Beyond Contempt

Peter Jukes is a British journalist, author and screenwriter. He is editor in chief of Byline Times and a director of the Byline Festival, both of which he co-founded with Stephen Colegrave. Since 2016, Peter Jukes collaborated with Deeivya Meir on the podcast series Untold - The Daniel Morgan Murder. He also co-hosted the podcast Dial M for Mueller with journalist Carole Cadwalladr. He is co-author of Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Exposed. His 2012 book, The Fall of the House of Murdoch, was described by the former editor of the Sunday Times, Sir Harold Evans, as “a roaring great read.” His account of living in the modern city, A Shout in the Street (Faber & Faber, 1990), was called “a dream of a book” by John Berger. Jukes reported every day of the trial for phone hacking of journalists from Rupert Murdoch's newspaper in London, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in British history. He revealed previously unpublished material about the case in his book Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story of the Phone Hacking Trial (Canbury Press, 2015). His television credits include devising and writing In Deep (subsequently developed with Paul Haggis for the USA network), the first two episodes of the first series of the Emmy award winning Waking the Dead, BAFTA award winning Sea of Souls, and the first episodes of Inspector Lynley with original storylines. He lives in London. Martin Rowson is a cartoonist and writer. His cartoons appear frequently in The Guardian and the Daily Mirror. He also contributes freelance cartoons to other publications, such as Tribune, Index on Censorship and the Morning Star. His genre is political satire and his style is scathing and graphic. He characterises his work as "visual journalism." He is chair of the British Cartoonists' Association. He drew the cartoon on the front cover of Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story of the Phone Hacking Trial (Canbury Press, 2015)  

PREFACE: THE UNTOLD STORY. Weeks before the phone hacking trial begins in October 2013 the Daily Telegraph commentator Peter Oborne bills it as ‘the trial of the century.’ Yet it has taken almost the whole of the century so far to arrive, two years since the closure of the News of the World





CHARGES. Full list of the charges and particulars facing IAN EDMONDSON, REBEKAH BROOKS, ANDREW COULSON, STUART KUTTNER, CLIVE GOODMAN, CHERYL CARTER, CHARLES BROOKS and MARK HANNA. The various charges may be summarised as hacking, bribing and hiding evidence





LEGAL TEAMS. Prosecution: Andrew Edis QC, Mark Bryant-Heron QC. Rebekah Brook: Jonathan Laidlaw QC. Andrew Coulson: Timothy Langdale QC. Stuart Kuttner: Jonathan Caplan QC. Clive Goodman: David Spens QC. Cheryl Carter: Trevor Burke QC. Charles Brooks: Neil Saunders. Mark Hanna: William Clegg QC





1. NOT WAR AND PEACE. We get the full story about the phone hacking trial, such as the unreported pre-trial hearings at Southwark Crown Court. The defence teams argue that under human rights law, the prosecution should not reveal an affair between two defendants: Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks





2. PASSION AND PREJUDICE. The judge, Justice Saunders, a leading advocate of live coverage of criminal trials and ‘open justice', allows reporters to live tweet proceedings. He says: 'In this case in a way not only are the defendants on trial, but British justice is on trial'





3. SEX, LIES AND VOICEMAIL. The jury hears the News of the World hacked Sven-Goran Eriksson, Faria Alam, Andy Gilchrist, David Blunkett, Kimberly Quinn, Delia Smith, Wayne Rooney, Patricia Tierney, Laura Rooney, Tessa Jowell, David Mills, Lord Prescott, Mark Oaten, Paul McCartney, Heather Mills





4. DEMOLITION JOB. The trial is taken deep inside the machinery of the News of the World: the paper paid private investigator and phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire £100,000 a year. Court 12 hears from witness Andy Gadd, another private investigator or ‘trace agent’ employed by News of the World





