Hacking Trial Live Tweets – 26 Nov

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Summary
	The Prosecution Case Continues
		Back at the Old Bailey
	Witness – Jo Manoukian
		Prosecution Counsel questions Jo Manoukian
		Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines Jo Manoukian
		Mr Justice Sauders: “Very modest.”
	Witness – Rafi Manoukian
		Prosecution Counsel questions Rafi Manoukian
		Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines Rafi Manoukian
	Witness Statement – Margaret Atkinson
		Prosecution Counsel Anthony Edis QC
	Witness – Dom Loehnis (friend of David Cameron)
		Prosecution Counsel questions Dom Loehnis
		Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines Dom Loehnis
		Further Prosecution question to Dom Loehnis
	Witness – Operation Weeting Detective DC Fletcher
		Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines DC Fletcher
	Witness – Operation Weeting Detective DC Scott
		Prosecution Counsel questions DC Scott

The Prosecution Case Continues
	Back at the Old Bailey
		Opening of #hackingtrial slightly delayed as another case is dealt with
Witness – Jo Manoukian
	Prosecution Counsel questions Jo Manoukian
		Back with #hackingtrial and witness Joe Manoukian, the host of the Brooks/Eimear Cook lunch discussed before the jury yesterday
		It’s Jo Manoukian not Joe
		Jo Manoukian is married to Rafi: she says the Brooks/Cook lunch party took place “around 2006”
		Jo Manoukian was told by Eimear that the police might get in contact. They did so in March 2012 #hackingtrial
		Jo Manoukian says she knew Eimear since the late 90s, but has had no contact since the phone call about police
		Jo Manoukian says she met Brooks around 2000, and then met maybe six times a year since then.
		Jo Manoukian says she last saw Brooks a few months before the police interviewed her
		Jo Manoukian says the lunch happened because Eimear Cook had been very unhappy due to negative press coverage of separation from Montgomerie
		Jo Manoukian thought it “would be helpful to Eimear” if they organised a meeting with Brooks #hackingtrial
		Jo Manoukian: “I only positively remember Eimear’s dissatisfaction with the bad press she was receiving… other than that not much detail”
		Jo Manoukian had met Rebekah Brooks only three days before the police interviewed her
	Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines Jo Manoukian
		Jo Manoukian is now cross examined by Laidlaw, counsel for Brooks. He asks about precise date: Jo says “around 2006”
		Laidlaw refers to Jo Manoukian’s witness statement: “I believe the lunch took place in 2004 but can’t remember day or month”
		Jo Manoukian says she had no diary entry for this: “We had a lot of lunches or dinners.”
		Jo Manoukian confirms lunch took place in private and intimate part of the house, the family room, around a modest style table
	Mr Justice Sauders: “Very modest.”
		Saunders causes some hilarity in court in reference to Jo Manoukian’s eight seater dinner table “Very modest”
		Jo Manoukian confirms that Brooks and Eimear Cook were ‘strangers to each other’ at the time of the lunch
		Jo Manoukian witness statement: “I do not remember phone hacking being talked about… I’m not sure I knew in 2004 what phone hacking was.”
		Jo Manoukian said Eimear phoned to warn them the police would interview her and her husband over ‘phone hacking case’
		Jo Manoukian says she’s never discussed the police case with Brooks. They’ve kept their distance on this topic
		Follow up from Edis from the Crown: “How much did Eimear tell you?” Jo Manoukian “Can’t remember if it was about hacking or lunch”
		Jo Manoukian on her contact with Brooks: “We’ve had telephone contact… on a personal level… to see how her child was.”
Witness – Rafi Manoukian
	Prosecution Counsel questions Rafi Manoukian
		Edis calls Rafi Manoukian as a witness in #hackingtrial
		Rafi Manoukian met Eimear in Brunei in early nineties when Colin Montgomerie played gold there
		Rafi Manoukian says he met Brooks around 1998/7 through friend Gary Farrow, PR Man: his wife Jane Moore used to work at the Sun
		Rafi Manoukian says he got to know Brooks ‘reasonably well’ – they sometimes holidayed together, or weekends abroad
		Rafi Manoukian says he was still friends with Brooks when police interviewed him
		Rafi Manoukian says lunch happened ‘five or six years ago…. probably instigated by Eimear Cook” She was in “a bit of state” about press
		Rafi Manoukian says his wife probably did the arrangements. The lunch probably last no more than two hours.
