“I’m imposing that deadline for the amended Particulars of Claim to bring some discipline to the process”
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Claimant will rely upon the fact that these Unlawful Acts were habitually and widely carried out or commissioned by Associated and its journalists (as set out in paragraphs 9 to 14 above) in support of her case that the same Unlawful Acts were also carried out or commissioned against her … as part of the modus operandi of obtaining, preparing and publishing stories during this period. In the premises, the Claimant will contend that she was one of the victims of Associated’s widespread unlawful or illegal activities.”
“… [the] ‘similar fact’ case is… of no real probative value to the Claimant’s case and its disposal at trial would be disproportionate and contrary to the overriding objective, including by reason of the fact that many of the journalists and alleged “private investigators” referred to as part of that case are not said to have had targeted the Claimant in any way or to have had any involvement in the articles about which she complains.” (2) Paragraphs 11.2-11.4: “… [the Claimants] also impermissibly seek to introduce a distinct and unparticularised assertion of general wrongdoing by Associated’s journalists over a period of some twenty years [– the generic case –] to support an inference that the Claimant was also subjected to wrongdoing. That [generic] case is replete with unparticularised allegations of illegal or unlawful information gathering and serious criminal acts of almost limitless scope which are said to be pleaded ‘pending disclosure’. It is not possible or practical for Associated to give a detailed response to such generalities so as to comply withCPR 16.5 . In this context Associated will rely on and refer to the overriding objective and the importance of particularity in terms of achieving a fair, timely and manageable trial of the real issues between the parties at a proportionate cost both to the parties and in terms of Court resources (including time). Associated will further rely on and refer in this context to the mandatory requirements set out in paragraph 8.2 of the Practice Direction inCPR Part 16 (Statements of Case) and to those set out in paragraph 5.32 of the King’s Bench Division Guide. In particular, in contravention of the foregoing requirements, the pleading includes allegations of serious criminal conduct without providing any proper particulars…”
“(a) the documents on which he relies; and (b) the documents which – (i) adversely affect his own case; (ii) adversely affect another party’s case; or (iii) support another party’s case.” (i) adversely affect his own case; (ii) adversely affect another party’s case; or (iii) support another party’s case.”
“You have to decide whether the defendant’s previous convictions show that s/he has a tendency to behave in this way. If you are not sure that the defendant’s previous convictions show that s/he has such a tendency, then you must ignore them. But if you are sure that they do show such a tendency then this may support the prosecution case. It is for you to say whether it does and, if so, to what extent. You must not convict the defendant wholly or mainly because of his/her previous convictions. The fact that someone has committed an offence in the past does not prove that s/he did so on this occasion. The defendant’s previous convictions may only be used as some support for the prosecution case if, having assessed all the evidence, you are satisfied that it is right so to do.”
“Reliance on cumulative past incidents in support of a case of propensity may indeed illuminate the truth of the currently indicted allegations, but excessive recourse to such history may skew the trial in a way which distracts attention from the central issue. [The law] requires the judge to consider actively whether the effect of admitting the bad character evidence will have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the trial that it ought to be excluded. That species of adverse effect can arise through the sheer weight of disputed evidence on other uncharged allegations. And that can happen even though the jury will in due course be directed to consider propensity cumulatively, if the volume of evidence received is sufficiently strong to support a conviction. It is a truism that satellite litigation is often inimical to efficient trial.”
“It is no longer the role of the court simply to provide a level playing-field and to referee whatever game the parties choose to play upon it. The court is concerned to ensure that judicial and court resources are appropriately and proportionately used in accordance with the requirements of justice.”
“It is exactly this process, of linking the targets of UIG to published articles, which enables the Claimants to establish their pleaded case, undermine Associated’s Defences, and establish the modus operandi of the pleaded journalists such as Mr Wright.”
“Contrary to speculation, the London Mayor has not been taking driving lessons and still cannot drive at the age of 57. Instead Mr Livingstone and his two-month-old son Thomas are regularly ferried around by his live-in girlfriend Emma Beal in a T-reg Peugeot (pictured right) which they bought recently”
“Riddle of cricket ‘fixer’ and a blizzard of phone calls linked to big games”
“A BLIZZARD of telephone calls to and from the agent at the centre of the cricket match-fixing allegations was being examined by investigators last night.”
“The third-party platforms on which this data is held (iTiger (landline) and Tangoe (mobile network)) both require an application layer to view data. Records can be extracted but some data fields are lost on extraction and so need to be added back in manually where the record is responsive to a pleaded telephone number and that data field was available in the first instance. The records do not include the name of the person or entity associated with the telephone number. The data held is not limited to the Defendant’s Daily Mail and TMOS newspaper titles and includes call records for other entities owned by the Defendant’s holding company. Organisation of data is by telephone number and not custodian name or entity; it extends to approximately 37m individual records. It is not possible to extract records by reference to a list of pleaded journalists’ names or by reference to an ANL publication title. Complete directories have not been retained such as to allow the Defendant to associate every telephone number with any particular person or entity. Manual work is therefore required to determine: (i) if a record of a call to or from any specific pleaded telephone number was made to or from a telephone number that can be associated with the Daily Mail or TMOS; and (ii) if that call was made to or from a telephone number that can be associated with a pleaded journalist.”
