
His business partner, Jonathan Rees, now 62, and brothers Glenn, 58, and Garry Vian, 56, were all arrested – alongside Mr Fillery – in the aftermath.
However, the case was not proceeded with and charges were only made in 2008 after further evidence from a new witness came to light.
Facing a long sentence himself for other offences, Gary Eaton implicated the Vian brothers in the killing and gave a motive for Mr Rees to have been involved.
He also said Mr Fillery had approached him after the murder and told him to keep his mouth shut or the same would happen to him.
Rees, of Weybridge, and the Vian brothers, of Croydon, were charged with murder, while Mr Fillery, now of Great Yarmouth, was charged with perverting the course of justice.
But the case ‘never got near a jury’ after Eaton’s evidence was thrown out by Old Bailey judge Mr Justice Maddison, and the men were ultimately released.
Mr Justice Maddison said DCS Cook had probably prompted Eaton to implicate the Vian brothers in the killing.
Last month, all four of the cleared men sued the Met Police for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office.
Eaton had been ‘coached’ in his evidence by Cook, who was fixated on the men he believed were guilty, their lawyers said.
DCS Cook had broken many of the rules designed to protect the integrity of the justice system, Mr Bowen said.
He had been warned that Eaton was ‘extremely unreliable’ and had mental health issues and yet had contacted him on several occasions, against the rules.
Cook had since ‘gone into hiding in Scotland’ and refused to give evidence in the compensation battle.
Giving judgment, Mr Justice Mitting said what Cook had done in relation to Eaton was tantamount to a crime in itself.
He continued: ‘By prompting a potentially unreliable witness to implicate Glenn and Garry Vian in the Morgan murder, then conceal the fact he had done so from the CPS and prosecuting counsel, Cook did an act which tended to pervert the course of justice.’
He added: ‘He contaminated the source of justice. He knew what he was doing and did it deliberately. He can therefore be taken to have intended to do it.
‘The ingredients of the crime were present.’
However, his motive had been only to secure the charges and convictions of those he himself believed were guilty, he continued.
The judge rejected the malicious prosecution claims, but said Mr Fillery’s misfeasance claim should succeed and he should be awarded damages to be assessed.
Misfeasance claims by the other three men were rejected because the judge said there had been other evidence at the time which could have resulted in charges.
During the trial last month, Met barrister Jeremy Johnson QC accepted that] the murder inquiry had exposed an ‘invidious web of corrupt police officers’ in south London in the 1980s and 1990s.
The case kater becane the subject of a hit podcast titled, ‘Untold: the Daniel Morgan murder’.
Does anyone believe this is anything other than facilitating paedophilia?
Background on the founder of Spiked magazine and Rupert Murdoch
2 January 2017
Mick Hume –
Hume was the editor of a magazine called Living Marxism from 1988 until 2000.
The magazine carried sympathetic coverage of Radovan Karadzic, now serving 40 years’ imprisonment for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Also getting the soft soap treatment was Ratko Mladic, now on trial on similar charges. After Living Marxism closed, Hume started an online successor called Spiked, in which he claimed that the concept of a war crime was a “highly questionable notion”.
The push against Section 40 of the Crime And Courts Act, and Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry, by the Murdoch press has reached such a desperate state that not only has the Sun engaged the services of maverick Labour MP Kate Hoey to lie her socks off – as I pointed out yesterday – the supposedly upmarket Sunday Times has brought in Mick Hume to man the barricades. This is a singularly unfortunate.
Here, in one of manyMurdoch Is Served posts – the list extends to more than 100, all covering the phone hacking scandal – reference was made to a Spiked article by Hume dated July 2009. This has since been deleted, but thanks to the Wayback Machine we can see The Great Man’s thoughts, and that he called it totally wrong.
How US billionaires are fuelling the hard-right cause in Britain
7 Dec 2018
That Spiked magazine’s US funding arm received $300,000 from the Charles Koch Foundation suggests a hidden agenda
Dark money is among the greatest current threats to democracy. It means money spent below the public radar, that seeks to change political outcomes. It enables very rich people and corporations to influence politics without showing their hands.
“The News of the World and the Daniel Morgan Murder: the key reason for Leveson Two”
New information reveals how Rupert Murdoch’s best selling Sunday tabloid was inextricably linked for three decades with Britain’s most investigated murder
Professional Photographer for the News of the World is a convicted Arsonist. … He faced police and government investigations into bribery and … he had to immediately begin serving two years in a Jersey prison. … He used to star in many of Ian Cutler’s andRay Chapman’s scams for the New of the World.
The Main Characters
Ian Cutler. Professional Photographer for the News of the World is a convicted Arsonist. Also worked for: The Telegraph, Sun, Mirror, Mail, Express, Times, ITV News, BBC News.
Rupert Murdoch. (Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG) was born on the 11th March 1931 in Victoria, Australia. He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the world’s second-largest media conglomerate. Murdoch became managing director of News Limited, inherited from his father, in 1952. In the 1950s and ’60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World followed closely by The Sun. He moved to New York in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985. In 1981, he bought The Times, his first British broadsheet. In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK printing operations in Wapping, causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989) and The Wall Street Journal (2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000 Murdoch’s News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion. In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his papers, including the News of the World, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public citizens. He faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption in the UK and FBI investigations in the US.