		Rafi Manoukian says “the one thing that stood out was how badly she was treated.” She felt press coverage was “one-sided”
		Rafi Manoukian can’t remember Eimear Cook making any requests of Brooks, or that Brooks volunteered any
		Rafi Manoukian cannot remember Brooks giving Cook any advice how to handle the press. No other topics of discussion stick in his mind
		Rafi Manoukian says he would occasionally had left the lunch a “couple of times” for the rest room, or to get his cigarrettes
	Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines Rafi Manoukian
		Laidlaw, counsel for Brooks, cross examines Rafi Manoukian. Says “seven years” ago – i.e. 2006 – no diary to refer to
		“Mrs Brooks was doing a favour to us by giving Eimear advice on how to handle press,” Rafi Manoukian tells the jury
		Rafi Manoukian described Brooks in witness statement “more of a listener than a talker… and she was no different that day.”
		Rafi Manoukian says Eimear Cook was giving some intimate details of marriage, some of which surprised him. No recollection of hacking
		R Manoukian on phone hacking: absolutely no recollection of phone hacking conversation, but left the table a couple of times
		Rafi Manoukian says “I was not aware you could listen to voicemail messages prior to police interview” but was aware of scanning
		R Manoukian on whether Brooks and Cook would be left alone: “its highly unlikely they would have been left by themselves but not impossible”
		“It’s a big house, and it might have taken more time than you think” R Manoukian on going to get some cigarettes during the Brooks lunch
Witness Statement – Margaret Atkinson
	Prosecution Counsel Anthony Edis QC
		Edis reads out the statement of Margaret Atkinson, friend of Eimear Cook’s mother, about appearing in Glenn Mulcaire’s notes
		Margaret Atkinson explains that she was looking after Eimear’s mother who was ill, and called Eimear on her mobile about it
		Margaret Atkinson confirms the pay as you go JustTalk phone in Mulcaire’s notes: but since never registered the address
Witness – Dom Loehnis (friend of David Cameron)
	Prosecution Counsel questions Dom Loehnis
		BREAKING: Prosecution calls Dom Loehnis about a party he attended on a Saturday night 2010 at Chequers for David Cameron’s 40th Birthday
		Loehnis was sat next to Rebekah Brooks at Cameron’s birthday party – he’d met her before. He remembers the conversation
		Loehnis asked Brooks whether “Coulson would survive press speculation at the time”: he was press secretary at the time
		BREAKING: Brooks told Cameron friend didn’t think Coulson could survive phone hacking scandal back in 2010
		Loehnis: “Brooks said she didn’t think the story would go away…” She talked about PIN numbers “wasn’t a story that could be closed down”
		Loehnis: Brooks said that journalists had found about voicemail hacking “at the moment most people got mobile phones.. in late 90s”
		Loehnis says of Brooks and voicemail hacking “simply once people learned how to do it…. it may have been fairly frequent”
		“The impression I took was that…. once you discover you can do it, you do it because you can.” Loehnis on Brooks attitude to phone hacking
		Loehnis says Brooks didn’t tell him about the general attitude of journalists, right or wrong
		Loehnis on Brooks “She said there was one default code, and nobody changed it… and some people put that code in and discovered voicemails
		Dom Loehnis works in recruitment “helping companies find people”
		Loehnis says he wrote Brooks a letter on her resignation in 2011: the discovery of that letter led police to Loehnis
	Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines Dom Loehnis
		Laidlaw for Brooks cross examines Loehnis: he has been shown an email between Loehnis and police about court dates
		Loehnis had been under the impression he might be a defence witness, but then called to clarify he was actually a prosecution witness
		Laidlaw goes over the 2010 conversation: Loehnis agrees he cannot recall the ‘exact words’
		Loehnis said he didn’t place any particular significance on this conversation at the time, only Brooks’ resignation brought it back
		Laid goes through dates of Cameron Birthday Party: letter to Brooks 9 months on. 7 months on he is interviewed by police
		Loehnis was given no notice of police interview: they were waiting for him at his workplace
		Two officers were waiting for Loehnis: he made the witness statement the same day.
