and the other article is -- let's just deal with that one. that would be the one that was written confirming that your relationship was happening. blair's secretly divorced -- [inaudible] was mr. mcshane secretly divorced? >> i didn't know you could be secretly divorced. i mean, i thought you had to go to court, and that it was listed and is so on. i think there is a quite interesting confusion between secret and private. i think dennis probably -- i don't want to speak for him, but i think he probably regarded his divorce as a private matter and didn't go around holding journalists and saying, oh, did you know i just got divorced? but i can't see how it was secret. >> the other article was the article you just mentioned, the one where you were contacted whilst you were in the gym about your relationship which had by then ended. can i ask you this question, did you complain about either of

those articles at the time? >> no. it never even crossed my mind. >> why did it not cross your mind? >> oh, because i've seen too many, um, versions of press regulation in this country, the press council and then the current pcc. and i don't think that, um, they are adequate bodies to deal with this kind of problem. and by the time, by the time you complain to them, the article's out there anyway, and all your friends have read it, so, you know, you're not going to get much in the way of redress. >> i have to ask one other question to you, and it's about an article you wrote in the evening standard on the 5th of december, 2001. hopefully, there's a copy in front of you. >> yep. >> [inaudible] um, this appears to be, i'll paraphrase it, an article you wrote in 2001 about elizabeth

hurley and her relationship with a gentleman called steve bing. you, obviously, discussed the issue that was occurring between the two parties at that time and set out at the end some views. can i ask you this? i've been asked to ask you this: you wrote about elizabeth hurley and steve bing, you wrote about their private life. if, as you say, in the tabloids have become overzealous about reporting, why did you yourself write articles about these celebrities? >> because i've been writing, um, since the 1990s about, um, the mistake i think that celebrities make of putting too much of their private life in the public domain. and, of course, i didn't want go and doorstep them. i didn't want ask them about their private life.

they had put that in the public domain. and if you read the article, what i'm saying in it is that this is a very dangerous thing to do. i mean, i said the same thing about the late britain ice diana -- princess diana. people think they can put their private life in the public domain and still control what's said about them. and what worries me is that given the underlying certainty of the tabloids, at the time elizabeth hurley was pregnant, and i thought they was? a -- she was in a very vulnerable state, i thought it was actually quite a dangerous track that she was on. and if you look, you are see that i talk about, um, the kind of underlying unease that there is in our culture of women who are beautiful and who base their careers on their appearance. and the danger that they lose their reputation to use an old-fashioned word. and so i'm always incredibly happy when i get a chance to smuggle feminist ideas into the

popular press. >> thank you very much, indeed. well, a few final questions. you said in your statement you've got considerable experience citing press freedom across the world. in light of your experience, can i ask you this? you don't deal with it in your statement, but i want to know if you have any views on the current legislation. does it work --? >> no, i don't think it does work. i'm very opposed to any idea of state regulation, and i'm completely opposed to the idea of licensing a journalist. i think broadly two things need to happen. one is about regulation, the other is about culture. in terms of regulation, i think that there needs to be a kind of successor body to the pcc which isn't dominated by editors, which has more representation from outside. i think that there ought to be things like -- i think it ought to be, if newspapers don't take

part in it, then i think they should lose their b.a.t. exemption, so there should be a sort of characteristic for them taking part in it. i think there ought to be a much faster right of reply. i think it should also take in mediation in other situations like, you know, where libel might be involved and on. i think it needs to be a much more complex and capable body. but on top of that i think what needs to happen is a change in culture, and i think that we do have a tabloid culture which, um, i think it's almost infantile in its attitude to sex and private life. my impression is that tabloid hacks go around like children who have just discovered the astonishing information that their participants have sex, and they can't resist peeking around the door in the hope that they might see it. and the rest of us actually get on, you know, and live our lives. and i think that obsession with sex and private life has become

remorseless and pitlyless in terms of -- pitiless in terms of what it does to not just celebrities and crime victims, but just oord their people. -- ordinary people. >> well, thank you very much. is there anything you would like to add? i don't have any more questions. >> i don't think so. >> i've got a couple. you've identified on a number of occasions the ethics of what you've called the tabloid press, but is there or should there be any difference to the ethical considerations which are put into the work of reporters by any section of the media? >> no, i don't think there should, and i think that's the real problem. um, when i, when i first started out as a journalist, um, i wasn't particularly aware of any codes of ethics, but i knew why i'd become a journalist. i mean, you know, in a kind of young, idealistic way, i wanted