“… if any order for enhanced disclosure is to be applied for, the applications should be focussed, directed at an identifiable category or class of document and linked to specific issues, not broadly aimed at the whole gamut of issues as presently is the case with the Claimant’s application. Moreover some explanation should be provided as to the nature of the enquiry envisaged.”
“The application for specific disclosure will usually arise because the applicant believes that the other party has not given adequate disclosure first time round. But that is not inevitable: sometimes, there may be documents (or a particular class of documents) which the applicant seeks by way of specific disclosure, regardless of whether or not they should have been disclosed by way of standard disclosure.”
“there was no basis then at all for me to think otherwise”
“It appeared to [him] at the time [in 2012] that NGN, using Mr Mulcaire, had been the only entity unlawfully intercepting his voicemails. He had no basis then at all to think otherwise. Nothing that [he] learned in his proceedings against NGN suggested that Mr Mulcaire had been hacking phones for other newspapers”. (2) The incident involving HJK in April 2006 is highly relevant to Sir Simon’s actual or constructive knowledge of UIG by Associated. HJK gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry that his address had been blagged, and his voicemails hacked, by Mr Mulcaire. He stated that, after his address had been obtained by blagging, he was approached at his home and telephoned by a journalist from a newspaper group other than NGN asking about whether he was in a relationship with “X” and that he suspected this other newspaper was implicated in the blagging and hacking. He said no story was published as another story dominated the Sunday newspapers and that he later tore up the journalist’s business card. The name of the other newspaper was redacted from his published evidence, as was the other story. In his limitation witness statement, Sir Simon stated that he was aware that, in April 2006, a Mail on Sunday journalist had approached HJK and, although a Core Participant, he did not see HJK give evidence at the Inquiry. (3) In his disclosure, Sir Simon has now produced documents which reveal that: (a) Dr Evan Harris invited him in March 2016 to a meeting to discuss “the Mail business”; (b) Dr Harris told him on4 April 2016 , in advance of a meeting planned for the following day, that “I am bringing my investigative journalist Graham who got the whistleblower stuff”, and that “Glenn is one of his sources – he’ll explain”; (c) on the eve of that meeting, Sir Simon emailed HJK (with the subject line “Old tricks”) asking for the name of the journalist “who tried to link you and me for the papers” as (as he said later in the exchange) he “had no clear recollection of the name”; and (d) Dr Harris had also been in contact with HJK and indicated that Dr Harris had put an earlier case to HJK (“I know he had a source that the [Daily Mail] or [Mail on Sunday] was implicated, However, I doubted Evan’s source… I wonder if Evan has a better case now”). HJK added “you know my statement at Leveson implicated them”. (4) Further, it is evident from Sir Simon’s disclosure that Dr Harris was a close associate from at least 2005-6 and with whom he regularly exchanged messages. (5) Associated submits that it seems highly likely therefore that there must be more disclosable material, as: (a) there clearly had been earlier communications about the “Mail business” between Sir Simon and Dr Harris before the first disclosed email at on3 March 2016 and the first disclosed text on4 April 2016 which would tend to show what the “Mail business” was and how it developed; (b) no diary entries or other emails or texts between Dr Harris and Sir Simon have been disclosed; (c) no follow up communications or notes of the meeting have been disclosed; and (d) no documents provided at or in advance of or following the meeting arranged for early April 2016 have been disclosed. (6) The extent to which Sir Simon knew (a) about HJK’s account of being doorstepped by a journalist and his suspicions; and (b) the claims by Mr Mulcaire (who by then, with Mr Miskiw, was assisting claimants in the News Group litigation) that he had undertaken work for Associated, or could have asked them, is critical to the Knowledge Issue. (7) Further, in Sir Simon’s Reply it is pleaded that “he was first made aware of potential UIG targeted against him by D in around July 2020” when he “was contacted by Mr Johnson who told him he had been targeted by hacking by [the Mail on Sunday]”; and his personal Watershed Moment was not until early 2022, when Mr Johnson provided Mr Thomson with (i) the emails between Mr Miskiw and Mr Anderson, (ii) a payment record from Mr Miskiw; and Mr Mulcaire told him that he had “undertaken phone hacking for Associated”
“Hughes later gave a witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry, stating: ‘I believe that the Mail on Sunday was also trying to write a story about [HJK] and me. I remember that both of us had reporters turn up on our doorstep on the same day trying to find out information.’ The story was due to be published the following day on Sunday April 30th 2006. However, a bigger political story broke which may have knocked it out of the paper. The story involved John Prescott and Tracey Temple, his former employee, who may have also been hacked for the Mail on Sunday”. (2) Sir Simon has not disclosed this witness statement or any other document containing the quoted wording. Any witness statement or other document which contains this wording, and any other document in which Sir Simon and HJK “raised their suspicions at Leveson” is, Associated argues, plainly relevant to the Knowledge Issue. (3) In Mr Galbraith’s witness statement in response, he states that only one witness statement was provided by Sir Simon to the Inquiry (dated20 February 2012 ) and that has been disclosed. However, Mr Galbraith does not address the rest of the request, for “any other document containing the quoted words”