		Police were interested in paragraph of Loehnis’ letter to Brooks in July 11 hich made reference to conversation in October 2010
		Loehnis worked briefly as a journalist in the early nineties.
		Loehnis was not aware phone hacking was the subject of publicity in the late 1990s
		Laidlaw says Brooks has no precise recollection of conversation of this private dinner at Chequers: part election celebration and birthday
		Brooks remembers about 60 people present at Cameron’s party: Dom Loehnis a very close friend of Cameron’s and had to make speech
		Laidlaw says speech “was very well received”: Loehnis says “thank you very much” Loehnis read out a poem at Cameron’s birthday
		Loehnis says there were six to eight tables, with partners sat separately, at Cameron’s Chequers Birthday
		Brooks says there wasn’t much conversation before Loehnis delivered his poem: Loehnis thinks the conversation was before then
		Loehnis remembers there was press publicity around the time of the extensive nature of phone hacking
		Coulson was at the time Cameron’s Director of Communications at the time, Laidlaw reminds the jury
		Brooks remembers that Loehnis was concerned, as a friend of Camerons “do you think this phone hacking is going to be a problem to Tories?”
		Loehnis remembers it was about Coulson: “Could he survive?” was the tenor of the conversation “in context of this story.”
		Laidlaw emphasises Coulson survival wasn’t about knowing about phone hacking. Loehnis says “Yes because of the publicity”
		Loehnis on Coulson: “The story wasn’t going to end… and while he was the story that make his position harder.”
		Loehnis cannot remember Brooks saying “it gives the opposition a stick to beat the Tories”
		Loehnis on Brooks’ concern over phone hacking: “Because it was unclear… how many people had done it, the story can’t be quickly closed.”
		Laidlaw reminds the jury that at this time Brooks was CEO of News International.
		Loehnis says the exchange lasted a couple of minutes, amongst a number of things they spoke about. He can’t remember the other topics
		Loehnis concedes Brooks didn’t hide her knowledge of phone hacking, but it was common knowledge at the time. She didn’t talk about NOTW
		Loehnis says Brooks seemed “relaxed about her own position” vis-a-vis phone hacking at Cameron Birthday Party in 2010
		Loehnis says phone hacking was the only part of the conversation referred to the letter to Brooks in 2011
	Further Prosecution question to Dom Loehnis
		“Phone hacking as a phenomenon became better known to me in middle of last decade,” Dom Loehnis to Andrew Edis QC as #hackingtrial
Witness – Operation Weeting Detective DC Fletcher
	Counsel for Rebekah Brooks cross examines DC Fletcher
		DC Fletcher case officer for Brooks on count 1 is cross examined by Laidlaw, counsel for Brooks
		Fletcher explains her role in taking the witness statement from Eimear Cook.
