Paper says it ‘blagged’ data on Brown’s finances

John Witherow confirmed that the paper “blagged” information from the Abbey National bank as part of an investigation in 2000 into the then-Chancellor’s purchase of a flat from a company owned by the late media baron Robert Maxwell.

The Sunday Times has argued that the story was in the public interest and that this would provide a defence to any charges brought under the Data Protection Act for accessing personal details, the Leveson Inquiry into Press standards heard.

Mr Witherow said the paper used a businessman called Barry Beardall to discover from a firm of solicitors how much Mr Brown paid for the flat.

“We believed that Mr Brown had purchased the flat at a cheaper price than valuers had put on it at the time,” he said.

Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked him: “Abbey National, which held Mr Brown’s mortgage for the flat, wrote to you alleging that someone had called its Bradford call centre six times pretending to be Mr Brown and was given information?”

Mr Witherow agreed: “That’s right.”

Mr Jay went on: “Did someone on your behalf pretend to be Mr Brown to blag that information?”

The editor replied: “Yes.” He confirmed the blagger was not Mr Beardall.

Although Mr Witherow acknowledged subterfuge was sometimes used for stories in the public interest he said it did not carry out “fishing expeditions”.

He said the paper has employed blagging and impersonation, including employing an actor as part of a deception, but has never hacked phones.

Meanwhile Private Eye editor Ian Hislop rejected calls for statutory regulation of the Press, saying there was already legislation to tackle abuses like phone hacking.

He told the hearing that the law was not rigorously enforced because of the close relationship police and politicians had with senior media executives.

Mr Hislop defended the use of “blagging” by journalists carrying out investigations and warned against introducing strict privacy laws like those found in France.

He said: “I do think that statutory regulation is not required. Most of the heinous crimes that came up and have made such a splash in front of this inquiry have already been illegal.

“Contempt of court is illegal, phone tapping is illegal, policemen taking money is illegal. All of these things don’t need a code, we already have laws for them.

“The fact that these laws were not rigorously enforced is again due to the failure of the police, the interaction of the police and News International – and let’s be honest about this, the fact that our politicians have been very, very involved in ways that I think are not sensible with senior News International people.”

He said he hoped inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson would call Prime Minister David Cameron and predecessors Tony Blair and Mr Brown to give evidence.

James Harding, editor of the Times, said his paper had concerns about paying for stolen goods when it turned down the MPs’ expenses story that was later published by the Daily Telegraph.

He told the inquiry that with hindsight he considered there may have been a public interest defence to buying the CD that contained details of abuses of Parliamentary allowances.

“This is certainly the lesson that I draw: it was that you have to have a set of rules in a newsroom, you have to have a set of standards and a culture,” he said. “But you also have to be willing to break them in the event that you are presented with a story that is overwhelmingly in the public interest.”