Ray Chapman. Journalist who joined the News of the World in 1981. Well known cocaine addict and convicted felon. Married a former prostitute. Chapman retired from the paper in September 2007 and died on New Year’s Eve that same year at the age of 71.
Ray Chapman, for many years a News of the World investigative reporter, died on 31 December. He was 71 and retired from the paper only last September.
Determined to quit at the top, the last story he brought in to the paper – that month – was a sensational expose of X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne – a splash and spread which sent circulation through the roof. It was a story of which any showbusiness reporter in their prime would have been immensely proud.
Ray never had any doubts about what he wanted to do in life – write. He was sending scripts to Hollywood at the age of 16, but his father insisted that he first learn a trade and Ray became a hairdresser. Yet the urge to travel took over and he spent some years doing just that – in Canada as a barber on a native American reservation and later at sea with the United States Mercantile Marine.
Back home, in the Sixties, he set up a hairdressing salon, but the determination to get into journalism was still there.
One of his first cheques was from Tit Bits, the magazine where many of Fleet Street’s stars had their first break. Ray’s piece, loosely based on the confessions of a hairdresser, earned him 15 guineas. But it was a start.
In 1970 he met Don Arden, the promoter dubbed the ‘Al Capone of Rock and Roll’and Sharon Osbourne’s father.Their friendship lasted for life.
Ray had a gift to be able to make friends with most of the people he came across, and consequently had a wide circle of contacts. As a result, he joined the News of the World in 1981 and embarked on a long career of investigative journalism, exposing much of the seamier side of life.
One of his first front pages was an expose of a paedophile ring inside the Socialist Worker’s Party – a double victory.
But he never lost the urge to be a writer, and found time to publish two novels and a number of short stories, one of which appeared in a Christmas edition of the News of the World. When he picked up a novel by Jeffrey Archer he immediately spotted a host of errors and pointed them out to the author, who gracefully accepted the criticisms, and asked Ray to vet his next book.
In recent years he suffered a number of health problems, but was determined to continue making a contribution to the paper. His experience as an investigative reporter stood him in good stead and he offered his skills to all the paper’s journalists – and lawyers.
He leaves a wife, Judi, and from their marriage Anthony and Rachel.
His funeral, attended by many old friends, was at Hendon Cemetery on Tuesday, 8 January.
Ray Chapman, for many years a News of the World investigative reporter, died on 31 December. He was 71 and retired from the paper only last September.
There must be a court record of Ray Chapman’s conviction, surely the newspapers must of covered it at the time.
PORRIDGE
BY THE late 1990s Scotland Yard had made no progress in catching the men who butchered private detective Daniel Morgan in 1987.
Then in 1998 anti-corruption detectives — worried that bent policemen were selling sensitive information to the detective agency Southern Investigations — installed a bug in the firm’s offices.
Southern’s owners — murder suspect Jonathan Rees and retired police sergeant Sid Fillery — had no idea they were under surveillance.
THE STORY SO FAR …
PRIVATE EYE Jonathan Rees (left) should have been a prime suspect in the murder of his partner Daniel Morgan in 1987 — the two men were love rivals and were arguing about a botched security operation arranged by Rees. But Scotland Yard detective sergeant Sid Fillery (right) kept that crucial information from the murder squad for four days. For the events leading up to the murder, the early contaminated murder inquiry, the sensational inquest which saw Rees’s book-keeper accuse him of planning the murder, see Part One — An Axe To Grind. The second part of The No 1 Corrupt Detective Agency — Rogue Journalists & Bent Coppers— reveals how Rees and his new partner Fillery became key players in the unlawful sale of confidential police information to Rupert Murdoch’s empire, especially the News of the World. Attempts by anti-corruption detectives to end this corrosive trade came to nothing. Photos: PA
Detectives listened as Rees hatched a conspiracy with serving Scotland Yard detectives to plant drugs on an innocent woman.
The plotters were caught red-handed and Rees was gaoled for 7 years.
But the bug picked up no clues about the murder.
Pressure from Daniel Morgan’s family finally forced the Met to open a new murder inquiry in 2002.
It started with a dramatic BBC Crimewatch reconstruction.
Instantly Rees — from prison — and Fillery started a campaign to subvert this new inquiry.
They targeted the family of the detective in charge — hacked his personal records and had him followed.
Scotland Yard hit back — they raided Southern Investigations and found extreme child pornography on Sid Fillery’s computer.
He was convicted and ordered to sign the Sex Offender’s Register.
With Rees in prison and Fillery disgraced, Southern Investigations finally came to an end.
But the Morgan family’s battle to bring Daniel’s killers to justice ploughed on …
♦♦♦
IN 1999 detectives listening to the bug planted in the offices of Southern Investigations began to hear a plot unfold.
A London businessman, Simon Jones, came to see if the agency could help him win a custody battle with his wife.