“It is clear that from the evidence that has been disclosed and/or the evidence that I have obtained in the phone hacking litigation, this activity was not confined to one newspaper or one newspaper group but common industry practice. Paul McMullan admitted as much in his meeting with Hugh Grant, which was the subject to matter of an article a copy of which is exhibited at Tab 6 of MT1”. (5) The further and better particulars are relevant to Mr Thomson’s knowledge of alleged UIG by Associated in late 2011, and what evidence, which had been disclosed or obtained in the phone hacking litigation, had led him to conclude that it was clear, on the evidence, that phone hacking was “common industry practice”
“… if the judge is satisfied that certain contemporaneous documentation is likely to have existed were the oral evidence correct… then the documentation may be conspicuous by its absence and the judge may be able to draw inferences from its absence.”
“As a matter of principle, are documents held by the Research Team in the custody and control of the claimants?”
“I want to avoid a situation where documents are held in a situation where they don’t fall within the terms of standard disclosure, only to be released later when it might be thought convenient”
“As such, and leaving aside the picture that Associated is seeking to paint, this order is unnecessary”
“The Court will need to keep this area of the case under review going forward. If the costs of litigating this issue become wholly disproportionate, the Court may need to think again whether the potential probative value of the allegation is worth the cost of investigating and resolving it. It would be premature, however, to exclude it from consideration at this stage.”
“113.2F The Claimants, despite alleging burglary against two named journalists, have not disclosed a single document relating to Mr Ward’s allegations notwithstanding their gravity and the fact that clearly relevant documents were available to Mr Ward. The Claimants therefore appear to have pleaded these allegations without any proper attempt at investigation. 113.2G In further support of the case that trial of these serious allegations would be disproportionate and/or contrary to the interests of justice and/or the overriding objective, Associated will rely on the following: (a) Different factual allegations were made by Mr Ward against Mr Lever and Mr Wolman, which paragraph 12.4 inappropriately elides. Separate investigation of the factual allegations against each would be required. (b) The incoherence (pleaded in paragraph 113.2A above), and lack of essential particularity in the Claimants’ pleaded case. (c) The complexity of the factual background and the difficulty of resolving relevant or potentially relevant issues of detail arising from Mr Ward’s case in the contemporary correspondence (in terms of what was complained of and what was not) and his detailed complaint as made to Associated in and after 2011. (d) The passage of time and the limits of memory. (e) The absence of any allegation by any Claimant in these proceedings that they were subjected to any actual or suspected burglary or the removal of documents without authority, or that any relevant article had any connection with Mr Lever or Wolman. (f) The complexity of issues arising from the integrity and completeness of recordings relevant to the issues secretly made by Mr Ward of Mr Wolman’s intermediary as is apparent from the summing up of HHJ Rivlin QC in the second criminal trial on25 September 1995 . (g) Fairness to Mr Lever and Mr Wolman having regard to the matters pleaded above. (h) Costs and court time.” (a) Different factual allegations were made by Mr Ward against Mr Lever and Mr Wolman, which paragraph 12.4 inappropriately elides. Separate investigation of the factual allegations against each would be required. (b) The incoherence (pleaded in paragraph 113.2A above), and lack of essential particularity in the Claimants’ pleaded case. (c) The complexity of the factual background and the difficulty of resolving relevant or potentially relevant issues of detail arising from Mr Ward’s case in the contemporary correspondence (in terms of what was complained of and what was not) and his detailed complaint as made to Associated in and after 2011. (d) The passage of time and the limits of memory. (e) The absence of any allegation by any Claimant in these proceedings that they were subjected to any actual or suspected burglary or the removal of documents without authority, or that any relevant article had any connection with Mr Lever or Wolman. (f) The complexity of issues arising from the integrity and completeness of recordings relevant to the issues secretly made by Mr Ward of Mr Wolman’s intermediary as is apparent from the summing up of HHJ Rivlin QC in the second criminal trial on25 September 1995 . (g) Fairness to Mr Lever and Mr Wolman having regard to the matters pleaded above. (h) Costs and court time.”