>> i sincerely and truly declare and affirm the whole truth, nothing but the truth. thank you. .. >> mr. grant, as with some of

the other witnesses, i'm very grateful to you for coming. i am extremely conscious that you are speaking about matters which you would prefer were not deployed in the press, and that that is it difficult decision and a difficult experience for you. i'm conscious of it, and i'm grateful to you for assisting the inquiry with your evidence. during the course of the afternoon, we'd like you to have a break, but at any stage, if you want a few minutes off, you don't have to say "cut," but sufficient if you speak out a time. >> thank you very much. >> there's no time limits to mr. grant. >> i'm sorry to hear that. [laughter] >> your evidence is a fact in evidence of opinion, and i'd like to start, please, with the evidence of fact before we move

on to the opinion, and in relation to your career, everybody, of course, probably knows all about your career, but you made it big, if i can so describe it with the film in 1994 "four weddings and a funeral," but you did rather well with another film in 1987 called "maurice," and following the success of the movies, and initially the press comment was favorable, and then it plummeted. can you tell us about the favorable, the good part as you can describe it in your own words, please. >> it was fairly brief, but, of course, on the back of that success of "four weddings and a funeral," yeah, of good will, i think, you know, the nation liked having a film that was

making -- that was popular and follow-upny and doing very well all over the world. you know, we enjoyed the few british successes we get, and i got a little blip of positive press on the back of that, yeah. >> yeah. that stage, was there any interest in imrr private life do you think? >> there was a great deal of interest suddenly in my private life particularly at the premier of that film when the press became very interested in me and my girlfriend. >> yes. okay, realm i think we probably -- well, i think we probably remember that premier. [laughter] moving on, however, to perhaps the darker side, and this is paragraph 7 of your witness statement. >> yeah. >> i'm not going to cover the events of july 1995. we're not interested in that. >> i wish you would in a way. >> okay. >> simply because -- am i

allowed to break in? >> of course. >> it's an important point i make in this statement that all the questioning and campaigning i've done recently about what i see as the abuses of some sections of the british press is not motivated by the treatment i got when i was arrested in 1995. i say in my statement here, i was arrested, it was on public record. i totally expected there to be tons of press. the press storm, and that happened, and i have no quarrel with it, no whatsoever, and it's important to make that point. >> fair enough. >> yeah. >> there was an incident involving a break into your london flat -- >> yes. >> on the fourth floor. >> yeah. >> and the front door was forced off its hinges. it sounds as if it was professionally done.

there was no damage inside the flat; is that correct? >> no damage, and nothing was stolen. >> yes. >> this came at the man nays of the press storm in los angeles, and now back in london held up in my flat. i managed to get out for the day or night, i can't remember, but anyway, i came back, this flat had been broken into. the front door had been basically shoved off its hinges. as i say, nothing was stolen, which was weird, and the police nevertheless came round the next day to talk about it and the day after that, a detailed account of what the interior of the flat looked like in one of the british tabloid papers, can't remember at the moment, but it was definitely there, and imp thinking who told them that? was that the burglar or the police? when i told the story to tom watson recently, the mp, writing

a book about this thing, he nodded knowingly saying, oh, yes, this method of break-in, i've come across others as victims of this, and it doesn't seem to be on a singular occasion. it's cynical to me because the flat, you have to walk up a hell of a lot of stairs to get there. it would have been a bad choice for a normal burglar, and nothing was stolen, and i had it for 25 years and it's never been broken in before or sense. >> in terms of the logical possibilities, i suppose in no particular order a leak from the police or might be the burglar acting on the inceptions of the press to gain sight of the inside of your flat. we don't know which hypothesis is the correct one. >> or both. >> or both. >> i think the likely scenario is both. >> or alternatively a burglar whose found a flat who is

burglarized, and this is somewhere he can make money. whatever. >> fine. >> fine. >> this was at the time when there were a lot of press outside all the time, desperate to get in. it was the middle of the summer, and i know they were listening. it was right up, four floors up, and they could hear one the riles i was having at the time, so i know they were desperate to get some kind of access. >> paragraph 8 in following, you deal with various libel actions, all of which were successful. can you give us a general idea of how many libel claims we're talking about? >> i don't know. it's been 16 or 17 years since four weddings and since i became of interest to the tabloid press, and i imagine in the 17 years, i don't know, half a dozen, maybe more, maybe 10? ask him, he'd know -- >> yeah.

>> but i just mentioned two here out of those because it would be very boring to go through them all, and in themselves they are not significant, but these two particular examples, i think, are significant. >> yes. the example you give in paragraph 11, february 2007 -- >> yeah. >> the plummy voiced woman gets you. are you suggesting there that that story must have come from phone hacking? >> well, what i said in this paragraph is that the mail on sunday ran an article, february 2007, saying that my relationship with my then girlfriend, was on the rocks because of my persistence late night flirtatious phone calls with a plummy voiced woman from

warner brothers, and it was a bizarre story, completely untrue, that i sued over libel, and damages rewarded, and statement was made in open court, but thinking about how they could come up with a bizarre left field story, i realized there was no plumny voice executive from warner brothers that had i no relationship with, but there was a great friend of mine in los angeles that runs a production company associated with warner brothers, and whose assistant, a charming, married, middle-aged lady, english, and as happens in hollywood is the person who rings you. it's never the executive who rings you, but the assistant. hi, we have jack bailey on the phone. she did this, she was a nice english girl in l.a., and

sometimes as we talked, we'd have a joke about english stuff or whatever, and she's leave charming, joking messages saying please call this executive back, and she has a voice that can only be describedded as plummy, and so i can't for the life of me think of any conceivable source for this story and the mail on sunday except those voice messages on my mobile telephone. >> well, you haven't alleged that before in the public domain, have you? >> no, when i was preparing this statement going through my trials and tribulations for the press, i thought that was weird, and then the penny dropped. >> i think it can be speculation on your part? >> i would love to know -- i think who represents it was

saying earlier today he'd like to put in a supplement try statement and referring to the things today, what i'd love to hear what the daily mails or explanation for that and what the source was if it was not phone hacking. >> okay. i may come back to that. i'll leave it there for the time being. >> the next task you refer to is in paragraph 12, your statement, which is run in the "sunday express," and the point about this article and on page three, right hand side, number sending 1921 is this article was entirely untrue? >> yeah, it's an article that purported to be written by me, and which i hadn't written nor

had i done that thing where someone's talking to someone. i had not even spoken to a journalist. it was completely, as far as i could see, made up or patched and pasted from previous quotations i may have given in interviews. >> right. >> that's why as i recall they lost the case and had to apologize. >> you did not comment to the article in any way, and there's two examples of defamation claims. you also provide examples of privacy claims, and the first one of these over which there was litigation was about 13 of the witness statements, and in the hospital, and unnecessary to

go into. it did culminate in a claim for which there's confidence; that's correct? >> yeah. >> you also complained to the pcc, and that claim was upheld, was it not? >> yes, finally, but after a lot of effort. it took months and months, and they were very reluctant to do anything. finally, i got tiny recognition my complaint was upheld deep in the newspaper without referring to what the complaint was about. >> right. the pcc adjudication, you have in the bundle we prepared for you under tab 4 of the bundle. if you can pull that up, please. >> oh, okay. >> one document --

>> there in the second paragraph, they raised a number of issues arriving from the -- [inaudible] the commission had the delay to do with resolving issues of jurisdictions. rightly or wrongly, i don't think it's possible for us to go into this, and there was questions whether your complaint fell to the pcc and took them time to resolve the questions, and once they did, they upheld that part of the complaint which they felt they could deal with. do you understand that? >> i understand that's what they wrote. >> yeah. >> but i failed entirely to understand how an individual's medical records being appropriated and print the for commercial profit could not come under the pcc. if that's note under the reames

of the pcc, what the hell is the pcc for. >> it did. >> why take so long? >> they didn't identify all the views, but your essential complaint, you can see that in the first paragraph of the adjudication. confidential, medical information about you was published, and that's the complaint they focused on and upheld it. >> we don't know from this document the date of this adjudication. everybody agrees it took a long time. >> you've said it took a long time, but do you know the date? do you remember approximately how long it took? the date isn't on it. >> my recollection is about three months. >> don't worry about it. >> okay.

another complaint or issue, and you touch on this in paragraph 15, your statement is much more recent and investments in the middle of march this year. >> yeah. >> first of all, mr. grant, are you happy we talk about that? >> yes, otherwise i wouldn't have put it in the statement. >> the article itself is at under ht1. ht1 is page 2, mr. grant. >> thank you. 1392? >> yes. >> there's a 14 just above it?