James asked Jonathan Rees to see if there was any evidence that his wife was involved in drugs.
It would help him get sole custody of the couple’s little boy.
Rees could find no evidence that his wife Kim was dealing in drugs.
In a bugged conversation, he hinted that he might be able to do something:
Rees “I just wondered… We can do things.”
James “I’m not being funny. I’d rather you talk to me straight.”
SIMON JAMES
A POLICE surveillance photograph taken while the self-employed jeweller was plotting to gain custody of his son by planting drugs on the mother. Jonathan Rees was prepared to send an innocent woman to prison to satisfy his client … Photo: Press Association.
Rees “I just wondered if it might be worthwhile, going in and planting some gear. Now, having said that it’s done, it’s available, but it costs.”
James “I’m not averse to doing anything.”
Rees “What we are doing is fraught … Me and you could end up doing porridge as well, if we get caught out.”
James “Yeah, I mean, you’re professionals. That’s why I have come here…”
Rees “All right, I’ll have a chat to our people today.”
Three days later, James returned to the office with £7,500– some of which was used to buy cocaine.
As the plot to frame the innocent woman got underway, anti-corruption officers were watching every move.
They were about to catch the plotters red-handed.
A man called Jimmy Cook, who worked for Southern Investigations, broke into Kim James’ car and planted bags of cocaine.
Undercover officers were waiting and, as soon as Cook was out of the way, removed the cocaine and replaced it with packets of harmless powder.
Another contact, a corrupt detective constable called Austin Warnes, tipped off the police that Kim James was dealing in drugs.
She was raided and a suspicious package found in her car.
She was arrested.
The police pounced on the conspirators.
They arrested Rees, Simon James and Austin Warnes.
Austin Warnes was gaoled for five years for his part in the plot.
Rees got seven years — as did the businessman Simon James.
One of those acquitted in the case was Jimmy Cook, the Southern Investigations employee who would later be charged with being the getaway driver in the Daniel Morgan murder.
ANOTHER BENT COPPER
CORRUPT DETECTIVE Austin Warnes. He pretended he had intelligence that Simon James’ wife was dealing in drugs … Photo: Press Association
♦♦♦
IN 2002 detective chief superintendent Dave Cook of Scotland Yard’s murder squad was approached by anti-corruption detectives.
They wanted him to do them a favour.
They had decided to try and break the stalemate in the Daniel Morgan murder investigation.
They wanted the BBC Crimewatch programme to highlight the murder with the Metropolitan Police offering a £50,000 reward for information.
Their problem was that they didn’t want Rees and Fillery to know that it was the anti-corruption team who were in charge.
Would Cook appear on the programme to give the impression that he was heading up the inquiry?
Cook was an ideal candidate because his wife, policewoman Jacqui Hames, acted as a presenter on the porgramme.
Cook agreed.
On 26 June 2002 he appeared on the programme to appeal for witnesses to the murder.
The next day, Cook was told by anti-corruption officers that Sid Fillery had been in touch with reporter Alex Marunchak at the News of the World asking him to “sort out” the detective.
(At the time, Rees was still in prison for the Simon James conspiracy, although he was still in touch with both Fillery and Marunchak).
Shortly afterwards Cook spotted a white van outside his house.
The next day there were two.
When Cook took his young son to nursery, the vans followed.
Cook later arranged for police to stop one of the vans on the grounds that a rear light was defective.
The driver turned out to be a photojournalist working for the News of the World.
Both vans were leased by the newspaper.
Cook’s wife, Jacqui Hames, told witness protection officers that she had been photographed outside the couple’s home.
The couple were later told that the Met’s media boss Dick Fedorcio contacted the News of the World.
Fedorcio was told that the paper had been tipped off that Cook was having an affair with the Crimewatch presenter.
DAVE COOK
THE EXPERIENCED murder squad detective was disturbed when he and his wife were placed under surveillance by the News of the World as soon as he appeared on the BBC Crimewatch programme. Murder suspect Jonathan Rees had asked his friends on the paper to target the chief superintendant … Photo: Press Association.
This was an incredible answer.
Cook and Hames were married, had two children and had been featured as a couple in Hello! magazine.
The surveillance ceased.
A few days later Cook was told by Surrey Police, where he worked from 1996 to 2001, that someone had rung asking for his address.
The caller said they were working for the Inland Revenue and wanted it to send Cook a tax refund.
Surrey Police refused to give it.
Later in 2002, anti-corruption officers raided the offices of Southern Investigations.
At this point, Jonathan Rees was still in prison.
On Sid Fillery’s computer officers found indecent images of young children.
In October 2003 Bow Street Magistrates gave him a three year community rehabilitation order.
District Judge Caroline Tibbs said she’d taken into account his guilty plea and what his defence claimed was his previous good behaviour.
The court was told nothing about his role in the Daniel Morgan murder case.
After the conviction, the detective agency collapsed.
Fillery went to live on the Norfolk Broads, running a pub called the Lion at Thurne.
It later became clear that Glen Mulcaire — the private eye gaoled in 2007 with News of the World royal correspondent Clive Goodman for hacking into royal mobiles — obtained Cook’s address, his internal Met payroll number and the amount he and his wife were paying on their mortgage.
