Summary
The court is rising for the day, with Sherborne still partway through his opening. Here’s a summary of what he’s told the court during today’s hearing:
Sherborne has been outlining the case he will make and has focused on several examples where he says senior staff at Mirror Group Newspapers acted in a way that makes it clear they knew their stories had been obtained by illegal means. He says the court will hear evidence of an “enormous number” of illegal activities being commissioned by Mirror Group Newspapers.
He told the court the pattern involved a story running without its subjects having been approached for comment, then the papers backing down when threatened with formal action. Sherborne says this indicates that staff knew what had gone into gathering the information was illegal and could not risk revealing it when defending their stories.
One example he gave was of a story about David Beckham. He said the People ran the story about phone calls the former footballer had made, then backed down when he and his wife complained.
Other examples included stories about Les Dennis and Amanda Holden, as well as Prince Michael of Kent. Sherborne told the court these followed the pattern and said they suggested Piers Morgan must have known what was going on – indeed, that he was “directly” involved.
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Sherborne also raises the case of David and Victoria Beckham, whom he says the People newspaper accused of waging a hate campaign in phone calls to their children’s former nanny.
Once again, he says, the paper immediately capitulated when they complained because its staff knew the story was based on illegally obtained information.
He quotes a People journalist, David Brown, as saying lots of stories were sourced by “screwing” mobile phones, which Sherborne tells the court means hacking. Sherborne says Brown gave the Beckham story as a specific example.
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