>> yeah. i got it. i'll ask you to comment, but the details from the matter, and you inned up in the hospital, and what the article is saying or trying to say is that here is a man, he didn't -- he waited his turn in the q. we all know from the a and e departments you sometimes have to wait a long time, particularly if it's not serious. you made no complaint. this all reflects rather well on you. did you follow that? >> yeah, but -- >> that's what they were trying 20 get at. >> that's not my interpretation of the story. >> okay. the classic tabloid technique to cover a breach of privacy is to wrap it up in a nice story. if they photograph a baby, they say, oh, what a pretty baby to try to stop the parents suing

them for breach of privacy, and this is the same. this is an article which says not any that i went to hospital, but what i went for. it's my medical records. i was dizzy and short of breath, a gross intrusion on my privacy, and they dressed it up about how undeaferrish i was to get away with that. >> yeah. it ended up, and i'll come back to paying damages or paying to a charity; is that right? >> yeah. it was not just the sun, but the press ran a piece similar as i recall, and by that stage in my life -- it was this year -- i

was weary about endless lawsuits against tab bloidz. they cause a lot of stress. i tried to short circuit saying there's no lawsuit if you just pay 5,000 pounds to a charity, which i call health support online, and because they talked about my health online, i thought that was elegant, and they refused to pay a penny, and after much protesting, the sun gave the charity 1500 pounds. >> okay. >> is this your point, mr. grant, it doesn't matter whether the underlying story is true. really, the point it social security -- it's an invasion of privacy, and there was not a public interest in people putting out articles about your health, is that your point in a nutshell? >> i think no one would expect; no british citizen would expect

their medical records to be made public or to be appropriated by newspapers for commercial profit. i think that's fundamental to our decency. >> right. >> to be fair, we don't know the source of the story from the article itself. >> just a lucky guess. >> i don't think they're suggesting that, but it could be a number of cases. >> what would they be, sir? >> there could be evidence about this later, but the story came from a picture agency tipped off by a non-medical employee at the hospital, could that be true? >> well, there was no picture, so that bits weird, but for them to know the details of why i went there, it had to be someone with access to the computer where you register.

i hope and sure it's not the staff because they are fantastic in that hospital as they always are, but the age old system of someone at the hospital being on a retainer from either a picture agency or, you know, if anyone famous comes in, tell us, and here's 500quid. my opinion is that that was the source. >> okay. >> as it had been in june 1996, and as it was again recently in the case of my baby. >> okay. in paragraph 16 and 17 of your statement, you deal with other intrusions in your privacy, and i think, if you don't mind, take it as read. i would like to move on to

paragraph 18 and the section about the press. you give one example at the bottom of paragraph 18 about being chased at high speed, your girlfriend was. can you tell us about that. >> that was a relatively common occurrence with two of the girlfriends i've had. they both have children, and in both cases -- well, that's not fair, the first girlfriend when with me, we didn't have children, so that doesn't apply, but the second girlfriend, the first girlfriend subsequently had children and was chased and abused, but the second girlfriend did have children, and frequently in the early days of our remansed followed and chased when she had the children in the car, and even when the

children were not enjoying it, crying, they pulled up for gas, and they said go away, the children are frightened, and they continued to take pictures. >> yeah. >> and they brought by a newspaper. >> yeah. they are working freelance, are they not? >> as i explained in the statement, there are two kinds of press photographer, there's those on staff showing decency, although they didn't in the case of my baby. they staked out a new mother for three days. she couldn't leave her home, and then there's the much worse freelance who are increasingly increasingly -- well, police tell me increasingly recruited from criminal classes, and they have criminal records and been in different fields of crime previous to this, and who stop

at nothing and show no mercy because the bounty of the pictures are high, and i suspect the ones who, for instance, were chasing my girlfriend and her children were the freelance types. i suspect they were the ones trying too take pictures up girls' skirts and digitally remove the underwear because they can sell the pictures more for that. i suspect they were the ones following princess di anna when she died, and the mail promised they would never buy pictures from again, but which they subsequently did three months later. >> not now, but i want to come back to the mechanisms where any of that can be controlled. just your view on it, not now, but the general will come to

it. >> sure. >> let me go on to the issue of hacking, mr. grant. covered in some detail. you tell us in paragraph 24 warning started to come through from media about how to protect privacy, and amongst the advice, yeah it should be go to frequently, and can you remember when those warnings started to emanate? >> i can't exactly, but i'm guessing it was early 2005, that kind of time. >> were you the direct recipient of that warning? >> i had circular e-mails sent from media lawyers to clients and ex-clients, and i remember looking at the list.

it was a warning saying these are p be careful of blue tooth, pin numbers, and your phones and so on. >> right. >> get your car swept. >> and then paragraph 25, about 2004, someone came from the information commissioner's office? >> yes, out of the blue. >> can you remember whether it was a policeman or came or an official from the information commission? >> well, to be honest, i've always been confused about that. he was not in uniform, but i told the story of a policeman who had a rank or something. i wish i could say accurately, but i looked for the details of the meetings, and it happened, didn't make it up, came to my house, sat in the kitchen saying they arrested a private investigator whose notebook

contained intimate personal details on a number of people, and i was one of them, and that it contained my address, the address of some close friends, relations, and i remember seeing phone numbers, and i know you're going to contest that, but i can't imagine someone just had my address because everyone had my address. i said who is the person working for? it looks like he's working for most of the british press. >> yes, which might suggest it's the information commission's office, but -- >> i'm sure it was. i'm sure it was -- i think you'll find the information commissioner employees x police officers. and we know that because there was a story about a police officer shocked at the end of this particular inquiry, they were not allowed to interview

any of the journalists who hired the private detective in the first place. >> you're in danger of foreshadowing evidence we'll hear next week from the relevant person, but what i want to put to you, mr. grant, is it's clearly the commissioner's that they never discussed evidence related to phone hacking, so if that's right, it would suggest your recollection must be incorrect and you are confusing this with the notebooks -- >> i know this was not the case -- >> right. >> that came to me. as i said to you before, i cannot understand why a man would have my address because everybody did. they were out there all the time. >> yes. >> so if he didn't also have my phone numbers at the least, and pin numbers as well. i don't know why he'd come to see me.

>> having your address, and it may not be that difficult piece of data to ob obtain, could be in breach of the protection act. do you follow me? >> yeah, yeah. >> and it may be that you are associating what could have been a reasonably limited, if not unremarkable discussion limited to breaches of the data protection act and then extrapolating from that and bringing in a more sinisterred details about pin numbers and evidence of voice mail hacking. >> we have to leave it at that. we're obviously not to agree on it, and we have to park the issue, but certainly they told me about that kind of thing. >> yes, certainly. >> yeah. >> was that a phrase they used? >> i can't remember. it was 2004. it was did >> -- >> i don't think you want to

think he's agreeing or disagreeing, and it's important those others who give evidence some have seen parts of what you said in order to comment, and part of the system is that you are asked about their concerns to respond, but don't assume because they asked the question, they necessarily are agreeing with or disagreeing with the proposition put in. >> was the gentleman's name mentioned? >> i don't think so, but seeing as the whole inquiry was about the arrest, it's difficult to imagine it was about anybody else. >> yeah. >> the next event, was a chance encounter with a mr. mcmullen,

mr. grant, and you deal with that -- you deal with it in paragraph 26 of your witness statements. >> yeah. >> and tell us about the encounter, and you ended up in the same cars, didn't you? >> yes. i broke down. >> yes. >> in my car in kent just before christmas last year, in the countryside, and i thought what am i going to do? i'm late for the appointment, and there was no taxis around, it was christmas eve, and icy, and a van pulled up in the carriageway, and thought, oh, good, a nice person has come to help, and instead, out stepped a man with a long lens. i thought i couldn't believe in the middle of kent in winter there was a pap, and he's coming over, taking pictures. i was not entirely polite to

him, and then to my horror, i realized there was no other way to getting to the appointment. he asked if i wanted a lift, and i know it was in his interest, and finally i did, and i was in the car with this man, with my friend, and that is when he reviewedded he was an exnews of the world featurer who is now retired, running a pub down in dover, and he kept his camera just in case there was a happy accident, which he just encountered, and then he went on to tell me all these fascinating things, bothing, really about how they had known about it for sure, how they had enjoyed the competitive fancy of five successive governments, of the way they paid off the police, and i was thinking for years,

and i think this is all amazing stuff. i wish i had a tape recorder. >> that's a long story, and next time you saw him, you did have a tape recorder; is that right. >> that is right, yes. >> indeed, there's a piece about it in the new statesman, which, again, in our bundle, hg1 -- >> yeah. >> on the internal numbering, it's page 15, and on the longer number it ends 1933 -- >> yeah. >> quite a zippi title. >> thank you. >> is this, mr. grant, a verbatim transcript from the tape recorder? >> yes. there are boring bits left out, and i just put in the juicy bits. [laughter]

>> well, we've all read it. i'm not going to go over all of it, you understand, but i have been asked to go over in particular, and i was in any event intended to do so. the very bottom of the first page, and it was not just the news of the world, and then it continues. first of all, do you remember what goes in the dot, dot, dot? >> no. that'd be one of the boring bits, but it's nothing sinister. >> huh. >> it could be that the box was too loud at that point. the tape recording is quite hard to hear, and i was only able to transcribe it, you know, just having had the meeting, you know. >> yeah.

