A former director of pressure group Hacked Off has denied he paid witnesses for evidence against a newspaper group.
Evan Harris, a former Liberal Democrat MP, said some figures who later became witnesses were paid as journalistic sources, but denied they were paid for their testimony, or to change their evidence.
They included convicted phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire, who was paid £22,329.50 as part of the group’s research into alleged misconduct at The Mail On Sunday and the Daily Mail, which the newspapers deny.
Dr Harris said he had made no payments himself, and said his role had been to approach potential victims of alleged Press misconduct to persuade them ‘to sue the arse off the Mail’.
During his evidence in a privacy claim brought against Associated Newspapers – publishers of the Daily Mail and The Mail On Sunday – Dr Harris said he had discussed approaching footballer Gary Lineker, as he was a ‘national treasure’ who would elicit public sympathy.
The High Court was shown an email he sent to Four Weddings And A Funeral actor Hugh Grant in March 2016, in which Dr Harris wrote he had ‘a potential Gary Lineker angle’.
An email about football pundit Gary Lineker, sent to Hugh Grant from Dr Evan Harris, said: ‘He is a national treasure’
Baroness (Doreen) Lawrence, the mother of murdered Stephen Lawrence, attending the court case at an earlier hearing
Dr Evan Harris, seen arriving at an earlier hearing. He said the email about Lineker ‘was my black humour’, saying: ‘Although I recognised he was a celebrity, at least he was a celebrity who was well regarded’
Dr Harris said Mr Grant, a long-term supporter of Hacked Off, had wanted to highlight cases of alleged Press misconduct that did not involve celebrities like himself.
He was keen to find ‘ordinary victims’ like the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked by the now-defunct tabloid The News Of The World.
In his email to Mr Grant, Dr Harris wrote he had been ‘contacting victims to persuade them to instruct lawyers ‘to sue the a*** off the Mail’.
He said: ‘We have so far got Heather Mills, Simon Hughes and Sadie Frost in the frame.’
Dr Harris wrote he had ‘a potential Gary Lineker angle’, adding: ‘I am sorry he has no dead children but at least he is a national treasure.’
Under cross-examination by Antony White KC, for Associated, Dr Harris said: ‘This was my black humour, saying although I recognised he was a celebrity, at least he was a celebrity who was well-regarded.’
Dr Harris said Mr Grant had not believed he nor actor Steve Coogan should be the ‘poster boys’ for Hacked Off.
But they needed to find well-known figures who would attract public support for their calls for the Leveson Inquiry into Press standards to be reopened, he said.
High-profile legal action against newspaper groups formed part of that strategy, Dr Harris told the High Court.
In his email to Mr Grant, he said he would contact Mr Lineker, who he had met twice at Hacked Off events, but expressed concern the former Match Of The Day presenter needed ‘more aggressive’ lawyers, as his were ‘expensive wimps’.
During his evidence, Dr Harris said many potential ‘victims’ had been identified but that he and other campaigners had not attempted to contact all of them, including Mr Lineker, who is not a claimant or a witness in the case against Associated Newspapers.
Mr Lineker, a father of four, spoke last year about how his son George was diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia when he was only eight weeks old, and that doctors believed he only had hours to live.
The March 2016 email was revealed in evidence disclosed to the High Court after seven public figures, including Prince Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, launched a privacy case against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail On Sunday (TMOS).
Associated denies claims its journalists commissioned unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking, landline tapping and ‘blagging’ private information.
The case has been brought by Prince Harry, Baroness Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, former Lib Dem MP Sir Simon Hughes and actresses Liz Hurley and Ms Frost.
Baroness Lawrence, whose son Stephen was murdered by racist thugs, did not join the legal action until January 2022 after she was contacted by the Duke of Sussex.
Dr Harris, the former MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, was a director of Hacked Off at the time of his email to Mr Grant but is now part of a ‘research team’ working for the claimants.
He denied that he and another researcher, former journalist and convicted phone hacker Graham Johnson, had paid witnesses in the case for their evidence.
He said Glenn Mulcaire and Greg Miskiw – also both also convicted phone hackers – and others were paid as journalistic sources by Mr Johnson but insisted none were paid as witnesses or to change their evidence.
He was shown a 2015 email exchange with Max Mosley – the son of 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley – in which the former Formula 1 boss discussed offering to pay Mulcaire for information.
Mr Mosley, a Hacked Off supporter, told Dr Harris he had already been in contact with Mulcaire, who admitted he had hacked into the Mail to ‘steal stories’, but had consistently denied hacking for them.
Mr Mosley suggested he could meet with Mulcaire and ‘try to tempt him’, adding: ‘I could make very clear: no tickee, no monkee.’
Mr White suggested Mr Mosley, who died in 2021, was proposing to pay Mulcaire to change his account.
Dr Harris replied: ‘I think he is suggesting that if he [Mulcaire] was offered a reward – which I assume is a job or remuneration – then he might be more forthcoming.’
Asked yesterday what the ‘no tickee’ phrase meant, Dr Harris said: ‘It means if you don’t produce you don’t get paid.’
Mr White, for Associated, suggested Dr Harris and Mr Johnson had paid witnesses for their evidence.
Dr Harris replied: ‘The suggestion that I or he paid for testimony is not right.’
The case continues.
