How the Prime Minister nearly derailed the Hacking Trial

Yesterdays intervention by David Cameron after the guilty verdict for Coulson on Count One of phone hacking nearly derailed the whole trial. As soon as the verdict was in Coulson”s QC, Timothy Langdale, called the Attorney General to warn him any comments could be in contempt of court, because the jury were still deliberating on two more counts.

The Attorney General was with the Prime Minister at the time, but told him that Cameron had already filmed his apology, and it was too late to stop the statement going out. This morning both counsel for Goodman and Coulson applied to discharge the current jury because of the prejudicial comment about separate facts that were not in evidence.

Route to Verdict UPDATED: Justice Saunders New Directions to the Hacking Trial Jury

Now that former NOTW Royal Reporter Clive Goodman has returned after an illness that caused his departure from Court 12 to two months, Justice Saunders has updated his Directions to the Jury with the two counts involving Goodman – Counts 2 and 3. The rest of his route to verdict can be found here

The first count – that Goodman conspired with Andy Coulson to purchase a Royal phone directory from a Royal Protection officer has been slightly amended to only include the more sensitive Green Book – so that the jury can make a clean cut decision over the egregiousness of that misconduct compared to Count 3, which is the purchase of a less sensitive internal palace directory.

Transcript of Goodman’s call to Coulson after being charged with Phone Hacking in 2006

Linked below is a transcript of the tape, played today in court today , between News of the World’s Royal Reporter Clive Goodman, and his editor Andy Coulson, around the 6th of November 2006.  Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. had been arrested in August and charged with hacking the voicemails of Royal aides a few weeks previously. They would both plead guilty at the end of  November 2006, and were sentenced in January 2007. Coulson resigned from his editorship of News of the World the same day

NB: Tom probably refers to Tom Crone, in house News International lawyer: Henri is Goodman’s solictior, and  Kelsey the barrister instructed by him.