		DC Fletcher also took the witness statement from the friend of the mother of Eimear Cook
		Fletcher also took the witness statement of Dom Loehnis – who has just appeared and with DS Massey did the interview
		Laidlaw goes through the contact log for Operation Weeting: DC Hickling did the initial sheet: DC Fletcher did the longer, later version
		Initial police interview with Eimear Cook was delayed when Mark Thompson took over her civil case
		DC Hickling, Fletcher, lawyer Mark Thompson and Eimear Cook’s new husband present at that first interview
		Fletcher confirms that in initial Cook statement “Rafi and Jo were present during the conversation”
		The Cook statement went through a couple of revisions
		After some argument whether Mulcaire note is actual evidence of hack, we break for lunch
		Another delay for legal arguments. Back to #hackingtrial soon
		Back with DC Fletcher, case officer for Brooks part of Operation Weeting case, being cross examined by Brooks’ counsel, Laidlaw
		Laidlaw and Fletcher discuss the Mulcaire notes on Eimear Cook after departure of Brooks. No resultant stories from 2004 Mulcaire notes
		DC Fletcher confirms there are no transcripts or recordings of Eimear Cook Mulcaire records
		Laidlaw goes through the police obligations in terms of investigating allegations of crime “to be of all times of an open mind”
		Laidlaw lays out the police duties to be “following the evidence and where that takes them”
		Laidlaw “any police officer who allows any agenda to take over… would have lost their way” DC Fletcher agrees
		Laidlaw says “it wouldn’t represent good policing to take a witnesses account with out testing it” DC Fletcher agrees
		DC Fletcher agrees that the police also have a duty to the prosecution to test the credibility of any witness
		Laidlaw: “coming as, you know doubt anticipated I wold do, I come to Mrs Eimear Cook… and the account she gave you….”
		Laidlaw asks; “Have you approached that task with an open mind?” DC Fletcher: “Yes I have.”
		Apologies Laidlaw brings up the McCartney Mills NOTW in its original form, not Montgomerie
		Slight delay for legal arguments. Back with Laidlaw and DC Fletcher and the Mills/McCartney article #hackingtrial
		Laidlaw questions DC Fletcher about the Mills/McCartney story and whether it was the result of illegal hacking – she couldn’t link it
		DC Fletcher explains how she contacted Annette Weatheridge author of the article: tasked to ask around in Miami Hotel
		DC Fletcher explains this is no call data to McCartney Mills in 2002 that proves phone hacking.
		DC Fletcher goes through emails of her contact with Annette Weatheridge over the McCartney Mills ‘ring throwing’ story in Aug 2012
		Annette Weatheridge is a journalist based in US: she writes back to Weeting Officer “came from information from hotel staff”
		Weatheridge writes to police that the tip off came from a ‘phone in’ from someone working in the hotel, who had been hawking around story
		Weatheridge spoke to a security guard and people in the beauty salon of the Miami Hotel McCartney Mills were staying in.
		Weatheridge cannot remember the name of the original tipster or his wife, who worked in the Hotel beauty salon.
		Weatheridge wasn’t interviewed by the police because she lived in New York.
		Weatheridge sent Laidlaw the email: it was not part of prosecution disclosure
		Fletcher explains the McCartney/Mills was added to timeline because it formed part of the Eimear Cook timeline. Second article also added
		DC Fletcher explains there is payment record for Ms Weatheridge for expenses on that story
		Laidlaw produces a document from police records – a contributors payment request. 16/06/02 £750 for story ‘Feud of the Rings’
		DC Fletcher says she put the Macca ring story in to corroborate Cook’s recollection of the lunch with Brooks
		DC Fletcher says she did not raise again any McCartney/Mills hack with Eimear Cook
		Laidlaw counsel for Brooks asks DC Fletcher if she remembers the Kate Moss incident of losing Chanel contract.
