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Piers Morgan committed perjury in his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry

Robert Henderson | 22.12.2011 08:47 | Other Press | Repression

Piers Morgan claimed that he had no knowledge of the Mirror receiving information illicitly when he gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on 20 December. This was a lie because he admitted to receiving such information in a letter to the PCC when editor of the Mirror




Piers Morgan lied to the Leveson Inquiry


Piers Morgan lied to the Leveson Inquiry (20 12 2011) when he claimed he had never illicitly received information from the police when Mirror editor. He was under oath so the crime of perjury was committed.

I can say this categorically because he admitted doing so in a letter to the PCC in 1997 when he wrote “”The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect) gave us the detail of the letters that we then published”. Had the information been given to the Mirror legitimately there would have been no reason not to divulge the informant’s name because the only way information can legitimately be given to the media by the police is if it is done on an attributable basis. As Morgan’s evidence was taken under oath he has committed the crime of perjury.

Here is the full text of the letter with my comments interpolated in the square brackets marked RH:

FROM THE EDITOR

By fax (0171-353 8355) & by post

16 October 1997

Your ref: 970738

Christopher Hayes Esq

Press Complaints Commission

I Salisbury Square

London

EC4Y 8AE

Dear Mr Hayes

Mr Robert Henderson

I refer to Mr Henderson’s complaint as outlined in his letter of 23 September.

As you are aware, we have been in contact with Mr Henderson for some time due to his propensity to bombard individuals and this office with correspondence. [RH Translation: Mr Henderson sent more than one letter because the Mirror refused to reply].

There are certain irrefutable facts that escape emphasis in Mr Henderson’s correspondence.

Far from ignoring any of his correspondence we have written to him on the 20 May, 22 July and 6 August. [RH The letter of 20 May merely said he was not going to enter into correspondence. The other two letters were from his legal department in response to Subject Access Requests I made under the Data Protection Act]. We have consistently made it clear that we have no intention of entering into any further correspondence with him.

Be that as it may I will address his concerns:-

In essence, the basic “sting” of the article, of which he complains, was that he had been sending numerous insulting letters, some with racist undertones, to Mr and Mrs Blair which had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration.

Mr Henderson himself admits that he sent Mr and Mrs Blair at least thirteen letters. I have no way of directly knowing of the content of those letters because I have not had sight of them. However, clearly they sufficiently concerned Mr Blair’s office to be passed to the Crown

Prosecution Service [RH The CPS said as soon as they saw the letters that they were entirely legal] and I think the Commission is perfectly entitled to draw an adverse inference on the contents of those letters as a result of that referral.

I cannot accept Mr Henderson’s explanation for writing to Cherie Blair. To do so was clearly designed to intimidate. [RH I wrote to her to ask for her help in her capacity as a human rights lawyer and as Blair's wife]

In Mr Henderson’s draft article “Moral Simpletons Target Innocent Man” the bile that he shows on the second page of that article clearly illustrates his capacity to insult in his letters to Mr and Mrs Blair [RH an absurd deduction. What I wrote to the Mirror says nothing about what I wrote to the Blairs] (to the extent that they be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service). I would also refer the Commission to Mr Henderson’s gratuitous reference to a “Blaireich”.

He also admits to expressing his disgust (we can only guess in what terms) of the decision of Mr and Mrs Blair not to send their son to a school whereby a white schoolboy was, apparently, murdered by five other boys (and that that murder was racially motivated). [RH This was the Richard Everitt murder].

The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect) [RH thus the police informant behaved illegally by supplying the information] gave us the detail of the letters that we then published. Nothing that Mr Henderson writes has convinced me that the article was anything other than accurate.

Perhaps one can get a flavour of his correspondence with Mr and Mrs Blair by examining the final sentence of his draft article in which he states “It was a cargo of ancient male gonads”.

The Commission may be aware (I am attempting to get hold of the article) that the article of Mr Henderson’s that appeared in Wisden’s Cricket Monthly in 1995 gave rise to an extraordinary amount of controversy and resulted in Wisden paying substantial libel damages to the Cricketer, Devon Malcolm, whom the Commission will be aware is a coloured fast bowler for England. As I understand the matter, and Mr Henderson will correct me if I am wrong, the article implied that coloured players will not try as hard when playing for England as white players. [RH The article put it forward as a possibility, no more].

I have discussed the legal position with the newspaper’s solicitor, Martin Cruddace [Cruddace is a proven liar. He made a declaration to my Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act to the effect that the Mirror held no qualifying documents. Eventually after I had done some detective work, he had to admit that the Mirror had a small matter of 118 pages of documents relating to me], and he has assured me that the law has recently developed whereby words (be they written or spoken) can constitute assault if the pattern of those words is such as to make the recipient of them either anxious or ill. It has developed as a reaction to the former impotence of the law on stalking. [RH: No person in the UK has been convicted of such a crime. The definition of GBH has been extended to non-physical abuse such as abusive phone calls but it requires a psychiatric illness to be proved to be caused by the alleged abusive behaviour. Mere emotions such as fear do not qualify. The failure of the police to consider such a course and the CPS’ immediate definition of the case as “NO CRIME” shows that my letters were entirely lawful] .The law has therefore developed since the publication of the dictionary reference on which Mr Henderson relies.