we're not going to do it now, but we could listen to it if you greed. do you have a problem with that? >> toy have a problem with that. i feel like i did my revenge number on poor mcmullen, and i -- for me, that's the issue closed with him, and when i've had now two separate police inquiries, the one into police corruption, and the other into phone hacking, they came and asked for the tape, and i refused because it seems to me too harsh. i don't want to be sending poor mcmullen to prison, and he deserves some credit being a whistle-blower on some of this stuff. >> okay. we know that answer. i've got to continue with your question. >> yeah. >> it wasn't just the news of the world, but it was the mail, very much a leading question,

mr. grant, wasn't it? >> yes. >> there was to evidence -- >> i'm not a lawyerment i'm allowed to -- i'm not a lawyer. i'm allowed to ask leading questions. >> fair enough. there's no evidence that you had to your personal knowledge that your mail was involved in this at all, is there? >> oh -- >> i'm asking you to be careful when you answer the question. don't share speculation with us or opinions. we're looking for evidence. there's not any evidence, is there? >> the evidence for the daily mail being involved in phone hacking for me would be what we talked about earlier, and it would be poor mcmullen's answer to the question. >> let's look at the answer then . >> the biggest pairs, you

thought it would be the news of the world, but actually it was the daily mail. i think a good picture, the first person here is such as in your case, the mail on sunday, and you see that story, you see you breaking down, and i thank you for that, i got 3,000 pounds, and he's talking there about selling a photograph of you, isn't he? >> well, he segues into that, but i didn't leave anything out, and, you know, if it helps, come out to my house and listen to the tape. i left nothing out between -- it was not just news of the world, but it was the mail and him answering, oh, absolutely, yeah. in 2004, the biggest was the news of the world, but actually it was the daily mail, and that's the sequence of the conversation. there's nothing left out. >> what you're asking us to do then is to read carefully what he say, and then interpret his answer, and certainly one highly reasonable interpretation of the answer is he's limiting his

comment, his evidence, if you like to this, isn't he? >> he segues into the answer straight into photographs. >> yeah. >> i agree that it is sprang syntax, it's a segue, but i have no reason to believe that his answer, oh, absolutely, yeah, rougherred to the daily mail being involved in phone hacking. >> okay, mr. grant. i have to ask this one question. have you been drinking? >> had i been drinking? >> no. had mr. mcmullen be drinking? [laughter] >> no, he didn't seem drunk at all. >> you say why would they, the mail, buy a phone hacked story. isn't that an odd question given

he had not referred to a phone hack story? >> it's not at all begin he had just done a strange segue, and i'm trying to get him on the interesting bits, not that they bought the photographs, but interesting in whether they were involved in phone hacking. there's no dot, dot, dots here, i said would they buy a story to which he answered they were cleaner and clean, and before that, they were not, dirtier than nip -- anyone, and had the most money. >> he's not begin any details there of any phone hacking by the daily mail there, has he? >> no. >> we can read on, and the rest of what he said is controversial. it's best if i don't read it

out. >> i thought it was full of controversy. >> yeah, some is controversial in the sense, mr. grant, that it names particular names of people. you know perfectly well that there's a police investigation going on -- >> oh, well that, yes. >> and i've got to be extremely careful. >> i understand that. >> that i don't prejudice any potential prosecution. >> yeah, of course. >> you wouldn't want to either. >> i wouldn't. >> it's his right to say, this is published in the paper. it's in the public domain. >> yeah. >> anybody can google it. >> yeah. >> frankly, we'll leave it at that if you don't mind. >> if the inquirimented to -- if the inquiry wanted to listen

and what we've been discussing specifically, something which you would be comfortable with or uncomfortable with? >> those bits, yes, because i don't think they send mcmullen to prison, so that's fine. >> thank you. i want to make clear i'm not being coy about the investigation, and i make rulings about how we're going to go, and we're going to do it, but i don't want to add unnecessary material into the public domain beyond that which it's necessary for me to go to identify the culture practice and ethics of the press. >> i get that. >> to be clear, we're hearing from mr. mcmullen as well. >> okay. good luck. >> the commission will be fully explored with him. >> yeah. >> well, that's a helpful view into the case, the mcmullen incident.

you also tell us about, and i'm back on the paragraph 27 of the witness statement. earlier this year, officers came, and we heard two other witnesses today how they felt about the situation, and they tell you the phone was hacked. tell us a little bit about that meeting, please. >> yes. they ran my lawyer. wanted to show me some evidence. they came round and it was one of the previous witnesses today that explained -- quite a formal thing. they get out these pages and formally announce them, and then they say would you have a look at this page, anything there you recognize? i looked at it, and i saw various phone numbers of mine and from the middle of the 2005, something like that, together

with some pin numbers, together with access numbers, you know, you used to get a separate phone number to ring your messages remotely from another phone, and then there were other names i recognized on there. people around me, girlfriends, people i knew, numbers, words that all sort of make sense, and then one particular case triggered a memory of couple of stories that had been in the daily and in the daily mail, and i found that interesting, but when you see the pieces of paper in the police inquiry, they redact certain bits including the top left hand corner which is where they kept the initials of the particular journalist who commissioned the phone hacking, and so subsequent to the meeting with the police, i was very interested to know who had commissioned that particular

page of hacking seeing this particular story had not appeared in the news of the world, but appeared in the daily mail and the daily mirror. >> you mentioned the daily mail, mentioned it for the first time, and it's not in your witness statement -- >> yes, it is. >> pardon me. my apologies you have. >> okay. >> just to avoid doubt, the top corner, which, of course, risks ciphering again for the reasons explained, that was, in fact, somebody who you linked news of the world? >> to get access to the redacted top left hand corner, i was told i 4 to ask for it formally through a court, get a disclosure order from the police, and so i got it, and it was in fact, or seems to be, a journalist from the news of the world, so that is a mystery that

he commissioned the work, but it appeared in the mail and the mirror. >> right. >> mystery where not i believe we're going to able to get to at today or possibly at all. may i move on, please, to your supplementary statement? with quite recent events, culminating in the grants are an injunction last week by the justice, and you've seen a copy of her judgment. first of all, can i ask you please to look at hg2, which will be behind your witness

statement in this bundle, not as a separate tab. i'll go into much detail as you want me to, but it relates to the front page of the new world, it's on the 24th of april this year, and it looks like as if these are photographs taken with a photo lens; is that right? >> i would imagine so. i was unaware they were taken. what's the tab number in >> under tab 2. go to the first six or seven pages -- >> yeah. >> you'll reach of the end of your witness staple, and you should find an exhibit, hg #, and the first couple pages of the exhibit are three pages are

the article we are referring to. are you with me on that in >> obviously, i'm being stupid. i'm on the second tab -- >> third tab, third tab. >> thank you very much. thank you, sir. >> you got it now? we're not concerned about the headline, but the detail, unless you want to discuss it. the real point is that this is a telephoto lens clearly, and your unaware the photographs are being taken? >> correct. >> you with respect ask to comment --

you weren't asked to comment about the piece along with the photographs? >> correct. >> and had you been asked to comment, what might you have said? >> i would have said nothing. i was -- there would have been -- i wouldn't have returnedded the calls. no one would have returned the calls. >> might you have taken proactive steps to protect your privacy, for example, take legal proceedings? >> iif i had done that, it would have drawn attention to the story. my motive of the episode was to protect the mother of my child from a press storm so anything like what you just suggested would have been one way of alerting the media, it would have been a matter of public record, and oh, here's a good story, and her life would have been made hell, as is subsequently was. >> yeah. turning that on its head by doing nothing, your life and her life was made hell anyway,

wasn't it? >> well, we held them off for surprisingly long time. they -- after this article, they followed her around. she was a single pregnant woman being tailed by them, one in particular who frightened her a lot. >> yeah. >> over the months of her pregnancy, but they didn't have anything to print that could ling her to me until i visited the hospital after the birth where again, there was a leak from the hospital. at that point, the dam was breached, and we got -- we were bombarded with calls saying we know that this happened, that she had the baby in the hospital and hugh visited, and they knew the fake name she checked in under, so sleerly there was a

leak. again, my attitude was to say nothing, which we did for a long time, and a lot of pressure was put on the tab bloidz, and it was the -- tabloids, and it was the daily mail who had the information of the hospital and fake name, ect.. they said we're going to print the story anyway, what's your comment? because i got wiser over the years, it seemed to me that was a fishing technique, and they didn't want to print the story on their hospital source because it was illegal, so they needed a comment from my side, and that's why i said nothing, and i asked all my various assistance in london, and my pr people in america who didn't even know about the baby to say nothing. >> we're moving ahead of it, and that's all we get there because that's enough details. >> okay, sorry. >> on question on timing in july -- >> yeah. >> then you talk about the phone

calls to -- the phone number, and we see what you say about it, and the man said tell hugh grant to shut up. after that, were the police involved? >> when she told me about it the next day, i immediately called the lawyer, and we agreed to get the police on it it which we did, but the last moment the mother, probably rightly in retrospect, said let's not do that because there's always a chance of a leak from the police, and that will bring down the press storm on my head, so we didn't. >> right. the contact was made with the police. the police were willing to assist, were they not? >> yes, they were. >> but then as they were called off because of the concern about leaks from the press to the police. >> from the police to the

press. >> from the police to the press. >> yeah. you touch on this or deal with it, the final paragraph 6 of your second statement -- >> yeah. >> i'm going to ask you to try to exclude from your mind supposition, speculation, and opinion. do you have any direct evidence of leaks from the police to the press of which you can give us evidence, mr. grant? >> i'm not quite sure where supposition blends into evidence, but -- >> you have knowledge of -- start with that. >> all i know is that for a number of years, got better in recent years, if someone like me called the police for a burglarly, a mugging, something in the street, something to happened to me or my girlfriend, the chances are that a photographer or a porter turns up on your doorstep before a policeman. whether you call that

supposition or fact, i don't know. on top of that, i have, of course, also or poor mcmullen's recorded testimony, not testimony, but what he said about paying the police, you know, a third of the police were back handers from the tabloid press. >> i think there you're commenting on other people's evidence. let's confine it to your own evidence. >> sure. it was not just me who experienced this phenomena of reporters or pops come aaround instead of a policeman. other people who had been in the public eye who had this conversation with complained of the exact same thing. >> right. i think what i'm trying to do is ask you to give an example of something which might give rise to the influence, but an example from your own experience, not you commenting on someone else's

experience. do you see my point? >> yeah. i'm trying to think of specific one. i certainly remember my one girlfriend being mugged, and we call the police, and it was the photographers who came around first. >> okay. >> yeah. >> thank you. keep going back to the second witness statement. you visited the hospital, i think, the day after the child's birth? >> yeah. >> i think, if you don't mind me giving the dates that fit into the cronology, the end of september, isn't it? >> yeah. >> and what happens after that visit? in terms of -- >> well -- >> in terms of press.