to change the world. and i thought that at times, you know, it might be necessary to break the law. i mean, during the the yorks river information, i was threatened with prosecution which didn't happen, but i think the two things have diverged too far, and it should be possible to have a vibrant tabloid press which does the kind of things the tailly mirror did -- daily mirror did a few years a but i think that is not something they see themselves as doing particularly anymore, so there is a separation which i think is very damaging. a lot of the time people like me who write or for, you know, what i was talking about earlier, the serious or broad sheet press, i feel like a different breed from the, from the ethics, the people who work on tabloid papers. >> okay. the second question is this. you've seen the material the police assembled from the mulcaire notebooks. do you have any sense of whether

you were being targeted because of you or because you were an adjunct to mr. mcshane? >> i think the latter. my kind of guess is that his daughter's death made his profile much, much higher, and so, um, they got interested in him. and once they got interested in him, they got interested in me. so i suppose i was kind of collateral damage. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> recorded testimony from earlier. this is day one of seven in the british government's investigation into the culture of the media and its impact on public figures. this has arisen out of the british phone hacking scandal that's led to the destruction of privacy for a number of public figures. we're showing you recorded witness testimony from earlier this morning now. the committee is taking a lunch break. it's expected to last another 50 minutes or so. right now we'll show you

comments from attorney graham shear who has a number of clients whose phones were hacked by media organizations. we will show you as much of this as we can until live testimony resumes. >> and it is a fact that i've become quite well known by those members of the press who were interested in those cases and that they would, um, up camp outside -- often camp outside my office. therefore, if client needed to have a private meeting, we would arrange to do it somewhere other than my office. on this particular occasion, the subject matter was extremely high profile, and the whereabouts of the person concerned were of interest to the media generally. >> yes. >> often because and in this case i'm sure it was the case because the picture was the thing that they wanted to publish. they wanted the current picture. i spoke with the compliant, um, who was -- client who was quite a long way away from his normal residence, and we arranged for a

meeting place in the oxfordshire countryside at a hotel. i have shul no idea -- absolutely no idea who followed me. the likelihood it was probably a member of the paparazzi or somebody who was given the task by one of the newspapers or general media concerned, but i was followed on that trip. unfortunately, for the person who was following me, i think they got lost somewhere behind me on the journey. so as i say, i have no idea who the actual person given the task was. >> okay. and then you say in paragraph 29, this is before the phone hacking scandal broke as it were, that clients often said to you that they felt the press were monitoring their electronic communications. how often did this happen or did these fears were expressed? >> i would say very regularly. um, certainly, um, in the period

from about the, i suppose, 2004-2005 onwards, clients began to believe that, um, coincidences were being replaced by more likely interception of some form or another. i recall quite clearly clients becoming irritated or trus traited -- frustrated and suspicious that private information was finding its way into the popular media. and they identified this with, you know, a stray fact that they knew were only privy to one or two people were being published. it caused them to ask questions not only of their family and friends, but even of me. and i recall it quite clearly. and then it became so sort of continuous that i suppose the suspicion, um, that was directed at those that could have leaked it began to become more focused

in their own minds about whether or not this information was being obtained by surveillance. and, you know, for a variety of reasons those that i acted for, some more than others, became more used to changing their mobile telephone numbers, would change them two or three times a year, um x that was a common way for people to, i suppose, give themselves some confidence that perhaps there was a way that they, although they had no actual evidence or basis other than their own suspicion but could prevent easy access to information about them. >> yes. and then you refer to a specific incident in early 2008. can you tell us a little wit more about that -- bit about that, please? this is paragraph 30 of your statement. >> yes. um, as i say, i've acted on a variety of high-profile cases, and once again this was an extremely high-profile matter where, um, there were two

participants or clients involved, and the press had different but equally intensive interest in both of them. there was, obviously, a connection between them. the, the increase in interest had got to a point of almost fevered activity, and their house had been surrounded by the press for several days. um, it was because of events then occurring and concern over events that could occur that they needed to seek advice from me both as a lawyer and also some common sense advice, hopefully, as well. and we -- >> is there a difference? >> sorry? [laughter] occasionally, occasionally the clients need to be told the realities of what can occur as well as the legal advice of, um, the circumstances in which they