REBEKAH BROOKS
THE EDITOR of the News of the World when the paper mounted a surveillance operation against Dave Cook, Rebekah Brooks was untroubled that the paper was allowing itself to be used to pervert the course of justice … Photo: PA
Mulcaire also obtained the mobile number for Cook’s wife as well as the password she used.
Mulcaire was apparently acting on the instructions of Greg Miskiw, the News of the World assistant editor at the time.
On 9 January 2003 Rebekah Brooks was at Scotland Yard on a social visit when she was asked to have a word with Dave Cook “to clear the air”.
Present at the meeting was the Yard’s media boss Dick Fedorcio.
By that time, Cook was in charge of the latest Daniel Morgan murder investigation.
At first Brooks claimed to know nothing about the surveillance of Cook and his wife.
When Cook took her through the events, she insisted Marunchak was a fine reporter.
She promised to look into the matter.
We asked Dave Cook [in September 2011] to be interviewed for this article.
He declined.
The Met Commissioner at the time of Cook’s meeting with Brooks was Sir John Stevens.
He’s known to have dined regularly with Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson.
After he left the Met he was commissioned by Coulson to write a column for the News of the World — called “The Chief”.
♦♦♦
EVER SINCE the phone hacking scandal destroyed the reputation of the News of the World, Alastair Morgan has been thinking about the surveillance operation the paper mounted against detective superintendent Dave Cook and his then wife in 2002.
He believes it was an attempt to intimidate the detective.
Morgan believes that a similar operation was mounted against him and his family in May 1998.
The family were campaigning for a public inquiry into the events surrounding Daniel’s death.
THE MORGAN FAMILY
HIS MOTHER Isobel, sister Jane and brother Alastair have been relentless in their campaign to bring Daniel’s killers to justice. Photo: PA
“I was living in Glasgow,” Alastair Morgan explains, “and one night I noticed two men standing openly on the corner of the street where my flat was located.”
“The next day they were there again. I was sure they were watching me — they made absolutely no attempt to conceal themselves.”
“I rang my mother Isobel who lives in Wales and told her.”
“She then told me that she’d also had a strange encounter — she was just going into her house when a woman photographer walked up behind her and took a couple of photographs.”
“She didn’t say anything — just got into a car which drove off.”
“And when I told my sister Jane, who lives in Germany, she said that she’d seen a white van parked outside her home in the countryside.”
“A man was lying in a ditch with a telephoto lens pointed at her home.”
“All of these incidents were reported to the police — in Scotland, Wales and Germany. We were all worried.”
Alastair Morgan told us:
“I have written to James Murdoch at News International to ask him to tell us if it was the News of the World who were watching us. And, if they were, what exactly was the justification for the intrusion.”
He had not received a reply by the time this article went to press.
We asked News International for a response but the press office told us:
“NI declines to comment”.
♦♦♦
THE FINAL instalment of The No 1 Corrupt Detective Agency — Getting Away With Murder — will cover the events that followed Jonathan Rees’ release from prison in 2004.
His criminal record was no barrier to his continued working for the News of the World.
But police were closing in.
In 2008 he — and four others — were arrested and charged with involvement in the murder.
By 2011 the prosecution decided to offer no evidence.
The evidence of three supergrasses — “assisting offenders” is the official term — was discredited.
And police failed to disclose some of the 750,ooo pages of documents to the defence.
But the judge, David Maddison, made it clear police “had ample grounds to justify the arrest and prosecution of the defendants.”
That has not stopped four of them bringing a civil action for malicious prosecution and malfeasance in public office.
This is on-going.
At the same time a review of the scandal headed by Baroness Nuala O’Loan is preparing its report.
Set up in 2013 by then Home Secretary Theresa May, its hearings were held in secret.
17 February 2017
Daniel Morgan Suspects LOSE Case
As Zelo Streetregulars will know, three men suspected of the murder in a South London pub car park almost 30 years ago of private detective Daniel Morgan had chosen to draw attention to themselves recently by taking action against the Metropolitan Police, alleging that officers had been so determined to get them that this pursuit was malicious. The downside of their action was that they were named in court.
Daniel Morgan
So anyone who wanted to know – which, by definition, means most of the press took no notice – found that the Police case was that Jonathan Rees, Morgan’s business partner at the time, paid for the hit, and that his brother-in-law Glenn Vian wielded the axe, the head of which was discovered still embedded in Morgan’s head. The killing became known as the “HP murder” – some money paid upfront, with the rest after the hit, in instalments.
As the Guardianhas reported – almost alone among the press pack – “On Friday at the high court in central London, Mr Justice Mitting ruled against Rees and his brothers-in-law, Gary Vian and Glenn Vian … Morgan was killed outside the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south London, on 10 March 1987, aged 37. He was found with an axe embedded in his head … Rees and the Vians were tried for murder but the case collapsed in 2011”. And then comes the reason the rest of the press is keeping schtum.