		DC Fletcher says she’s satisfied at the date of the Brooks/Cook lunch from Kate Moss story and Brooks’ diary date
		Laidlaw asks about how the Dom Loehnis letter came to be in their possession. It was through solicitors Kingsley Napier. They seized letter
		The letter was provided to Kingsley Napier by Brooks. Edis follows up it was after the 7 boxes of evidence had been removed by Cheryl Carter
		Kingsley Napier said they had a number of boxes in their possession from various locations: Fletcher says there were 7 boxes and a sack
		DC Fletcher explains there was no call data over Mulcaire in 2002 because in those days phone companies only kept for a year
Witness – Operation Weeting Detective DC Scott
	Prosecution Counsel questions DC Scott
		Back with Bryant Heron going through the jury bundle 2 evidence on Andy Coulson. DC Scott is called as case officer and witness
		Bryant Heron takes DC Scott back to Coulson/Goodman tape: it came from a cassette seized on 08/07/11 seized from Goodman’s house
		Jury shown email from Tom Crone to Andy Coulson 16/09/06 “Here’s what Rebekah told me about the info relayed to her by cops”
		Crone to Coulson email: 1/Confident have Clive and GM bang to rights 2/ From GM “a list of 100-110 victims 3/ £1 million payments
		BREAKING: Crone email to Coulson says Brooks knew over 100 victims of phone hacking in 2006
		Crone email to Coulson about Brooks conversation with police: “they do have Glenn Mulcaire’s phone records sequences of calls with NOTW”
		Crone email tells Coulson police are going to contact Brooks later that day to “see if they are going to take it further”
		Coulson to Crone 06/11/06 about legal document: Crone emails Henry Brandman, Goodman’s solicitor asking to see prosecution papers
		Coulson emails Tom Crone 02/12/06 “Probation service have anti NOTW agenda. Crone forwards to Goodman’s solicitor Brandman “for info”
		Jury shown three page exhibit NOTW budget 2005-6: Kuttner’s note of a meeting with Coulson, on ‘potential savings’
		Point 14 of Budget plan: “cut 50% of Nine Consultancy current £105,000 via Greg”
		Kuttner’s notes on meetings with Coulson from a letter has several crossings out: including the Nine Consultancy savings of £70k
		There are a couple of additions to this revised Kuttner/Coulson budget meetings, document dated 15th May 2005
		Email from Coulson to NOTW staff on 2005 awards “far too many stories fall into the ‘fine’ category… we need a hit. Badly”
		Coulson email from April 16th 2005 says “Sat nights I will now expect every dept head and senior member of staff… to be in my office”
		Coulson email to staff: “We broke Beckham in april, Sven in July and Blunkett in August” expects more of the same
		Jan 18th 2006 Coulson writes to desk eds looking for “big hits this year” talking of an away day going into evening
		Email from Coulson to Wallis 01/12/06 “Can we find out where peirce got horribly accurate info” in Telegraph piece the day before
		The Telegraph piece was about the guilty pleas of Mulcaire and Goodman: names ten victims but goes into his £50k budget, and payoff
		Correction: “Goodman’s budget had been increased by £500 a week after he told management that he needed money to look after unnamed contact”
		The last quotation came from Telegraph piece came from 30/11/06 the day after Goodman and Mulcaire pleaded guilty in court
		Jury shown another budget plan for year to 2007 08/03/06 “reduce Nine Consultancy to 76k saving £28k”
		Another document has the same Nine Consultancy as second entry on News section: this copy from the archives: the previous from MSC
		Version 2 of the same document show ‘Nine Consultancy’ cut as the first item under News section budget reduction
		On version three of 06/07 NOTW budget documents ‘Nine Consultancy’ is still the first item for potential cuts in News section
		A doc the jury has seen before: email from Stenson to Coulson about Charles Clarke affair ‘tip off’ is cited by Bryant Heron
		A doc from Paddy Harverson timeline, seen before is shown: Goodman says health info SCANNED (not scammed as reported elsewhere)
		Jury not required tomorrow morning: so back tomorrow at 2pm
		I can report: Tracey Bell, a pharmacist at Sandhurst, was given six month suspended sentence this morning, for misconduct in office
		Tracey Bell had pleaded guilty to selling stories to a journalist about Prince William and Harry at Sandhurst

Note: All the defendants deny all the charges. The trial continues.

Related Articles
Tom Crone’s email to Andy Coulson: Andy Coulson’s emails to NOTW Staff
Transcript of Goodman’s call to Coulson after being charged with Phone Hacking in 2006
Wolff: Happiness comes to Rupert Murdoch
Charlie Brooks Will Lewis email exchange: Chris Bryant MP “making stuff up”
Mulcaire’s Last Contract and Edmondson’s Dismissal

Previous Posts
Hacking Trial Live Tweets – 20 Nov
Hacking Trial Live Tweets – 21 Nov
Hacking Trial Live Tweets – 25 Nov

Links: The Trial So Far | Full Trial Summary | Indexed Evidence | Breaking News