>> i had been very reluctant to be present at the birth because of the danger of a leak from the hospital bringing this press storm down on the mother of my child and what was about to be my child. >> yes. >> so i made a plan with the mother not to visit at all, but when she got home from hospital a few days later. she was happy with that plan. she had her parents there and my female cousin, but the day after the birth, i couldn't resist a quick visit. i thought i could get away with it. it was nice, but the day after that, i think it was, the phone calls started from the daily mail, and in this case, saying we know about the baby. we know about hugh visited, and what name she checked in under, we're going 20 write the story. all my fears about the leak seemed to have been justified. >> the evidence you provide to

the inquiry in relation to that -- >> yeah -- >> this, again, is in the -- you look at hg2, it's in the bundle, but ce with provide it to you separately. there's examples of e-mails and texts dated the 21st of october, which is three weeks and a bit after the birth. >> yeah. thank you. [background sounds]

[background sounds] >> the daily mail did not publish a story, did they, until the news had been broken by someone else; that's right, isn't it? >> they threatened to, and they because we didn't comment, it was not broken until there was the american magazine. >> the other way of looking at this is until there was a comment concerning the truth of the story, they quite rightly decided not to publish -- >> that would be wrong. it doesn't say it in the e-mails, but you could bring in my assistant on my publicity people in new york who started to get the calls as well, and on these phone calls, it was consistently, we are publishing this story tomorrow, which is a tactic to make you say something so they can stand up the story that otherwise has to stand up entirely on the piece of leak from hospital. >> whatever they were saying to

you in order to try to get you to concern or deny the -- confirm or deny the story, it's an up -- incontestable fact that they did not publish the story, did they? >> they did not. >> right. it's a fair inference, and the reason was because you didn't confirm the truth. >> i disagree. i think the reason they didn't publish it because they wouldn't have looked good to publish it on leaked information from a hospital, which is unethical. >> they might have obtained the information from somewhere else all together, might have they if >> it's possible, but highly unlikely. >> interest from other newspapers is about this time? >> there was the daily star, i think, were on to it in some ways, yeah, but originally, the whole story had been the subject of back in the days of the pregnancy was subject of news of the world interest --

>> yeah. >> one journalist in particular, and when the news of the world was closed down, that journalist appears 20 have moved over to the -- to have moved over to the daily mail because a lot of work, the calls came from the jowrnist now represent -- journalist now representing the daily mail. >> yeah, that's right. there's no evidence that that journalist took photographs with him from the news of the world to the daily mail, is there? >> the photographs subsequently push published in the daily mail when they published a story about my baby, some of those are identical to the pictures used by news of the world, and whether he took the picture himself or the photographer took the picture, they are the same picture, long lens surveillance shots that the daily mail subsequently published more recently. >> right. they could have been purchased

from the same -- that's a single of the noun who had provided the photographs to the news of the world, couldn't they? >> yes, they could. .. back incident in which it culminated injunction proceedings none of that was covered in your supplementary statement. >> yes. >> it was potentially a very dangerous incident because the grandmother of the child had to jump out of the way of the car in which one or more of these

individuals with the camera; that's correct? >> yes. the house where the mother of my child and my child were besieged was surrounded by the paparazzi and i asked my lawyer what could be done and they said maybe if we could get some pictures of these so that they could be called off. the 61 grandmother of my child took a picture of a man sitting in a car with a great big camera. he turned around and took a lot of pictures of her, wound the window down and shouted a lot of abuse at her and as she crossed the road he drove at her very fast and made her jump out of the way and then at the end of the road he did a u-turn and menaced her with the car. >> i think the police were also involved, were they not? >> well, the police have been called and they're coming on wednesday to see about this. >> at the time my understanding

the police offered to go around and get a statement or investigate the matter with the mother and the grandmother. did you know about that? >> i think -- i can't remember. i think we may have talked about that. i can't remember the exact fact of that. but certainly the police should have involved. >> yes. the police did want to become involved. and they were told and isn't there a suggestion this is improper. they were told by your solicitor you prefer in the first instance to get an injunction, is that possible? >> well, that may be true that my barrister may have said that and he may have been right a police investigation might have taken some time and it may have put one bad pap out of the way and there's a whole bunch of them outside and considering this is an egregious event likely to warrant an injunction against all of these people, that seems like the right tactic that he adopted.

>> yes. now, on questioning the tactical strategy. >> okay. >> and we know what has happened and we've read the reasons in a publicly veritable judgment. but to these serious matters your publicist put out a statement about the -- about the birth; is that right? in the end -- in the end having held off all that time from all these inquiries and this brinkmannship from the british papers and a magazine in america, us magazine seemed to have gotten hold of the story. >> yes. >> and they published it at which point i was in sort of a no-win situation. i in the end decided the best thing to do is because the story within hours was going to go everywhere, particularly, into the british tabloids and i was very anxious that they would

give it a twisted spin. so i thought the best thing to do is to be as honest about the thing as possible. so i said i was delighted by the birth but i did not want the papers to write a twisted version of which suggested that she was a jilted girlfriend so i tried to find a form of words to say that she was a friend but had not been a formal girlfriend and that, therefore, there was no question of her having been jilted as a pregnant mother. >> was it your form of words or your publicist's form of words? >> well, we had a hasty conversation on the phone while i was filming in germany. it was not ideal circumstances. i was dressed as a cannibal at the time. [laughter] >> maybe you were. but there's a form of words which were -- were these, i can confer -- this is your publicist speaking on your behalf.

>> yeah. >> hugh grant is the delighted father of a baby girl. he and the mother had a fleeting affair and while this was not planned, hugh could not be happier or more -- putting it bluntly -- >> as i just said to you i felt it was important to be honest and not to have the wrong version, a twisted version appear in the newspapers who had been my girlfriend which had been dumped when she got pregnant that was not the case or it was a planned pregnancy that i was running from. i didn't want her to be a jilted girlfriend or i was a monster running away from my girlfriend. it's true i have been given a hard time for using those words which is ironic which is actually the truth but that doesn't seem to be very popular.

>> well, one alternative strategy might have been to say simply to confirm the birth of the child that you're a delighted father that this is a private matter and neither the mother nor the father wish to comment further. >> which would have been an invitation to the papers to write something invented about the relationship that i had with that girl. if in the absence of information, they'll make it up. >> what did happen in response to the form of words that you selected? you relied on one piece about amanda brutell which is written in a particular tone or style that other newspapers have put in similar pieces.

are you aware it was quoted in the "times" saying to the effect that you should marry the woman in the guardian and something in the daily telegraph. i mean, it could be said all organizations of the press are intruding into your privacy. but the theme from each of them is not inconsistent? >> well, first of all, there were some supportive pieces as well especially in the broad sheets that said, you know -- gave me some credit for having stood up -- and put my hand up and this is my baby and i'm delighted and, you know, providing for the child and the mother. the hatchet jobs -- that's fine. i expect hatchet jobs. that's been the story for 17 years. but it always does make you grind your teeth slightly when they're based on falsities and

misreportings and the fact that i now had a 21-year-old german girlfriend and, in fact, i don't. that was an invented girlfriend infected by a german tabloid and copied faithfully by british hacks and it was -- the hatchet jobs were based on the fact that i appeared to visit for half hour callously for the birth and if i would have been a really good father that i wouldn't have visited at all since it brought a press storm on the mother's head. >> i'll just finish this little sequence of events before we break but in terms of your privacy, is it your position that these matters should not have been covered at all in the press. so is it your position they should have been covered in a certain way, in a way which

didn't misrepresent -- >> if you cling to the naive notion that newspapers report the truth, nothing could really be wrong with that. i mean, i had a baby with this girl. she's a good friend of mine. she still is a good friend. it's a nice thing. there's really not much more to it than that. but that doesn't necessarily newspapers. a nasty spin has to be given to it, hence, the extraordinary efforts of various newspapers to dig dirt on the new mother, happily enjoying her new baby while "the daily mail" paid 125,000 pounds for her ex-lover to sell private pictures of her. >> i think your complaint is -- it's not the intrusion into your privacy per se. it is the nasty spin they put on a story which have they reported it in a fairer and more accurate way would have been a proper story for them to print; is that right? >> no. there are moments which are intrusions of privacy.

if you paid someone off at the portland hospital to say something about a celebrity's baby that's an invasion of privacy. but also there's an ugly spin being put on a lot of this stuff because it sells papers better. and in the opinion of some people, the particularly ugly spin in the last few weeks given to the birth of my baby was not unrelated to the fact that i'm here today giving evidence at this inquiry and its reference in some of those hatchet jobs including by amanda butell. she gives my concerns of abuses of tabloid press which is a reason i should be loathe. it's possible for some people to see a connection between those hatchet jobs and what i'm saying here and have said for the last few months. >> yes. the part you paid off someone at the portland hospital, that is -- it's just a piece of speculation on your part.

you don't know that's how the story broke at all, do you? >> unless the -- my cousin range up "the daily mail" and told them all the chinese parents who speak no english who did that, it's very hard to draw any other conclusions. >> do you know how the american paper magazine got ahold of the story? >> no. >> well, that may be a convenient -- >> we'll have a break, and you can have a break too. but let me just ask, you've been granted relief, has that grant of relief been reflected in your child and her mother being left alone? >> yes. very grateful for it. >> you'll be conscious that i've made it clear that i would want

to know this intrusion arose as a result of anybody giving evidence to this inquiry? >> yeah. i heard that and i'm grateful for that too. >> can i bring up two very brief matters of chronology. the first was raised in relation to the 1996 daily mirror article that mr. grant refers to paragraph 13 in his witness statement and you ask that it might be possible that we would have the dates. can i just give you those dates because we've managed to obtain them. as i understand it, the visit to the hospital was in may, 1996, the 9th of may. the article which appeared on the daily mirror which was on the 23rd of june of 1996.