find themselves and, hopefully, i provide a blend of both. and they wanted to come see me. and we knee that if i -- we knew that if i went to them, then that would automatically, um, i suppose not just accelerate, but heighten interest. and if they came to my office, once again, that would become an obvious point of focus for the media, and the media scrum would develop. the idea was, and it only arose literally an hour or so before the meeting, um, was i suggested to them that if they could get out of their house, um, that they should come to my house because the media didn't know where i lived. um, and they thought that was a pretty good idea, and they lived out in the country, and they felt that if there was anybody who was, um, following them, they could probably lose them in traffic or find some way to make it to my home. and i recall very clearly, um, the client saying, look, we've

left. send me a text -- in fact, i think he said send me a text, and i'd already left a voicemail message for him of my home address and details of how to get there because he, obviously, needed to put it into his sat-nav and, also, i wanted to explain to him which was probably the best way coming from where he lived or whether they lived -- where they lived. and i remember very clearly being sort of at my front door and sort of looking out because i wanted to be there when they arrived, and i had a space in my drive for them to park their car. i was quite flabbergasted when about, i suppose, several minutes before they arrived two cars turned up with four or five people in each car, um, that proceeded them and sort of parked sort of at one end of my street and one a little further down.

to then have a few minutes later, as i say, the clients come up. so it was absolutely clear the me that the the paps or media concerned were well aware of where they were going to, and yet only i was privy to that information because i'd left the message and sent the text to the client and only they were privy to it. followed by, obviously, quite intensive interest in what was happening inside my house for the rest of that day, and the media scrum outside for many hours. >> and, of course, everything that was happening within your house was protected by legal professional privilege, it goes without saying. >> yes, it was. it was a, it was, it was a private time not only for the clients so far as circumstances that related to them, but it was also, um, a matter for them to seek and obtain, um, legal

advice which is, obviously, professionally privileged. of>> of course. >> professional privilege. >> well, you were so concerned that you tell us in paragraph 32 you rang the metropolitan police, you give the date, 2008-2009, listing your clients, indeed, your own name was on the list with jenin quire ri in really -- general inquiry to phone hacking. you say the response to the information from the police was negative. are you saying they didn't reply to your letter, or are you saying they did reply and say you and your clients were not the subject of phone hacking? >> well, i'm, i became interested in the development of the, um, information that came out of the various criminal trials that had taken place, but

i asked the clients, i suppose, in around about 2007 would they like to take matters forward. by 2008 a number of them had indicated that they did. some didn't, actually. some preferred or felt that they could suffer recrimination or further interest by the media, by pursuing inaction, and decided that they actively didn't want to burr sue out it -- pursue it. so as you say, or as i have said, in around about 2008, 2009 i sent a long list of clients' names at their request to both the police and the information commissioner. i included my name on it as just -- it was actually a suggestion of one of my partners that i may be collaterally interested in, to them and could have been subject. so when i received the response, i did receive a response from both the information commissioner and from the metropolitan police. the responses were specifically no, no information had been found on any of the names

contained on the list. i reported back to the clients and said no information. and at the time i recall thinking, well, there's two circumstances. either there were all of the data and evidence had been colated and reviewed and no names had been found, or they hadn't finished the review, and the third option was that actually not all of that evidence which related to misconduct by the "news of the world" had actually been retained and considered. but i reported back to the climates, and some -- clients, and some of them were, i suppose, felt that it was unlikely that, um, that they had not been the subject of some form of unlawful surveillance. and others were actually very pleased that their names didn't appear. um, it was with some, um,

surprise that in the early part of this year about the end of january-february, that i was contacted by officers from operation wheating who asked to come see me to talk to me about a number of my clients whose names did appear in the evidence that had been, um, reconsidered or reviewed by operation wheating. and they came to see me and started to go through the process. >> yes. and were you shown relevant pages from the mulcaire notebook which related to you? >> i was. actually, i -- it's become almost a regular event, um, a specific officer was assigned, michelle roycroft was assigned to me and to my clients. and i was shown the information that related to my name ask the

de-- and the detail of that. and it jumped out of the page at me, actually. although it wasn't quite as specific as i now know in relation to other clients, but i immediately recognized the content of voicemail messages that had been left for me and conversations that had followed those messages. they were slightly cryptic, but the detail was very clear, and it related to, um, information in a device that i'd given to a client and to others who were advising him in relation to a case where i was acting for that client on a regulatory matter. >> i think, i think news international would want me to say that -- although i'm not going to contradict anything you just said -- what you just said may be an issue in the civil proceedings.

