Former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has denied giving “untrue” evidence to the Leveson Inquiry and “emphatically” denies the allegation that he lied, the High Court has heard.
The Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John and Baroness Doreen Lawrence are among seven high-profile individuals bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering (UIG).
ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing and is defending the claims, which are also brought by David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost.
Mr Dacre, now editor-in-chief of ANL’s holding company DMG Media, gave evidence for a second day on Wednesday, appearing as a witness in support of the publishing group’s defence.
He told the court the allegations against ANL were “preposterous”.
David Sherborne, for the group of household names, suggested to Mr Dacre that invoices paid by Associated clearly indicated what services private investigators (PIs) were being paid to carry out, including vehicle registration checks and obtaining itemised phone billing.
The barrister asked Mr Dacre if his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards – when he said it was not known what the journalists asked PIs for – was “untrue”.
Mr Dacre replied: “No, it isn’t.”
He added that journalists who were asked about the services of a PI called Steve Whittamore said they had not always asked for the information he provided, and that Mr Whittamore would “just give it”.
Mr Dacre told the hearing in London that his focus in the inquiry was on whether ANL had been involved in phone hacking, and that the use of PIs was not at the “forefront” of his mind.
The court was told that Mr Dacre prepared witness statements for the inquiry and also gave live evidence in February 2012, during which he said ANL did not engage in phone hacking.
In his witness statement to the High Court on Wednesday, Mr Dacre said: “I am told that the claimants allege that I lied to the Leveson Inquiry.
“I emphatically deny this allegation.”
In his evidence to the inquiry, he said: “I can be as confident as any editor, having made extensive enquiries into his newspaper’s practices and held an inquiry, that phone hacking was not practised by the Daily Mail or the Mail on Sunday.
“You know that because I gave my unequivocal, unequivocal assurances.”
He also said: “From what we know now, I would accept there was a prima facie case that Whittamore could have been acting illegally.
“I don’t accept that this is evidence that our journalists were actively behaving illegally.
“We have to know the facts, whether there was a public interest.
“We don’t know what the journalists asked for, we don’t know what it related to and whether it actually was provided, whether the information was actually provided.”
The household names allege ANL carried out or commissioned unlawful activities such as hiring PIs to place listening devices inside cars, “blagging” private records and accessing private phone conversations.
In written submissions, Mr Sherborne said: “The court will also have before it evidence of the aggressive denials of Associated’s executives of any wrongdoing whatsoever at the Leveson Inquiry and upon which key executives will be necessarily cross-examined at length.
“Given the clear evidence that UIG was undertaken by or on behalf of Associated, with the knowledge of those at Associated who commissioned it, the claimants aver that these denials deliberately threw them, and indeed the public at large, off the scent of all such acts of UIG, including those which make up the building blocks of their claims.”
The trial before Mr Justice Nicklin is due to conclude in March, with a judgment in writing at a later date.