the adjudication was not until the 27th of july of 1997 by mr. grant and his recollection, perhaps he's being somewhat generous. perhaps it took over a year for that adjudication to arise. as i understand it, a claim was issued, a legal claim, was issued in october of 1997 which resulted somewhat more speedily in the judgment that he refers to in paragraph 14 being given in his favor in december, only some two months later. >> all right. thank you. >> and then can i move on secondly to the injunction mr. jay referred to the police and reports that the police and the decision to follow a civil course instead or at least in the first instance. can i just remind you, sir, that the incident in relation to the paparazzi who was trying to run

over mr. grant's baby's grandmother's took place on thursday the tuesday of november and i applied the next day for an emergency injunction on friday the 11th of november which was granted by the justice and his reasons arrived a week later, the purpose, of course, was to immediately bring the campaign to an end which as you just heard, it did with remarkable efficiency. that's all i wanted to say, sir. >> okay. thank you. this chronology actually comes out of the justice's judgment, which we've got. >> thank you we are continuing now after this break with testimony from actor

hugh grant. >> you referred to a detail expose a story written by both the mayor and the mayor. i'll give you details of the story as such. can you help us with an approximate date? >> yeah. summer, 2004. >> thank you. go back to the issue of the reporting particularly in the context of your supplementary statements. you refer in your fact statement to a few articles in the sun don't you? >> do i? what do i say?

>> well, look at it. what paragraph is it? >> paragraph 17, towards the bottom of that paragraph. >> yeah. >> this is the second stage. >> it is, yes. >> thank you. >> i don't really want to go over too much of the details of this unless you're content i do so. you've seen, i think, the article in the sun on the 3rd of november. and first of all, it shows a fixture. it says that you're holding

hands with someone. if you look at the paragraph i'm not giving expert photographs it looks like you're holding hands. >> correct. you can see the palm of her hand. >> yes. >> is the woman in the photograph correctly depicted? >> i can't -- >> right. it's separately -- we provided it to you separately. >> so there's three girls in this article, three pictures. three girls. >> we're looking at the one at the bottom of the page. >> sorry, two girls. >> yes, yes. they're both the same girl. >> that is the same girl, yes. >> to me, to be clear the article on the following day,

the 4th of november has some different young girl. >> and there's a picture of me and a girl that is not the same girl. in fact, i have no idea who she is. >> that's right. >> and one of the reasons why they aren't able to find any pictures of me and my new german girlfriend is because i haven't got one. so they've had to find a picture of me and some girl. >> to be fair to the article, i'm just looking at what it says and not any inferences or innuendo which may be gone from it. this woman is not described as your girlfriend, is she? >> you want me to read the whole thing now? >> well, i think you've had the chance to look at it. she's not described as your girlfriend, is she? >> i've not seen that before.

>> i'm sure about that then he ought to have a chance. >> yes. >> well, to me just the article hugh and new girl three weeks before baby. maybe i'm reading a different language. >> okay. i'm just trying to be fair to the authors of this piece, mr. grant. to make a judgment -- >> you've been very, very fair to news international and to associated today. >> i hope i've been fair to everybody. >> you told me backstage you were -- >> i hate to see you googling. >> let me continue to bowl you straight bowls. it reports the woman's denial that this is other than a friend, doesn't it? >> it does. right down there in the bottom line. at the end of the article. >> then it does add in the middle a local report which is

the report from a german magazine build? >> correct. which said after this dinner, this innocent dinner i had with this german girl. not this one but on the page before that i had a completely innocent dinner and dropped her off on the taxi because the paparazzi is board with a man getting into a taxi with a girl. either they invented passionate taxi in the kissing because there was none. i'm on the road here. this is tittle tattle and it's a big stick to beat me on the head because of the birth of my daughter and that's why i'm here in front of the leveson committee and a much too young girl and even though she denied

it was in all these papers. >> i'm seeking to analyze what appears in this article and receive your comment upon it and you've kindly given me that. >> can i just ask you, what's the position of the papers in germany? have they reported you in the way in which you've complained about being -- >> yes, yes. it wouldn't have been germany. it's everywhere. i say in my main statement, you know, this is one of the problems when something is misreported, it's a splatters around the internet. this is a fact that i have a 21-year-old german girlfriend and it doesn't matter unless it's used a stick to beat me again and again and it does become a little wearying and you wished they bothered to ask me or bothered to listen to the girl's denials. >> and is it possible to do something about this in germany? >> it's not -- it's really not a

big -- it's not like it's libelous. i was merely giving an example of the use of misreporting to beat somebody up. it was an agenda to beat someone up. >> i understand the point entirely but i'm trying to understand what i can put a box around in this country whether by way of recommendation or otherwise and what impact that might have elsewhere in the world to somebody who isn't merely a national figure but has international status. you see the point -- >> i think so. >> i'm grappling with. >> well, if the story emanates from abroad, which this one did,

your recommendation, whatever it might be, would have to be, you know, that you at least have to check the fact or -- i mean, it is hard for me to believe i'm going to quarrel over a piece of tittle tattle it. it doesn't matter that much. >> i'm not concerned about this particular article in terms of. indeed, as you probably know, i'm not going to -- this isn't what this inquiry is about. who and what circumstance they knew. and it's not the whole question of regulation of the press in this country and that culture and practices. >> yeah. >> but also how that has impacted or affected by what happens abroad or what happens on the internet. the questioner asked this morning. >> hmmm.

>> so i'm just trying to paint a bigger picture. >> all i can say is when it comes to stories being copied around the world, they are copied from the internet. and they're particularly copied if they come from a website that belongs to a newspaper because newspapers are generally considered to have a certain gravitas and the news-gathering techniques to have a certain professionalism. often, that may be a mistaken assumption. but that is why -- you know, for the story is on a newspaper website, it will scatter much faster and if it's on someone's blog or a tweet or something like that. i can sense i haven't answered your question. >> no. my question is really aimed at the impact that i can have on

other press activity in relation to somebody with a reputation simply by doing what i can do in this country. >> well, there's obviously there's nothing you can do outside of this country. >> i agree. >> but if you made our press behave, then they wouldn't be so damage when they spread on the internet. >> and then the question arises where stories emanate from. i mean, one of the stories you've talked about actually -- i think you said it emanated initially in america but whether it went to america from here or with where, i don't know. >> well, that is always difficult to know. >> yeah. >> i'm just trying to grapple with the whole problem. that's all. and i'm certainly not focusing on individual stories. >> yeah. >> for the reasons that you understand. >> yeah, yeah. >> okay. we'll move off the second written statement. i'm going to cover now some

matters of opinion and try and look at the bigger picture. before i do that, can i ask you some questions about publicity and publicity. >> yeah. >> you've referred at least once to a publicity you have in the u.s.; is that right? >> yeah, how many publicists do you have around the world? >> well, i have one. they're in new york. and i only use them sporadically when films come out and they're not -- they're like antipublicists. they're not for getting publicity but for -- when a film will be coming out warner brothers will be desperate for you to do everything in america and the job of my publicist to pay them not very much money. he's not doing that. he might do that because that's a classy one. that's all they're there for. and between films, i don't pay them. they go on hiatus and they knew

nothing about any of this until they kept getting calls from british tabloids saying he had a baby. >> it's not their function to advise you in relation to your dealings with the press? >> it is in relation in my relation with dealing with press in america when a film comes out. >> yes. >> and a little bit around the world. they tried to be experts on what a tv show to do if you're on a world tour in russia. >> right. >> and to be absolutely honest they throw up their hands when it comes to britain. they have no advice. it's uncontrollable. >> okay. we did see in relation to that little piece of the sun about your health, your publicist declined to comment. >> they called my -- >> just wait for the question. >> yes. >> it looks as if likely or wrongly someone in the sun telephoned your assistant or your publicist for comment and quite rightly got no comment.

is that a fair inference. >> or they phoned my assistant in london who's an executive assistant. she's fantastic. but she's not a publicist. >> it's a stand p.a. >> right. >> and it's really not part of her role to advise you in relation to your dealings with the press? >> not at all. in terms of british press, i have no advice yet myself. >> right. if, for example, you give an interview to the press, you consult your own advisor, no one else; is that correct? >> you're talking about the british press? >> yes. >> well, in 17 years i've only given two interviews to the british press. the rest have either been brought in from abroad -- >> yes.

>> or invented. so the question doesn't really arise. >> yes. you carried one interview, i think, in 2002, which has been -- [inaudible] >> it relates with sandra bullock. [inaudible] >> the question -- [inaudible] >> that people are interested in the film to answer -- [inaudible] i do understand --

[inaudible] >> curiosity -- >> it doesn't mean to say you can obtain that information illegally? >> no. >> and then you continue, when i think about actors i know -- i'd much rather who they're shagdz than what film their doing next? >> that remains true. but again as i say -- i don't mean that information should be obtained illegally. >> and then you -- you go on probably into an area which is -- >> i know it was given -- that quote comes from, i think, a press conference with a thing called the hollywood foreign press association the people who control the golden globes. and it's always a very lighthearted occasion. and i always try to give lighthearted answers and as i

say, in my main statement prior to about a year ago, if the subject of the british tabloids came up in an interview, i took the line that everyone else in the country who's ever been in the crosshairs of british tabloids will take which is to give a neutral answer or a flippant answer. to speak out and criticize is to invite a terrible rainstorm on your head so i think the answer you're referring to is one of those flippant answers. >> well, i assumed it was, mr. grant, that's why i wasn't going to read it out. you quite rightly say whatever the interests of the public may be in your private life, that cannot justify the use of illegal or unethical news-gathering methods; is that correct? >> right.