>> i understand that. i've spoken to or i'm aware that those that left the messages for me are also recall what was said at that time as well, but i appreciate that it's in context. >> let me just understand that. in relation to the advice that you had given, are you saying that was left on a voicemail message? >> no. i was actually in the hearing at the time, and i -- the way in which it worked is that i would leave messages for those who representing my client, and they left messages for me. um, and they also received contact from third parties, in this case it was actually from a journalist. and they left a very detailed message for me about what the -- >> so it's all messages? >> it's all messages. journalists left messages for me as well so, yes, there are messages to and from.

>> and you refer specifically to one innocent in paragraph -- incident in paragraph 36 advising a calling to regulatory proceedings. >> yes. that's to what it relates. >> thank you. back in your statement now please, mr. shear, and dealing with your opinions, can you express a general opinion about tabloid conduct and under the rubric which is mentioned in paragraph 4 and the commercial pressures. in your own words, please, what are those pressures operating at the moment? >> um, i believe it a business model that's become almost dependent and in fact chaited

with sensationalists and titillating stories to the point where the facility -- and this is just my opinion, as i say -- that phone hacking or unlawful surveillance provided allowed those that were utilizing it and reviewing the information to not only build their stories, but to pad them out with detail. and this coincided with the financial benefits that a newspaper could have from providing a diet of easily-digestible, sensationalist sort of fodder on a regular basis. and, therefore, it's been a progression of sort of fairly i suppose privacy-invading but interesting to a section of the

public intrusion into the private lives of the rich and famous, powerful or others. that has kind of created this sort of self-generating process where people want to see or hear of the next event. >> yes. >> so that's, um, that's what i've seen, that's how i've seen it develop. um, it certainly, um, was not quite as prevalent in the same sort of guise in the mid '90s. i think it became more organized and more orchestrated, um, as we sort of turned into the early part of 2000. um, certainly the "news of the world" was out in front as the most effective, um, story gatherer. and certainly quite a bit of daylight appeared between the "news of the world" and the other papers with which they competed. i think the types of

surveillance that were being undertaken are likely isolated to one newspaper purely because of the movement of journalists between the different newspapers. i mean, there aren't that many newspapers as employers out there who, um, would be available for the journalists to work for. and it's, i was certainly aware of significant movement in the early part, the early mid part of the 2000s, i suppose, from 2003 to 2005 of journalists from some newspaper groups specifically to the "news of the world." >> one thing that inquires came through the seminars that were offered in evidence which is coming from the press is that the model you're giving us is entirely incorrect whereas it might have been true to some extent in the 1980s and the early 1990s, the effect of the pcc is to improve press behavior and, therefore, you're giving us a stereotypical view, no doubt

bona fide, they would say, but it's completely wrong? do you want to comment on that? >> um, i don't accept that at all actually. i think that the press are extremely adept at identifying and calculating opportunities and then exploiting them whether it be from checkbook journalism and the persuasion of young girls to sell their stories on a sort of regular basis all the way through to identifying which stories to alert the target of that relates to private information prepublication and which stories to lead to the potential risk of postpublication damages. and in that sense the pcc is certainly no match for that kind of organized and focused financial calculation. and i think pcc is a body, although there are areas -- and i'll come back to them -- there are areas i think they're effective. generally speaking, the pcc as i

perceive them, their role is one of mediator. they're not a regulator. they have no power to investigate. and i think that without being empowered and having the teeth to appropriately investigate and to regulate, um, the members of the media, that they're an ineffective body. it doesn't just come down to investigate and regulation. i think there's also an issue here of training and where one has sort of a systematic -- a systemic loss or dilution of ethics to the extent that we've seen at the "news of the world." and as i said, i don't believe that's really isolate today just that paper. i think one has to question the extent to which the journalists have been trained about the requirements upon them and the obligations upon them and their employees to act ethically. and i think that that element

should also be introduced into any body. any body that replaces the pcc or any enhancement to the pcc's power is the is a requirement for appropriate training and ongoing training of the journalists to replace or enhance that ethical conduct. so far as the one area where i do think the pcc have been effective is that they have provided an anti-harassment phone line, and i think that is, um, quite an effective facility. and i myself have actually on occasion recommended that clients that were concerned about doorstepping utilize that help line, and i know they've done a good job with that. but i'm afraid so far as broader regulation or investigation is concerned, the pcc today and yesterday is certainly no match for the larger and effective media organizations to whom they are meant to mediate for. >> in