I cannot accept that the taking of the photographs of Mr Henderson, given the clear public interest concerning the subject matter of The Mirror article, could possibly constitute harassment under the Code.[RH it was an unequivocal offence because the photographer took the photograph within my property].

I am most concerned not to waste any further time in dealing with Mr Henderson’s complaint but, naturally, if the Commission wishes me to address any further matters then I will endeavour to do so.

However, I hope that the above is sufficient to convince the Commission that the basic “sting” of the article is accurate and that Mr Henderson’s complaint ought to be dismissed.

Yours sincerely

Piers Morgan

I obtained the letter from the PCC after I made a complaint against the Mirror following their publication of extraordinarily libellous story about me. The details of that episode can be found at  http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/the-failure-to-charge-piers-morgan-with-illicitly-receiving-information-from-the-police/

The Leveson Inquiry has had a copy of the letter for a month together with my submission relating to it and other matters. The text of my submission to the Leveson Inquiry is at  http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/the-leveson-inquiry-the-blairs-the-mirror-the-police-and-me/ . The fact that Leveson refused to confront Morgan with the letter and the failure to call me as a witness despite the startling evidence I had provided to them is clear evidence that the Inquiry will not be pressing the mainstream media hard. At worst it will be no more than a Government PR exercise.

Apart from Morgan’s lie to the Levenson Inquiry, there is a tremendous story of political misbehaviour which surrounds it

 http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/when-tony-and-cherie-blair-tried-to-have-me-jailed/

Robert Henderson
- Homepage: www.livinginamadhouse.wordpress.co.uk/

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Cite precedents?

22.12.2011 16:46

"“”The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect) gave us the detail of the letters that we then published”. Had the information been given to the Mirror legitimately there would have been no reason not to divulge the informant’s name because the only way information can legitimately be given to the media by the police is if it is done on an attributable basis. As Morgan’s evidence was taken under oath he has committed the crime of perjury."

Let's see if I understand your argument.

You are saying that it MUST have been illicit (and thus perjury) because they didn't publish the informant's name? As far as I can see the statement under oath was simply that the police gave the details of the letters and presumably the name of the informant. I see NOTHING in that statement about whether the police were following proper procedures so whether they were or not scarcely relevant.

So can you cite some precedents which would make that not so?

MDN


Referral of Piers Morgan’s perjury to the Leveson Inquiry

22.12.2011 17:40

Referral of Piers Morgan’s perjury to the Leveson Inquiry


Leveson Inquiry

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London WC1

22 12 2011

Dear Lord Leveson,

Piers Morgan indubitably lied to the Inquiry (20 December) when he claimed that he had never illicitly received information from the police. On 25 November I submitted a series of complaints backed by documentation to the Inquiry. These were definitely received by the Inquiry because an acknowledgement was sent to me.

My submission included a letter from Piers Morgan to the PCC in which he admitted that the Mirror had received information from the police illicitly. I include a copy of that letter below with the relevant passage highlighted. As Morgan refers to it in his letter to the PCC, I also send you a copy of the article I wrote in response to the Mirror story. This Morgan refused to publish.

Because Morgan gave his evidence to the Inquiry under oath, he added perjury to his original criminal offence of illicitly receiving information from the Metropolitan Police. I ask you to take action against Morgan for this perjury and to recall him for questioning about his receipt of illicit information from the Metropolitan Police, both in terms of that which he admitted to in his letter to the PCC and the extent of the practice generally during his editorship of the News of the World and the Daily Mirror.

In my submission I asked to give evidence in person. You have failed to answer that request to date. However, I see from the Inquiry website that you are seeking, amongst others things, the following for module 2 of the Inquiry:

“The Inquiry would be interested in the experiences of the victims of crime and the public more generally, who feel that they have been adversely affected (perhaps through a data leak or breach, or through the reporting of a case) by the current relationship between the press and the police, with examples where possible. The Inquiry would also be interested to receive submissions in relation to this issue on whether it is felt that the current investigation and complaint regime are adequate to properly address instances of this type”.  http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Key-Questions-Module-2.pdf

The evidence which I have already given the Inquiry relating to Piers Morgan and the subsequent failure of Scotland Yard to meaningfully investigate the crime – the officer responsible Det Supt Jeff Cutis admitted to me that the “investigation” had been closed without anyone at the Mirror being questioned – indubitably falls into this category of information. This case has the great advantage for you of having objective and categoric proof of both the Mirror’s receipt of illicit information from the Metropolitan Police and the failure of the Metropolitan Police to meaningfully investigate my complaint about the illicit disclosure of information. The full details of these events were supplied in my submission of 25 November.

You are asking for applications for Core Participant status for Module 2 of the Inquiry to be made by 13 January. Please treat this email and my original submission of 25 November as an application for Core Participant Status.

Please acknowledge receipt of this email by return.