“The News of the World and other media used Southern Investigations, and police suspected it was involved with corrupt officers selling information”. The now-defunct Screws had interfered in one of the investigations into the Morgan killing, while the paper was edited by the twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks. There was also significant involvement from “Fake Sheikh” Mazher Mahmood.
Jonathan Rees
And that is only the beginning: Police officers investigating the murder were targeted by Southern Investigations and the Screws. Phones were hacked, personal details blagged and/or improperly obtained, surveillance was mounted. Those hacking were also involved in the industrial scale hacking of leading politicians, sports stars, lawyers, TV personalities, and other celebrities. That’s what connects the Morgan case to the hacking scandal.
The use of the Dark Arts spilled over into other newspapers, most notably the Mirror titles, although the likes of Piers Morgan, who edited the Daily Mirror at the time, protested and continue to protest their innocence. But one Mirror journalist, now better-known at another paper, ordered at least one (illegal) search of the Police National Computer.
With all the information out there as a result of Rees and the Vians drawing attention to themselves, the background material available to my good friend Peter Jukes, who with Daniel Morgan’s brother Alastair, has been writing a book on the Morgan murder and the subsequent investigations, has been most useful. The book, which develops the material in the top-rated Untold Murderseries of podcasts, will be published later this year.
And that will be coming out, no matter what efforts those who may or may not have something to do with the Murdoch empire put into preventing publication, commissioning the darker kind of propaganda, getting Sun hacks to aim abuse at the participants, or any other kind of organised or ad hoc harassment.
Has any of that already happened? You may wish to ask that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Every single prime minister elected since 1979 has had the backing of Murdoch. Of course, Murdoch extracts a price for his support – and it is a very steep one. I call these relationships “corrupt” but in polite society in UK corruption somehow only happens abroad…
Notes 1.
This article is part of a series first published on the Rebecca Television website in September 2011.
Rees and Fillery were sent letters outlining the article and asking for their comments.
Fillery never replied but Rees’ solicitor said:
“Mr Rees has not the spare time to reply to the many questions that have been raised, often on the basis of ill-informed or malicious allegations.”
“Defamation claims are being pursued … in respect of some past publications; and the police have been asked to investigate any use by journalists or others of confidential or forged material improperly released by police officers or others.”
No legal action was taken against Rebecca Television.
2.
There are four parts to The No 1 Corrupt Detective Agency: An Axe To Grind Rogue Journalists & Bent Coppers Porridge
Getting Away With Murder.
3.
The series draws on material provided by the Morgan family as well as published material by other journalists, notably Nick Davies of the Guardian. Former BBC reporter Graeme McLagan devoted a detailed chapter on the murder as early as 2003 in his book Bent Coppers: The Inside Story of Scotland Yard’s Battle Againats Police Corruption (Orion). It also featured in Laurie Flynn & Michael Gillard’s The Untouchables: Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism In Scotland Yard (Cutting Edge, 2004).Several books on the phone hacking scandal have highlighted the key role the murder plays in the saga: Nick Davies’ Hack Attack (Chatto & Windus, 2014) , Tom Watson MP & Martin Hickman’s Dial M For Murdoch (Allen Lane, 2012) and Peter Jukes’ The Fall Of The House Of Murdoch (Unbound, 2012). Peter Jukes has also produced a podcast series — listened to by more than 4 million people — Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder
4. Press Gang editor Paddy French made several programmes on the murder while a current affairs producer at ITV Wales.
♦♦♦
COMING SKY FALL?
THIS YEAR will see a major battle for control of Britain’s airwaves — Rupert Murdoch’s bid to take overall control of Sky TV. The mogul scuttled an earlier attempt in 2012 because of the public outcry over the phone hacking scandal. The battle for Sky will be a key battleground in 21st century British media because of the decline in newspapers. If Murdoch gets Sky, he will move to smash the powerful broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, and convert Sky News into a British version of his US Fox News. This is part of a plan to replace the fading populist power of the Sun with a new right-wing TV version. All the signs are Theresa May’s government will give Rupert Murdoch what he wants. But all is not lost — the Murdochs are vulnerable to a charge that, despite claims to have cleaned up their criminal stable since the closure of the News of the World in 2012, some areas of their empire remain as corrupt as ever …
The art of tabloid news, as Zelo Street regulars will know by now, consists not only of getting some stories out there, but preventing others from doing the same. Hence anything that assists the attacks on politicians of inconvenient view, judges making decisions that their proprietors don’t like, and Slebs who exercise their right to speak freely gets out there, while anything on the likes of John Whittingdale most certainly does not.
Keith Vaz
So it was that the Tabs knew all about Whitto and his relationships with a number of known sex workers, but published nothing – not until Byline Media, with Zelo Street in the vanguard, had put the story out there. So it also seems to be with Labour MP Keith Vaz, about whom sources independent of one another have recently voiced concern, but who is still in post as MP for Leicester East, and still chairing a Commons committee.
Accusations: Natalie Rowe
This state of affairs has not pleased Natalie Rowe, former purveyor of strict disciplinary measures to the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the Seventeenth Baronet. After the Mirror stung Vaz in true red-top fashion paying rent boys for sex, she hinted very firmly that the MP could look forward to rather more dirt being dished in the very near future. But thus far there has been much indignation, and little revelation.