>> what happens if information has eventually entered the public domain and then once it's in the public domain, the press want to comment on it? is it fair and right for them to do that in your view? >> i think not. i always thought they obtained the information illegally and unethically. why should i help them because first of all their motive was profit. it's never public interest. it's profit. someone is making money out of this. so why would i help them invading my privacy. >> it's probably my fault for asking the question with not ultimate precision. but we see it a little bit in microcosm in relation to the recent history. that for whatever reason "the daily mail" published, you made your point in relation to how "the daily mail" you think obtained relevant information and they didn't act on it and eventually it comes out in the united states of america. we don't know on what basis they

obtained the information after that story. but once it's out in the public domain, it's out in the public domain. and so everyone else from the press can now comment on the story which is by definition in the public domain. would you agree with that? >> that's right. and from experience, i know that not only will they comment but they'll write it with news with little embellishment. they will say a friend tells us or an insider tells us or an insider tells us those are usually invented. they almost never exist. they will create a whole new story based on the original story that could have a very wrong or twisted slant to it. hence, my decision to put out a statement to try to put out the real facts. >> yeah. you've added a sort of extra dimension, quite rightly, that we've got a story which is now in the public domain with some

clear -- [inaudible] >> how the american newspaper obtained the story. >> yeah. >> we simply don't know. once it's in the public domain there it's in the public domain across the world and now the press here comments upon it. your point is what they're not simply to do is embellish the story or fix the news which is untrue. let's agree about that. but if they don't -- if they stop short of doing that and they don't embellish but all they do is comment on you -- >> uh-huh. >> maybe in a way that you don't like, do you have a problem with that? >> no. i don't mind -- listen, i'm ready for comments i don't like. believe me. i'm very really ready for that. i've experienced it. i nash my teeth when those adverse comments or hatchet jobs are based on among facts or lazy journalism like you have a 21-year-old girlfriend or it was cruel for him to only visit for a half hour when, in fact, i was

being kind. i mean, i was trying to protect the mother of my child. that's annoying. but, of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. >> yes. obviously, the inquiry needs to consider this issue of embellishment which is incorrect and that can be corrected or addressed. one way it can be corrected is that you can bring proceedings in defamation. >> yeah. >> what about explaining to the pcc about recent events. have you thought about doing that? >> i experienced, as you saw, way back in 1996, it's not a very positive one. and they took a year so decide it was a wrongful thing for a hospital to give out my medical records. in the case of recent events, my

lawyer did -- before he took out the injunction, while we were trying to get rid of a strategy to get rid of all these paparazzi and reporters who were besieging the mother of my child's house and making her life miserable and following her, he did send a warning letter to the newspapers and he sent it by the pcc and there was a 10% dip in activity outside of the house for maybe 12 hours and then it was back to normal. so my verdict on their contribution to this was that they were ineffectual. >> now, another -- another factor in your case which i say adds -- >> i'm sorry. mr. jay, i would just comment on that. the pcc at the moment is monitoring or provides a service certain to the press.

but that won't ever touch paparazzi, the freelance paparazzi, right? so one of the things one would have to think about whether one could devise assistance irrespective if you're employed by a newspaper? >> yes. you're probably right. or to somehow kill the market for those pictures. i think, you know, there would be no rogue paparazzi if there wasn't big national papers paying for their picture. and so i'm not quite sure which end of that do you attack first. >> so the question then arises, which goes back to the questions

asked about international interests because one could say -- one could do something about in pictures in this country, one wouldn't be able to regulate the pictures abroad. >> that is true. that is true. but i think -- if i'm right, in france, there's laws -- for instance, you can't take someone's picture in a public place. and that does give a much more humane, civilized existence to people in the public eye despite the fact that presumably those pictures could come back in from abroad. is that what you're saying? >> there are problems one could think about the domestic market which is i'm mainly obviously

focused on. but i have in view someone of the public perspective because of the interest that was shown internationally. >> yeah. >> and i'm wondering how that plays in the picture? >> i don't know the answer to your question i'm afraid in terms of international. all i can tell you is that not just in my opinion but in the opinion of other people who are quite well-known around the world, for instance, sometimes do tours, publicity tours with a film or whatever they're unanimous in saying by far and away the worst territory to any kind of publicity is this one. >> and maybe that's right. and maybe, therefore, i just shouldn't worry. i'm just looking for your assistance. that's all. >> well, i think that's right. there's certain pockets of quite toxic yellow journalism around the rest of the world but on the whole it's still done with a

certain elegance, an elegance we've lost in the last 30 years in this country. >> thank you. one comment you haven't spared was directed to "the daily mail." rather than in context of the amanda butell, one strips away the factual inaccuracies particularly with respect to the german woman and you made your point about that. do you have any other broader objection to her piece notwithstanding that it is -- it is due very critical of you. on a human level, you say, of course, i do. i don't like to read that sort of stuff. but we're talking on our piece sort of i think more abstractly

in terms of where the boundaries should be drawn in terms of regulating these pieces 'cause after all, all she is doing is exercising her right to comment. >> right. well, that's fine. >> that's fine, is it? >> it's fine. it's sad that it's based on so much lazy reporting. >> uh-huh. okay. >> a visit to the baby and didn't know the fact. but and it is possible that many of my friends, professors of journalism have range me up and said it's clearly a deliberate hatchet job because you're speaking against tabloid press, that may be true. but i was reluctant even to talk about it in a statement because i've always felt that a comment is a comment and it's really not cool to comment on it. but i was persuaded because of this theory that it might be a stick to beat me with because i'm doing this, that maybe it was relevant. >> yes, yes.

well, i put in the equation three other articles which are admittedly not couched in the same language which make the same sort of point about you and we're weighing on quite a lot of material on a similar nature which you haven't seen all of them. >> i haven't seen all of them, thank god, but you keep coming back to this point, they are based largely on a lot of misreporting. >> yes. >> but for the past, that's not based on this reporting it's perfectly fine to hate me. i have become very accustomed to that. it's been extremely fashionable for a long time and that is what i expect in this country. >> now, mr. grant, we probably got another half an hour. i'm going to give you the opportunity now -- as i've given previous witnesses. >> yeah.

>> to as it were elaborate your opinion, and your opinion is contained mainly in your first statement beginning of 39 and 40. >> yeah. >> this is where i go through -- >> and what i'd like to do with you and make sure we've got your point, okay and we're not skating over them. >> uh-huh. >> and you have them in mind. and your first point -- when i think we'll probably all agree with celebrities and politicians slap the hands with newspapers -- and you've given us some examples and some of the examples you've given human beings who will testify before this inquiry very shortly. >> yeah. i talk about quickly the vulnerable people, who have been victims of trauma such as the

dowlers who we saw earlier today. or the victims of the london bombings or families of soldiers killed in afghanistan. and then i talk about collateral damage. >> yes. >> where my phone is hacked but so is my assistant's my, you know, my brother's my father's whatever it might be. innocent people having their privacy invaded just because they're in the collateral damage. and then i talk about innocent people who have been monstered by the press like christopher jefferies or robert or madeleine mccann whose threats are guilty of guilty crimes -- >> you didn't mean madeleine, you mean her parents. >> i'm sorry. i apologize. >> i understand. >> i only corrected not to get at you but i don't want anyone

to think you said that. >> well, i did and i was wrong. >> and then you deal with the issue of whether egregious of privacy were committed by "news of the world" and you express your opinion about that. here you're hitting on one of the central points of this inquiry. this is what we're trying to investigate. but we're looking at all the evidence and we've heard your position on that and you've given direct evidence in relation to it and everything he says will be taken fully into account. >> yes. and i'd just like to echo from what i heard from one of the witnesses that given the cross-fertilization of journalists in the tabloid world, it's highly unlikely that they only practice dark arts for one title. they are always swapping titles

and i can't believe they didn't practice those arts in other places as well. >> and the third is throwing the baby out with the bath water point. and could you -- could you elaborate on that, in your own words. what you're getting on there? >> well, it is a commonly voiced opinion that you cannot in any way regulate or prove, legislate for the worst practices of the worst journalists in this country without damaging free speech, without muzzling proper journalism. and the matter is be careful with throwing the baby out with

the bath water and i've always said that i don't think it's that difficult to tell the difference between what is bath water and what is a baby. most people it's bloody obvious. and that i've always thought that you just simply take the baby, which in this case is excellent journalism. we're lucky to have some of the best in the world in this country out of the bath and let the bath water run out. >> okay. >> it's a very difficult distinction to make what's good journalism and what's not. i don't say it's black and white. it's a gray area. >> thank you. and the fifth message is to a related point overregulation will lead to the tyranny. can i ask you, please, sir, about what your positive proposals would be in relation to best regulation.