Yours sincerely,



Robert Henderson

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For the text of Morgan’s letter to the PCC see  http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/piers-morgan-lied-to-the-leveson-inquiry/

For the Mirror story see  http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/the-failure-to-charge-piers-morgan-with-illicitly-receiving-information-from-the-police/

For my response to the Mirror story see  http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/moral-simpletons-target-innocent-man/

Robert henderson
- Homepage: www.englandcalling.wordpress.com/


The police was acting illegally because he required anonymity

22.12.2011 17:49

MDM - if the information had been obtained legally there would have been no need to protect the informant. The only way the police can legitimately give information to the media is if they do it (1) openly and (2) provide it to the media generally.

There is also the fact that Scotland Yard and the CPS did not deny there was a case to answer. That was why an investigation was officially started. The problem is there was no meaningful investigation. No person employed by the Mirror was questioned. No examination of the Mirror's accounting records was made to identity payments unlikely to have been made to the police.

Robert Henderson
- Homepage: www.livinginginamadhouse.wordpress.com/


Nonsense

22.12.2011 21:44

>> MDM - if the information had been obtained legally there would have been no need to protect the informant.

NO!. It could be obtained legally AND the person may want to remain anonymous For instance, I can ring Crime Stoppers and give the police information, yet I can remain anonymous by either asking or by not giving my name. You also seem to forgot the data protection act. People have a the right to privacy even if they give information to the police.

Your assumption that they havnt named the person means the it MUST of been illegal is so flawed. No wonder they are ignoring you.

>> The only way the police can legitimately give information to the media is if they do it (1) openly and (2) provide it to the media generally.

Where did that little chestnut come from?


>> There is also the fact that Scotland Yard and the CPS did not deny there was a case to answer. That was why an investigation was officially started. The problem is there was no meaningful investigation. No person employed by the Mirror was questioned. No examination of the Mirror's accounting records was made to identity payments unlikely to have been made to the police.

Thats probably because nothing has been done wrong because your assumption that no name = something dodgy is incorrect.


All this trouble because you decided to say that "negros" (i believe that was the word you used) were lazy in playing cricket.... is that right?

anon


2011 the year to leave your anrchair and do something in the real world?

23.12.2011 09:21

Piers Morgan:
"The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect)"

MDM (American armchair worrier)
" I see NOTHING in that statement about whether the police were following proper procedures so whether they were or not scarcely relevant."

That'll be because they are British cops acting in a British context. If a cop, performing their official duties is asked for information relating to a case, then they provide it officially and there is no 'moral (sic) obligation" to protect their identity. However, if a cop is meeting journos outside of work and passing over sensitive information that they should not be passing over (often for money which they aren't allowed to receive) or as a 'whistleblower', then they would not want their employers to know who they are, and would want their identity hidden.

hence Robert Henderson states:
"There is also the fact that Scotland Yard and the CPS did not deny there was a case to answer. That was why an investigation was officially started. The problem is there was no meaningful investigation. No person employed by the Mirror was questioned. No examination of the Mirror's accounting records was made to identity payments unlikely to have been made to the police."

The 'anon' strawman:

">> MDM - if the information had been obtained legally there would have been no need to protect the informant.

"NO!. It could be obtained legally AND the person may want to remain anonymous For instance, I can ring Crime Stoppers and give the police information, yet I can remain anonymous by either asking or by not giving my name. You also seem to forgot the data protection act. People have a the right to privacy even if they give information to the police."

Pretends that the cop is now a grass with a right to confidentiality. But whatever grassing this copper is doing, is of information that the cops have through their official paid jobs, and which therefore doesn't 'belong' to the copper.

MDM and anon seem tobe obsessives who spend chunks of their lives turning the IMC uk comments section into a waste of time. Maybe next year they'll do something that has a point to it?

troll-road


Misunderstanding what I am trying to do?

23.12.2011 16:52

I want Indymedia to succeed. That means we have to improve our journalism so it gets taken seriously.

This article was supposedly about person X committing perjury. I wasn't commenting on whether X did or did not commit perjury, rather just that the article present NO evidence to support this charge. That is awful journalism.

If I understand correctly, the "evidence" was things like:
1) the paper did not print the informant's name (therefor they MUST not have been given it).
2) proper police procedure would have meant supplying this name, illegal for them not to have done so, and thus illegal/illicit for the person RECEIVING the information and the person would know this.

Do you see now why I asked for "precedents"? I'm not up on British case law with regard to perjury and MAYBE they are that different from ours (we differ GREATLY on libel and slander). But I am rather of the opinion that they do not differ in this particualr way, that perjury depends solely on the knowledge and belief of the person acused of perjury and NOT on the truth of the matter.

For example --- In giving an alibi, Y swears that Z was in Northampton on June 17th. It later was shown that Y did not know this and could not in fact have known this. Y has committed perjury. At Y's trial for perjury, it is NOT a defense that it turns out that Z really was in Northampton on June 17th. Or going the other way around, it turns out that the person Y saw in Northampton was Z's twin brother and Y didn't even know Z had a brother let alone a twin. Y has NOT committed perjury even though the truth of the matter is that Z was not in Northampton.

MDN


@MDN

23.12.2011 17:05

"That means we have to improve our journalism so it gets taken seriously."

Taken seriously by who?

NDM