Heavyweight opinion: The Great Guido
After Vaz got himself onto that Commons committee, Ms Rowe voiced her concern on Twitter – in Tweets which are still live. “So when #Vaz intervened when Leicester City Council tried to evict a tenant suspected of running a male brothel, things become clearer” she began last November, adding soon afterwards “I personally have seen #Vaz come out of a known brothel”. And there was more.
Only two weeks ago she asserted “So EVERYONE is aware, I gave ALL details that I knew via a source regarding #KeithVaz, that he was a Landlord of a brothel in Earls Court … @TheSun had Vaz Male – Escorts Years before ON Video, I Asked why they didn’t run: Said there wasn’t enough evidence … The Sun was more pissed off that their golden boy Vaz had been exposed & that Mirror had the SCOOP of the YEAR”.
There are two significant claims there: that Vaz is alleged to have been the landlord of a brothel in Earl’s Court, and that the Sun has significant dirt on the MP that it has declined thus far to publish. So far, so interesting, but the accusations of improper behaviour are also coming from the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog. Staines is often wayward on facts, but his claims are still live as I type.
This was the Fawkes take: “Keith Vaz was under police investigation over year ago on suspicion of financial corruption and historic allegations of under-age sex. Speaker Bercow was informed of this and fellow MPs demanded – Andrew Bridgen in writing – that he step down from his position on the Home Affair Select Committee”. Vaz has since threatened legal action against Bridgen. And then comes the really damning claim.
“It is widely known around Westminster that Vaz – who owes his career to Greville Janner – was the unidentified MP in this Sun front page from last year … Vaz offering to buy cocaine for rent boys is at the mild end of Vaz’s sleazy life and times”. The Sunday Sunfront page simply said “COPS TOLD: TOP LABOUR MP IS PAEDO”. The story is still live.
These are two sources who are independent of one another. Both are effectively saying the same thing: there is a lot yet to be revealed about Keith Vaz, and if and when it comes out, it will be of a career-terminating nature.
The Fawkes folks have not added to their claims for a while: the thought enters that The Great Guido, being an establishment sell-out, has been advised to keep the MP on the back burner. Ms Rowe suffers from no such restriction.
In the days when the deeply unsavoury Kelvin McFilth was editing the paper, the standing joke was that he had a large safe full of dirt on the good and the great which could be used to keep them in line. Now the name of Keith Vaz has been pitched – and by two very different sources – as someone on whom the Murdoch mafiosi have dirt.
So the question has to be put: what dirt has the Sun got on Keith Vaz, and, more importantly, what’s preventing them from dishing it? We’re waiting.
Kelvin Mackenzie, editor of the Sun at the time, categorically denies that the paper backed down from exposing Jimmy Savile as a sex predator and child abuser for fear he would pull the plug on his support for Stoke Mandeville. Admitting that the truth about Jimmy Savile had been ‘a massive shock’, even for someone who had edited the Sun for 13 years, ‘He was a seriously devious bloke, that much is clear,’ he said.
His stock was similarly high with the Catholic Church; in December, Cardinal Basil Hume, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, proposed Jimmy Savile for membership at the prestigious Athenaeum Club.
At lunchtime, its dining room resembles a Who’s Who of the British establishment, with former prime ministers rubbing shoulders with bishops, artists and professors. A spokesman for Cardinal Hume said, ‘He is a great admirer of what Jimmy has done for young people and Stoke Mandeville and is delighted to help in this matter.’ For the second year in a row, Margaret Thatcher invited Savile to Chequers for New Year’s Day drinks and lunch.
In Plain Sight: the Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile Dan Davies
Rupert Murdoch secretly ‘sat in’ on Michael Gove’s interview with Donald Trump
Rupert Murdoch secretly sat in on interview with Donald Trump
News Corp boss joined Tory columnist for The Times newspaper exclusive
It was the journalistic coup of the moment, the first British newspaper interview with Donald Trump since his victory. But there was one thing The Times did not reveal: that its proprietor Rupert Murdoch was sitting in on the conversation.
The chairman of News Corp did not feature in photographs of the encounter last month at the top of Trump Tower in Manhattan but two people have confirmed he was in the room. The interview was conducted by Michael Gove, a former British cabinet minister and proponent of the UK’s exit from the EU.
Mr Murdoch’s presence is a sign of the mogul’s interest in Mr Trump and his close relationship with the new president and his family.
The Financial Times revealed this week that the president’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, was until recently a trustee for shares belonging to Grace and Chloe, Mr Murdoch’s two young daughters by his ex-wife Wendi Deng.
Ms Trump represented the girls’ interests in 21st Century Fox and News Corp, the two companies that are controlled by the Murdoch family. Ms Trump is married to Jared Kushner, a key White House adviser — and a confidant of Mr Murdoch. A spokesperson told the FT that Ms Trump stepped down from the trustee board on December 28 last year.