>> it's not -- >> say it again. >> you're on four, i think. any attempt to regulate the press means we're heading for zimbabwe which is another one of these arguments with throwing the baby out with the bath water. >> yes. >> i simply make the point that it's way too simplistic and, two, it's very insincere and used by tabloid newspapers to protect their lucrative business model which is after all almost no journalism no. it's mainly the appropriation usually through illegal means of citizens and fundamental rights of privacy to sell them for profit. and this argument that you can't in any way deal with that without us living in a state like zimbabwe is not absurd but it's highly convenient for them. there's many examples of

regulation between zimbabwe and being the total free for all that we have for you. >> i think -- i think this inquiry -- if you're able to assist to the extent that it degradations in the middle of this sector. no one is suggesting having any kind of form of regulation which will result with zimbabwe or tyranny. we're dealing with something much less extensive than that. >> you are, yes. >> but can you help us suggestions? >> there are forms of -- if you take one end of the scale, safe regulations and you take it to the other end of the scale, no self-regulation, there are various gradations of what some that i call coregulation which

would be regulation by a -- say a panel that would be comprised of partly journalists but partly also nonjournalists in the field who would draw up a code of he haddics and would apply it with proper sanctions, meaning sanctions, either financial or in terms of apologies. .. some wonderful new regulation that would find somewhat appalling abuse by newspaper to find 200,000 pounds. somewhere there has to be a little bit of statute right at

the back to make things meaningful but there are peoplee much more expert on this van me. >> you are right and they willa be callbsing a range of peoplepi with ideas certainly from my perspective it is clear this is a topic that you fought about, , carefully and suffered as you described and have the experience you describe whatd, they're justifiably or not and therefore i wanted to make sure. >> i come to that sort of at the end of my statement. that's were i think there are many ways could make f1 happy. the press is after all the only industry in this country that have a profound influence over other people, our citizens that is regulated only by its cell. there's no other industry like that, whether it is medicine or advertising.

it's all regulated, and no one calls for those regulators to be tougher than press. and yet when it comes to themselves, no regulation. which although and love the idea which would be fantastic if it worked, have absolutely been shown not to have worked for the last 20 or 30 years. we've had so many last chance saloons and it's been a failure. this is the big opportunity now, this inquiry, in my opinion. >> thank you. privacy law under the human rights act -- you made the point -- [inaudible] >> yes. there's a lot the squealing again from the tabloid press about these injunctions and so one. and they say it muzzled the press and it is at a chilling effect. and just make the point, first

of all, no one think is prosecuting "the guardian." secondly, if the public answers defense, why in the case of many vast majorities of these injunction cases to the newspaper in question not even bother to turn up to defend their piece on the grounds of public interest. the judge sits there and says worth the paper? they don't turn out. i ask is that because there's no public interest? i think we all know the answer to that. and i make the point, ultimately it all comes down to public interest and who is better to decide whether a piece of journalism is in the public interest or not. would that be a judge or would it be the tabloid editor who stands to profit commercially from the peace? to me it is the judge, and i would argue that most of the judgments made in these injunction cases have been right, nor have they been

biased. we saw that in the case recently. the judges are quite ready to -- all this fuss from at least the tabloid in from the british press about these injunctions is bogus and convenient. >> this leads into the related point -- >> i am fine with that. >> you say they don't. let's see what happens to that. the nation to appear have been reviewed by single or justice, but here we understand the accusation of being reviewed. number seven, privacy, can only be a rich man toy. that depends a bit on the

survival of conditional theory, is that? >> i think it depends on that and on establishing proper replication pashtun regulation. you should be able to go straight to the regulator and skip the whole court process, especially if you're not a person of means. i think they'll been those wonderful thing to come out of this inquiry is proper regulated to get access to justice of the kind that having to go through the court. but there will always be cases, we will have to go through the courts, and when they do it is scandalous, in my opinion, that this will now be, if what is going through parliament now in the back of the jackson report happens, people without great means will be excluded from justice. if you look at the dowlers, use the cfa in their phone hacking case against "news of the

world," they would not have been able to make that case. they would not have been able to prosecute that case without cfa. jeffries was a man wrongly accused of the murder in brussels, or maligned by the press. had to use the cfa to get justice, sorrow of pain, same thing. without cfa, those people have no justice. and this whole campaign to restrict use of cfa has been very heavily pushed by the tabloid press. and the government in its infinite obedience of the tabloid press has simply said yes, fine. >> okay, thank you. clear on that point, mr. grant. the next point that exposé carry a public interest defense, i think we party major position

clear, clear on that. but please say whatever you wish to say in addition. >> i did say that there is certainly cases where there is a public interest defense, politician, campaign on family value platform. in his obligations, and he's been, you know, having extramarital affair or whatever, i addressed that with a nun, sleep with prostitutes do we need to know about it because he is a hypocrite. but i think that the vast majority of these exposés peoples sex lives are not in the public interest and that the public interest defense offered by tabloid newspapers are very flimsy at best. they'll say he trades on his reputation, but he doesn't. he trades to me quickly on the fact he's a brilliant football. of anyone is buying a pair of his but because they think he's

a great family man. i think they're buying it because he has won lots of trophies for majesty's united. and i read an independent this point, apparently i do the same thing. i trade on my good name and, therefore, there's a public interest defense going into my private life. but i wasn't aware i traded on my good name. i've never had a good name. [laughter] and it's made absolutely no difference at all. i was the man arrested with a prostitute and the film still made tons of money. it doesn't matter. >> okay. i think that's very clear, mr. grant. myth number nine, this is a sort of development about the impact idea speech yes, it's another very common defense of what i would call the privacy invasion industry, some people call it the tabloid press, that what i

see is a myth, people like me want to be in the papers and, therefore, our objections to privacy intrusions are hypocritical. and i go on to some length, explaining how that is a myth, that in my business, for instance, what i need is not to be in "the daily mail" or the mayor, it's to make enjoyable films. that is 85% of success. about 10% of the success is the film is well marketed. soma becomes a good trader or tv spot. right at the end of a 5% of the success might be just before the film comes out you bang the drum a bit and a bit of publicity. quite minor, and you are under an obligation to do it. and not just, sometimes its contractual but more times it's just a moral obligation. someone put up a lot of money for the films. hundreds, sometimes thousands have worked on this for over year. if you didn't do a bit of publicity you would be a monster. you would be -- people would

hate you. so you got to do a bit. but it's only 5% of what contribute to success in the film. and within that 5%, how much of that is tabloid newspapers, or even newspapers at all. very little. what everyone does not is broadcast media. everyone is in television and radio. and if tabloid were so important to the success of the film or success of an actor or a singer, why is it, for instance, none of us in the large ensemble cast actually took to any tabloid newspaper at all when that film was released and the film is still a gigantic? the theory put about by tabloid paper that they are responsible for success films and the create stars. it is entirely in spirit. either they are mad, arrogance, this funny cocoon of self-importance, or it's just toes onenuse it ..

hypocritical. >> isn't it, particularly one goes back towards the start of your successful part of your career, the early 1990s, didn't it help your career that you were quite constantly in the public eye? didn't that make you more attractive to future filmmakers possibly? >> no. i would argue, what may be attracted to the film makers was for weddings and feel, pressure a couple of felt like they said i was arrested with a prostitute, you couldn't call the positive press, and i'm still very high level because someone had made money. in terms of a career, that's all studios cared about. and audiences only care about whether the film is intended or not. i can to examples of films that have wall-to-wall tabloid covers before the come out and still

die at the box office because they're not entertaining. it is a big myth. and i personally have actually argued with my lawyer over the years when making settlements, libel or whatever with papers saying please, forgive me, forget an apology. just make them give an undertaking never to mention my name again. and i can bring you a list of hundreds of people in the public eye in this country who would happily sign up for that. it's such a myth to say we wanted so badly, we are also being, we're dying to be in the paper. it's the last thing anybody wants is to be in a british tabloid newspaper. so long as the work you're doing at that moment is okay. >> you deal with i suppose one aspect or another aspect -- [inaudible] understatement. >> yeah.

>> what is the consideration, if you do an interview with a paper or magazine, you are saying here, well, it doesn't give any lifelong license to publish whatever you like about this subject matter. that, of course, must be right as a matter of common sense. but it surely gives some license to comments, possibly unfavorably on the rest of the and to speak with you are, of course, that would be fine, absolutely fun. but i'm talking here about intrusion. and i have heard the defense quite frequently from tabloid papers, he never talked to your private life, then you have no defense. you have no right to expectation of privacy, which i think is absurd. because anyone, as i told you earlier i think i've only done two interviews with british

press, but when anyone does do interview, it is after all a bargain. that paper gets boost in sales they hope and the person giving the interview gives some noise about the forthcoming project. and when it is over, it's over. i would not expect you to come to me ever afterwards and sing i cannot -- [inaudible] i would think you are mad to spend your point is more specifically, having conducted this little contract, it certainly doesn't authorize the press subsequently to investigate your unlawful and unethical way, or intrude into your privacy? >> that's what i'm saying, yes, exactly that. i do believe in shrine in our bill of rights, you know, a person's basic -- i don't think

you should give that up. >> and the 10th myth is the point -- >> yes. >> you see them glamorizing themselves, oh, well, we might be a bit naughty but, you know, we get the story. but when the story has been obtained by hacking the phone of a murdered schoolgirl or the family of a soldier killed in afghanistan, i don't find that naughty. i find that cowardly and bullying and shocking. and most shocking is that this is been allowed to go on for so long with no one putting their hand up and saying, stop, not the police because they're intimidated. not i in peace because they're intimidated, and not a good because they have been

intimidated. [inaudible] paragraph 88? >> we sort of went over them. i give you, paragraph 86 in a nutshell is included the issue be unacceptable and illegal to deprive a person of the fundamental human right to privacy, and thus there is a public role. it's not rocket science. the ways i would protect it is one, i would resist the clamor of the privacy stealing industry to close down privacy law as it emerged through common law, through the human rights act. and i would disband the pcc and create a proper regulation, which would not only protect people from abuses of privacy or libel of the first, but it would also be there to protect in good

trim, this is the other side of all this. i, for instance, and keen on libel reform. i am keen to see good journalism protected as much as i possibly can. i am the reverse of a muscle or, but i personally feel that the license that the tabloid press has had to steal british citizens privacy for the commercial profit very often will vulnerable british citizens is a scandal, that we could government too long have allowed it to pass. >> mr. grant, is there anything else you wish to tell the inquiry? we've covered the ground. >> no. it's a strange form of interview in the sense i wish i'd been able to read my two statements out loud first, because we

