Abstract
Thank god for the British jury system and for the lord chief justice, bless his soul. Without them, dozens of innocent men and women would be serving time in Belmarsh or Wandsworth on trumped-up charges concocted by our police and prosecutors.
It is thanks to those jurors that a £20 million political vendetta lasting four nightmare years has collapsed in the chaos it so richly deserved. Their refusal in one trial after another to criminalise journalists on “conspiracy” charges led to the crucial high court appeal which exposed the whole fiasco as a truly scandalous travesty of justice.
In a landmark verdict, Lord Chief Justice Thomas effectively ruled no crime had been committed by any of the journalists so far hauled before the courts. He quashed a conviction against the News of the World journalist Lucy Panton, paved the way for the collapse of the Crown Prosecution Service case and left DPP Alison Saunders struggling to keep her job.
It marked the beginning of the end of a catalogue of police blunders, legal spite and political malice which can be traced back to The Sun's decision in 2009 to cease supporting Gordon Brown's Labour government. But for that decision, the Leveson inquiry would never have taken place and the News of the World would still be publishing. This is not to excuse hacking, which is an unpleasant criminal offence. But hacking was Operation Weeting – quite different to Operation Elveden, which is the subject of this article.
The Sun did not hack. When our newsroom was approached more than a decade ago with a story obtained from a voicemail intercept, our chief reporter, John Kay, pronounced: “It's not a story It's not journalism. It's illegal. You could go to jail.” It is ironic that John, a true Fleet Street legend, was one of the first of many hauled from their beds in Elveden's monstrous dawn terror raids, their homes ransacked by mob-handed police who carried away bin liners filled with private documents, photos and computers. These cops ripped out floorboards and car interiors, and in one case tore the door off a new £500 washing machine. None of the “evidence” collected in those raids was ever used in court and is only now being returned, years after being seized.
The police action was grotesquely disproportionate. It was directed by the arrogant Met commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who overruled advice and insisted journalists must suffer the full force of the law. Elveden plods needed no encouragement. They used the iniquitous system of police bail to torment their victims, setting appointments, cancelling at the last moment and putting lives and careers on hold. Before they had even been charged, these innocent journalists were already serving a non-custodial sentence.
As trials began, it became clear the prosecution was trying it on. Jud ges accustomed to dealing with scum-of-the-earth killers and rapists were having to spend months of precious Old Bailey time looking at old newspaper clippings. The prosecution made snide remarks about the gutter press and tittle tattle but struggled from the outset to prove any crime had been committed. There had been no complaints about the stories because they were all true. They had all been checked before publication with the authorities involved. No official secrets were betrayed. The journalists were doing their job.
Panton's brief, John Butterfield QC, argued powerfully that the only possible offence involved might be a breach of employment contract – by the source, not the journalist. Judge Wide, who spent his career at the bar as a prosecutor, was having none of it. He sentenced mum-of-two Lucy to six months suspended, plus 150 hours community service and a dusk-to-dawn curfew, which stopped her leaving her house even to bring in the washing.
By the time she was exonerated, Panton had completed the three-month tag and 148 of her 150 hours penalty. Judge Wide went on to preside over the only other Elveden “victory”, against the young Sun reporter Ryan Sabey, whose conviction was also overturned. But it was not until the appeal court hearing in The Strand in March, after a series of failed prosecutions, that daylight finally dawned. There was no abuse of the public's trust.
After hearing all sides, Lord Chief Justice Thomas asked two questions: why had the CPS chopped and changed indictments from corruption to conspiracy and finally to aiding and abetting? Prosecuting counsel could not answer. Then he queried if the prosecution had considered the freedom of the press? There was no clear response. It was a defining moment. Could it be the death knell for the longest, costliest and most desperate witch-hunt in criminal history? Yes, it could.
A few weeks later, the lord chief justice handed down his ruling. It is not a crime to sell information to a journalist. Nor is it a crime for a journalist to pay.
The judgment lifted the threshold for any future prosecution, insisting it must prove demonstrable harm to the public trust. Most importantly, in what could be interpreted as a rebuke to his fellow appeal court judge Mr Justice Leveson, the law must not meddle with a free press.
Game, set and match. Well, not quite. The ruling, far more than any acquittal, entirely exculpates the victims so far. They have not got away with it: they are entirely blameless. Days later, another trial involving three Sun journalists ended in acquittals on all counts. The CPS scrapped pending trials and retrials. The reputations of Saunders and Hogan-Howe have been damaged, perhaps terminally.
But there is sting in the tail. Saunders decided to press ahead with three more trials, scheduled to begin as I write. By the time you read this, perhaps we shall know what the juries have made of them.