Mr Trump and Mr Murdoch are in regular contact while Mr Murdoch, who has been running Fox News Channel since Roger Ailes was pushed out last summer, has positioned the network squarely behind the new president. When Megyn Kelly, a star Fox News presenter, left the network for NBC last month, Mr Murdoch personally selected her replacement, the Trump-supporting presenter Tucker Carlson.
Mr Carlson’s appointment means that the three key prime hours on Fox News are hosted by pro-Trump commentators.
In the interview Mr Trump riled America’s European allies by describing Nato as “obsolete” and the EU as a “vehicle for Germany”. It was unclear whether Mr Murdoch played a role in securing the interview.
Mr Gove announced in February 2016 that he would campaign for the Leave side in Britain’s EU referendum, infuriating many of his pro-EU cabinet friends including David Cameron, the then prime minister. But Mr Murdoch praised Mr Gove at the time on Twitter, saying: “Congratulations Michael Gove. Friends always knew his principles would overcome his personal friendships.”
After Mr Cameron’s resignation Mr Gove helped run Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign. But at the last minute Mr Gove announced that he, too, was standing — prompting accusations of treachery.
Just days earlier, Mr Murdoch had said he would be “happy for Michael Gove to get it”, describing him as the most principled and most able candidate. “He could run a fine government,” he said.
According to Tim Shipman’s book about the Brexit campaign, All Out War, Mr Gove put himself forward after taking a phone call from an influential “media power broker”.
Ultimately, however, his leadership bid went down in flames and he is now on the backbenches.
Mr Gove is currently paid £150,000 a year to write for The Times, which is owned by News Corp, on top of his salary as an MP. He did not respond to requests to comment.
He conducted the interview with Kai Diekmann, a journalist with Bild, the German newspaper.
In the interview published by The Times Mr Trump extolled Brexit and said British people were fed up with taking in refugees. “People, countries, want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity. But, I do believe this, if they hadn’t been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it . . . entails, I think that you wouldn’t have a Brexit.”
Mr Trump also laid into Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, saying: “I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals.” At the end of the interview Mr Trump posed for a grinning, thumbs-up photograph with Mr Gove, who also grinned and stuck his thumb up. Mr Diekmann also posed for a picture with Mr Trump but there was no photograph with the new president and Mr Murdoch.
Mr Gove was a former leader writer at The Times before he became an MP. Appearing at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, he described the Australian media tycoon as “one of the most impressive and significant figures of the last 50 years”.
When politicians and moguls conspire to deceive the public: Gove refuses to say if Murdoch sat in on Trump interview
23 February 2017
Gove’s flow of answers only dried up when he was asked about reports that Murdoch was present when he interviewed Trump for the Times, although Gove did indicate it could have been the case.
“The best thing to say I think, in fairness is, um, in securing the interview, I think the fact that it was the Times newspaper and the fact that we had the – what’s the word … I think it’s probably better for me not to go into how the interview arose or how it came about but I think it’s entirely fair for people to make a set of conclusions or assumptions about that,” he said, somewhat cryptically.
Calls for urgent inquiry into Rupert Murdoch’s bid for full control of BSkyB
A previous attempt to buy Sky six years’ ago was abandoned following the phone hacking scandal at Murdoch’s News of the World
9 FEB 2017
A Cross-Party alliance has written to the broadcasting watchdog demanding an urgent inquiry into Rupert Murdoch’ s bid for full control of BSkyB .
The prominent politicians, who include Ed Miliband and Vince Cable, call on Ofcom to rule if the tycoon is a “fit and proper” person to run the broadcaster.
It comes as the Financial Times reported that Mr Murdoch, the owner of the Times newspaper, sat in on Michael Gove’s interview of Donald Trump for the Times.
Mr Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has made a £11.2billion for the 61% of the satellite broadcaster he does not already own.
A previous attempt to buy Sky six years’ ago was abandoned following the phone hacking scandal at Murdoch’s News of the World.
The letter to Sharon White, the chief executive of Ofcom, the politicians say there is an “unanswerable case” for a inquiry into the bid.
They say: “In the light of the real prospect of full ownership of BSkyB by the Murdochs, there is also an urgency about these inquiries beginning straight away.
“Clearly the bid would not be allowed to proceed by the shareholders if you were to rule that 100% ownership by the Murdochs would make BSkyB unfit and improper to hold a licence.
“It is therefore imperative that your inquiries are completed in time to inform any conclusions reached by Government, in relation to other public concerns.”
The letter is signed by former Labour leader Ed Miliband, former Tory chairman Baroness Warsi and Lib Dem Sir Vince Cable, crossbencher Baroness O’Neill and former Labour cabinet minsiter Lord Falconer.
On the excellent Aangirfan site, on an unrelated post, I came across this anonymous comment from November 2016 [1a]
It was about a petition to Keith Vaz’s Labour East constituency calling them to investigate the serious allegations against Keith Vaz.
Regular readers of this site will know that allegations that the Sun [2] printed were of child sexual abuse with boys.
According to the Sun the MP
had lads “delivered” to his room at a hotel near a police station
abused boys at a hospital’s mental health unit
left one so terrified he fears for his life if he ever speaks out
showed an “unhealthy” interest in the two young sons of a local councillor
displayed a liking for “young ragamuffins”,
was seen as untouchable by police because of his revered
position.