5. MISTRIAL OF THE CENTURY. The long trial is under strain. Jurors take time off for doctor appointments and funerals. Stuart Kuttner, who has suffered a heart attack and a brain stem stroke since the hacking scandal broke, is rarely in the dock. Clive Goodman suffers from heart problems





6. I’LL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT. The judge overturns defence objections to rule the jury can hear from News of the World reporter turned prosecution witness, Dan Evans. Hollywood actors Jude Law and Sienna Miller will testify about the impact of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers





7. HOSTILE WITNESS. The courts hears how Wapping was rife with hacking. Among the many victims of Glenn Mulcaire, police found evidence in his logs and notebooks that he had gone after the phone call voicemails of senior editors at News International, including Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks





8. THE OFFICE CAT. After months of anticipation among defendants and journalists, Daniel Evans, phone hacking star reporter at the Sunday Mirror then News of the World steps into the witness box on 27 January 2014. He says even the office cat at Rupert Murdoch's Sunday newspaper knew about its hacking





9. INTERLUDE: THE TRIAL THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. After the prosecution rests its case on 5 February after 13 weeks of evidence. Unbeknownst to the jury who are sent home, the defence teams begin a concerted attempt to throw out the trial, arguing that there is no case to answer. They fail





10. HOLDING COURT. Rebekah Brooks, former News of the World and Sun editor, now chief executive of News International, gives evidence. She is flawless. Jukes says: 'If it was a carefully scripted performance (as Andrew Edis QC later implied) it was the performance of her life.'





11. ROGUE MALE. Wracked by ill-health, Clive Goodman enters the witness box to deny allegations he corrupted public officials while Royal Editor of the News of the World. 'By 2005, Coulson was chastising him for being ‘way off the pace’ and telling him to ‘find a means to get into the young royals'





12. COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE. Goodman is taken ill during cross-examination. With Goodman unable to give evidence, the trial hears from three Operation Sacha defendants: Cheryl Carter, Charlie Brooks and Mark Hanna, accused of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice of the hacking cases





13. LAST MAN STANDING. It's 14 April 2014 and Andrew Coulson gives evidence. Like Like Brooks’ lawyer before him, Coulson’s, Langdale, starts with a biographical sketch, then goes through every jot of the Crown’s evidence. He cannot remember many things "at this distance"





14. ROUTE TO VERDICT. The judge tells the jury the legal issues for six counts. This ‘route to verdict’ is essentially a flow diagram of the logical steps in assessing each count and defendant. A model of clarity, it shows the jury the hurdles they will have to clear to reach a guilty verdict





15. BACK IN THE BOX. The collapse of part of the trial is narrowly averted when Goodman returns from a bout of pneumonia. In 2007, he says there '‘wasn’t a significant story in the News of the World for the last two years that wasn’t the result’ of phone hacking





16. TRUTH'S BOOTS. The tannoy sounds in the Old Bailey: 'All parties in Brooks and others to Court 12.' After seven months, this is the moment of truth. You could hear a pin drop as the defendants, barristers, journalists and the public at the 'Trial of the Century' hear the jury's verdicts





ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. Thanking David Hencke, Dominic Ponsford, Meirion Jones, Paul Cheston, Eliot Higgins, Nico Hines, Harry Evans, Brian Cathcart, Tom Latchem, Mike Giglio, Marian Wilkinson, Helen Lewis, Louise Roug, Stefan Stern, Angela Haggerty, David Donovan, Jeremy Vine, Mark Williams Thomas





INDEX. A full index of the hacking case including defendants and witnesses. The As are: A Comedy of Errors, A Few Good Men, Actus reus, Akers Sue, Alam Faria, Allen Lily, Angiogram, Article 8 ECHR, Asprey Helen, Associated Press, Attorney General





SUPPORTERS. A list of the crowdfunders who funded Peter Jukes's reporting of the phone hacking in this book. Jukes separately crowdfunded his live-tweeting of the case at the Old Bailey in London – the first such funding of the live reporting of a UK criminal trial, at the start of the Patreon age