Guardian Books - Phone hacking: how the Guardian broke the story

News of the World reporter Clive Goodman is jailed for phone hacking. Officially, its an isolated case.

What happened when

Late 2005

The News of the Worlds royal editor, Clive Goodman, writes a story about Prince Williams injured knee. Only a handful of the princes closest aides are supposed to know the details. Buckingham Palace suspects interference with William and the royal staffs voicemail, and calls in Scotland Yard.

August 2006

Police arrest Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, seizing computer records, paperwork and audiotapes.

September 2006

News of the World editor Andy Coulson apologises unreservedly on behalf of his newspaper. As the editor... I take ultimate responsibility for the conduct of my reporters. Clive Goodmans actions were entirely wrong and I have put in place measures to ensure that they will not be repeated by any member of my staff.

January 2007

Goodman and Mulcaire are jailed. Coulson resigns as NoW editor, claiming to have known nothing. He is succeeded by Colin Myler. Asked whether News International has carried out a full inquiry and whether Goodman was the only person who knew what was going on, executive chairman Les Hinton replies: Yes, we have and I believe he was the only person, but that investigation, under the new editor, continues.

February 2007

Rupert Murdoch denies phone hacking is widespread: If youre talking about illegal tapping by a private investigator, that is not part of our culture anywhere in the world, least of all in Britain.

May 2007

The Press Complaints Commission publishes its first hacking report, finding no proof of wider wrongdoing: There is no evidence to challenge Mr Mylers assertion that Goodman had deceived his employer in order to obtain cash to pay Mulcaire that no one else at the News of the World knew that Messrs Goodman and Mulcaire were tapping phone messages for stories. Myler describes the Goodman affair as an exceptional and unhappy event in the 163-year history of the News of the World, involving one journalist.

June 2007

Coulson is appointed media adviser to David Cameron, then leader of the opposition. I look forward very much to working with him, Cameron comments.

How it was reported

Clive Goodman sentenced to four months

Chris Tryhorn, 26 January 2007

News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman was today sentenced to four months in jail after pleading guilty to intercepting phone messages. His co-conspirator Glenn Mulcaire was sentenced to six months.

The judge, Mr Justice Gross, described Goodman and Mulcaires behaviour as low conduct, reprehensible in the extreme.

Goodman had a glittering reputation at the News of the World for scoop-getting, reputedly holding the papers record for the highest number of consecutive front-page leads. But his thirst for inside information led him to break the law by hacking into private phone messages. His undoing resulted from the pursuit of comparatively low-grade tittle-tattle. The story that first aroused suspicion in the royal household that he had been tapping into phone messages appeared in the News of the Worlds Blackadder column on 6 November 2005.

It told how Prince William had consulted doctors over a pulled knee tendon and had postponed a mountain rescue course something known to very few people. A week later the diary ran an item saying that Tom Bradby, ITVs former royal correspondent, had lent the prince some broadcasting equipment. The piece appeared a week before Bradby was due to meet William.

We worked out that only he and I and two people incredibly close to him had actually known about it, said Mr Bradby, who is now political editor for ITN.

The royal household reported its suspicions to the police, and the inquiry was taken on by the counter-terrorism branch of Scotland Yard.

Goodman used a private investigator for much of the work: Mulcaire, a former Wimbledon footballer. The men were arrested and charged in August 2006, and on 29 November pleaded guilty to conspiracy to intercept communications without lawful authority, under the Criminal Law Act 1977.

The charges related to three members of the royal household, but the investigation found that targets for tapping may also have included David Blunkett, while he was home secretary, the government minister David Miliband, the England and Portsmouth defender Sol Campbell, and the Sun editor Rebekah Wade.

Mulcaire also pleaded guilty to a further five counts of unlawful interception of communications under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, a more recent law brought in to recognise technological advances in telephony and the internet. Those counts related to Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, supermodel Elle Macpherson, publicist Max Clifford, football agent Sky Andrew, and Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association.

When he pleaded guilty in November, Goodman apologised in court to the three members of the royal household staff concerned and their principals, Princes William, Harry and Charles.

Andy Coulson, the News of the Worlds editor, said the paper would make a substantial donation to charities of the princes choice.

The duo made a total of 609 calls to the royal staff members numbers in order to extract phone messages from voicemail. Goodman made 487 calls, while Mulcaire made 122 calls.

The News of the World paid Mulcaire more than 100,000 a year for his services. In addition, Goodman paid Mulcaire 12,300 in cash between 9 November 2005 and 7 August 2006, hiding Mulcaires identity by using the code name Alexander on his expenses claim. Records of this payment file included references to Harry and Chelsea and Wills.

The court was also told that Goodman was driven to break the law because of the pressure he felt to break stories.

After Goodman, we need answers from the News of the World

Roy Greenslade, 26 January 2007

The jail sentence on Clive Goodman is about what we, and he, might have expected. He has paid the price for breaking the law by listening in to hundreds of private voicemail messages. He also blatantly breached the editors code of practice , which states: The press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails. That could not be clearer, could it?

But Goodman, in pleading guilty to the charges, has prevented us from knowing as much about this case as we should. (Its always amazing, is it not, that newspapers which demand transparency from public bodies and institutions like to maintain secrecy about their own activities?) So now we must rely on the Press Complaints Commission to investigate just what did happen at the News of the World. Do we really believe that Goodman was alone in using this method of obtaining stories? Did any NoW executive know what he was up to? Has the editor, Andy Coulson, held an internal investigation? If not, why not? If he did, what were the results? A clean bill of health? If so, why no public statement to that effect? (He may well reply that with a case before the courts, he couldnt speak out. Fine, then let him do so now.)