Guido Fawkes published that the MP was Keith Vaz [5]
Why does Keith Vaz, often keen to “get the party started” not seem so keen to start the legal party against Guido Fawkes or the Sun on Sunday team?
The parliamentary commissioner is still conducting an investigation into whether Vaz has broken Section 10 of the Code of Conduct for MPs.
It is not known whether the conflict of interest being investigated by the parliamentary commissioner is the possible breaking of the Code of Conduct of MPs
with sex, drugs and washing machine allegations
the conflict of a police investigation into child sexual abuse allegations and his role on committees [5]
It is not known whether all police investigations into Keith Vaz have finished, but the sex, drugs and washing machine ones have finished, with no action taken.
However, the point of this post is that the petition has disappeared. From the comment, the petition text appeared to be –
“The Leicester East Constituency Labour Party must make enquiries into the serious allegations by the MP for Leicester East, Keith Vaz. Your enquiries should principally involve talking to the Sun on Sunday Journalists David Wooding and Michael Hamilton and Sun on Sunday Columnist Paul Staines to find out what their evidence is.”
It is not known whether this was the full text of the petition.
If you click the link [4] It says “This petition isn’t available. Either the URL is incorrect, it violated our Community Guidelines, or the starter removed it.”
Yet it seems such a reasonable, innocuous petition so why would it violate any guidelines or why would the originator take it down?
Does anyone know –
What was the full text of the petition?
What happened to it?
Who started it?
Why it was taken down?
When it was taken down?
Who took it down?
Have Leicester East Labour Party investigated the serious allegations?
One thing is for sure the people of Leicestershire and Labour in Leicestershire, who also had Janner, child sexual abuser as an MP must be getting fed up of this bad publicity.
Hopefully they are doing something about it and start asking Vaz a few questions.
Meanwhile, since this article was under construction, Vaz has set the record straight through his solicitors about some of his time selling washing machines.
In the last 24 hours,the Order Order website has published an article about Carter Ruck, expensive solicitors, who say their client, Keith Vaz
has never paid “rent boys for sex”
never had “sex” with “rent boys”.
there was never a police investigation in relation to this
One has to wonder if their client is the same Keith Vaz??
Carter Ruck are of course paid handsomely for dancing on pinheads.
..and Tesco must be wondering why Keith Vaz had to pose for a picture near their store or have they started a line in industrial washing machines?
I wonder what Vaz’s defence actually is?
I wonder how Carter Ruck know for sure that their client has never paid “rent boys for sex” or “sex” with “rent boys”? (It conjures up the mental image of one of Carter Rucks flunkies accompanying Vaz/Jim on his nocturnal visits and checking whether the people concerned can be excluded from the definition of “rent boy”. ID card please! )
I wonder if the fact that Carter Ruck say he has not paid for or had sex with rent boys is enough plausible deniability and bluster to appear to be a denial from Vaz whilst actually being from a third party. This would scare a few people off commenting, and maybe enough enough to come to a quid pro quo with the Mail, which has the appearance of a denial. When solicitors make these threats, it is very rare for one to actually sign the letter and be responsible for that threat.
The Mail article is mostly about Vaz’s gatekeeper chum John Bercow accepting freebies – 2017 Feb 8 Mail Andrew Pierce [9]Chauffeur-driven cars, taxpayer-funded suits and hospitality at the tennis and Arsenal matches: How the king of freebies John Bercow splashes your cash
The last paragraph however mentioned Vaz.
The article published on the 8th Feb, does say it has been updated on 13th Feb. This however appears to be unrelated to the Carter Ruck threat, as the only sentence that has changed on this paragraph from a print edition copy, is the removal of “The charity gave £2,500 to Bercow’s Speaker’s election campaign in 2010” with reference to the Silver Star diabetes charity.
Whatever the truth the original articles are here Mirror Married MP Keith Vaz tells prostitutes in his flat: ‘Bring poppers’ … ‘We need to get this party started’ [12]
So game on between Vaz and the Daily Mail or will they come to some agreement out of mutual self interest?
Interestingly on the Carter Ruck website, the rolling self congratulatory advert attributes these comments to the Mail “Top London Law Firm” and “Famously Combative”. We shall see.
I cannot see Jim washing his very dirty laundry in public.
But who will blink first Lord Rothermere or Carter Ruck?
For previous posts on Vaz see Bercow and Vaz Personal / Private Conflicts of Interest [10] Cathy Fox Blog Vaz Search [11]
some of the Freud clan. Linked to Miramax/Weinstein
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According to the Sun the MP
The article published on the 8th Feb, does say it has been updated on 13th Feb. This however appears to be unrelated to the Carter Ruck threat, as the only sentence that has changed on this paragraph from a print edition copy, is the removal of “The charity gave £2,500 to Bercow’s Speaker’s election campaign in 2010” with reference to the Silver Star diabetes charity.
So game on between Vaz and the Daily Mail or will they come to some agreement out of mutual self interest?
goodnessandharmony 
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