haven't really, it's all been the defending positions in them without anyone saying with the statement as she says. >> i think you will find the statement will be available. >> i hope you will read it. >> they will, mr. grant. further point, i would like to think what you wanted to bring out, you have brought out. if you feel the point -- >> there is one final point. >> please bring it out spent because i'm tired, i wouldn't mind reading it since it's in my statement. it's my conclusion, i guess i don't want to see the end of popular print journalism. i would want a country that was fun into power or success but i like and about and would always want to protect the british, difficult and to take the free press is of course the cornerstone of democracy, i have no question about that. i just think that there has been a section of our press that has

become, allowed to become talks is over the last 20 or 30 years. its main tactic being bullying and intimidation and blackmail. and i think that needs a lot of courage to stand up to. and i feel it is time, you know, this country has a historic we could record standing up to bullies, and i think it's time they found courage to stand up to this bully now. >> thank you very much. >> okay. >> mr. grant, thank you very much. [inaudible] although you may have felt that you're on the back for too often, it was a way of getting the picture a cross so that everybody has had a chance through mr. jay to ask questions, but the thrust of your evidence contained in your statements is clear, and you have no need doubt that i have read it or not paid full

attention to it, and will continue to pay attention to it. >> thank you very much. >> right, thank you. anything else? [inaudible] >> just the issue of anonymity if i may. >> well, let mr. grant, return to where he comes from so he can just relax for a moment. >> right. yes? >> earlier you made a ruling on the ninth of november, and if anybody was thinking of exercising their right under section 38 to seek any review of that, time expired on wednesday. and since then, of course, there has been a draft and an inky protocol, and i think you invited any further submissions to be with you by last thursday at 5:00. we certainly put in the

submissions. i was just raising the matter to see if you wish to confirm the protocol, at anything during the course before -- >> i am happy to do that. i think that essentially the points, many of the points we made eye take on board. i'm happy to clarify some things, if they need clarifying. i'm not entirely sure they do. but i would be surprised if anything in the protocol could impact on the fundamental decisions i made in my ruling. but if there's anything that needs to be done tomorrow, i'll do it. i think there are two slightly separate issues. there's that anonymity that i've granted to one of mr. hsu barnes

clients who i know is h. j. k. and there is some knock on consequences about how we're going to do with his evidence in the absence of anybody saying anything to the contrary. i propose to maintain that anonymity, and to allow him to give evidence in a way that ensures it. that will require taking certain measures, for example, he is likely to give evidence in a cleared inquiry come obviously the participant of lawyers we present. but otherwise nobody. i'm likely not to have a running transcript to publish a transcript as soon thereafter as possible in case something emerges that needs to be redacted. in that way i have, his evidence

will be put in the public domain with any form that doesn't damage the anonymity have sought and which i found to be justifiable picking anybody has any comment about that, i appreciate you have only recently seen the suggestions in that regard i'd be very, very interested to hear them. as regards other people, i'll make sure that i've got the final protocol for you to look at tomorrow. but as i say, i don't think it should really make a difference to whether or not there is an issue that is worthy of ventilation in the divisional court, which, of course, is your decision entirely. >> a couple of points. first, we just received submissions from the metropolitan police relationship the anonymity protocol. just this afternoon, so those will have to be considered.

>> now i'm about to come out. i will say the reason there hasn't been won is because it was only up to the end of literally the end of friday that i saw the last one but i wasn't sure what got them all. indeed, now you heard i haven't gotten them all and i did want to for everything and tell actually heard from everybody. so that's, isa limit on defense, which i was going to say anything about. anything else, mr. jay? >> in relation to h. j. k., one issue, whether when he gives his evidence he will not give evidence in relation to any named newspaper. in other words, that will be redacted out. >> yes. i've made it clear, i think if nonot in a ruling, and i in argument that in relation to any anonymous witness, in order to protect the position of any of

the media, it would be quite wrong to allow names or titles to be identified. i'm not going to make decisions about names and titles, everybody knows i'm looking cost of an practices and ethics across the piece, which is why my questions to mr. grant were of general rather than specific topics. and i would adopt the same process for hjk. so that's a matter of anybody of concern to anybody, then they should say so. thank you. well, thank you very much in the. i repeat my thanks. i will do all the witnesses, particularly those who have come as all have today voluntarily

we will continue covering the british phone-hacking investigation. we will bring you coverage of that hearing over the weekend.

>> next, white house education advisers zakiya smith on the quality and affordability of education and remarks from analysts and activists. this was hosted by the center for american progress. it's an hour and 25 minutes. >> good morning everyone. i am the director of the post-secondary education program here at this center for america progress and i want to welcome you all to the release of our

new brief, including more student voices in higher education policy. for those of you that are familiar with the post-secondary application we spent a good part of the last two years working on the issue of college affordability but from a slightly different tack than some of our peer organization to do excellent work. the conversation is tended to revolve around how do we make college more affordable regardless of the price? what cap has been trying to do in building policy analysis and development is how do you make quality post-secondary education more affordable with regard to price and cost, and evolved over the last two years tube for bodies. one is around consumer information rolled out by julia morgan who is the principle author with us today. that was basically about creating user-friendly consumer

information to improve college choice with the hope of creating a more competitive market in higher education. the second is technology and how technology deeply embedded across the administrative instruction and research functions in higher ed can bring down natural costs and delivery of higher education. today we are beginning an additional plank of policy announcements around student voice. students have typically entered the policymaking process after things have happened and cap is beginning to explore with the help of the lumina foundation, how student voice can be more deeply embedded in the governance of higher education and this brief is our first treatment of that topic and i am looking forward to the conversation both today and when it starts over the next few years. to kick this off i would like to introduce captcha partner organization here. he is her opening remarks

speaker. >> good morning everyone. good morning. alrightall right, there we go, monday. so it is my pleasure to introduce our first guest speaker today come the senior adviser for education at the white house to mystic policy council, zakiya smith. zakiya worked at the department education where she focused on developing solutions to the challenges of college access, affordability and college completion. trier to the shoe is the director of government relations and the advisories committee on student financial assistance. her research focused on college access programs, community community colleges in the ability of and moderate income families to afford college. she also worked for teach for america, it here up in massachusetts and traditional lack caucus foundation. she holds a bachelors degree in political science and secondary education from vanderbilt university and holds a master's degree in education policy and

management from the harvard graduate school of education. let me out by have by the way on a personal note relevant to the topic today zakiya has been incredibly successful at the white house or questions large and small and as always been interested in hearing the student perspective so please join me in welcoming our first speaker, zakiya smith. [applause] >> thank you tobin and thank you all for being here today and being interested in such a relevant topic. i think education policy is one of the most interesting policies in which anyone can be involved. is one that certainly garners a lot of interest. when i think about my colleague at the domestic policy council misstep fair, there are some people that work on housing policies and other people to work on health policy, energy policy. you don't use they have random people on the streets telling what you should do about housing policy but anyone that they meet that here's a work of education

will give a perspective. i think is largely in part because everyone has gone to school with, at some point in their lives so everyone has a perspective about how school -- and i mean everyone has a perspective about our changing policy. in this role i focus on higher education policy has tobin mentioned, college access and affordability, college completion and i hear a lot of those perspectives in my personal role. thankfully though we have pretty clear direction or i have a pretty clear direction with what my role should focus on. the president in 2000 al lined 2020 goals for college completion and that is by 2020 we would be the first in the world with respect to the proportion of arias and adults with college degrees. so in backing back from that goal and thinking about how we achieve that goal and realizing we have a college completion is -- completion crisis in the nation which people don't think about in the same way we think about k-12 crisis. nearly half of the students that start don't finish college and

that is kind of alarming when you first think about it. that goal is one that engulfs my work. a lot of people when they hear about why we have the goal think it's primary and economical and want to make sure we have the best educated work doors, that we have got strong future in the long-term and certain true the president wants to make sure we have the best education workforce in the world but the role of higher education societies much broader than that. when you think about the role of colleges and universities is supposed to be to create citizens prepared to participate actively in the democratic life. they're supposed to be prepared to be good citizens and the benefits of higher education to the general public are broader than just those a purely economic means. certainly by having a college degree you are better off. if you have a bachelors degree the unemployment rate are half of those that don't have a bachelors degree. but the role of higher

indication or civic life is something that we don't necessarily talk about as much perhaps because of the times we are in, but it's really interesting that this is a role of higher education and we don't necessarily model it as much as we should. what i mean by that is if students are supposed to be prepared for civic life but that are way to prepare them being engaged while on campus and the roles of the decisions made while they are on campus? so being an active participant in your society while you were on campus and thinking about him being involved with the decisions that impact he was a great way to model what we would expect of higher education, students who complete higher education once they finish. too often though that voicing campus is missing so the different perspectives that i hear often are those of college president, vice president, the deans, student financial aid administrators, college counselors who all have something to say about college and higher education wind and users the student, the person

that is supposed to benefit is the student. is it's too seldom that we have a student voice. it's not that we never hear from students. off and went in there is tuition increases that are impending and as lewis mentioned long after they decision has been made to increase tuition than the rollout plan for students hear about and administrators know how to kind of deal with that realize okay, this is going to make some students unhappy. we will figure out how to deal with veteran is contained period of time but true valuable input on the front and when decisions are made to pull back funding at the state level or decision is made to include a football team that is going to stop resources because they are not going going to bring as much in. i went to vanderbilt which is probably, the best way to say it is the only school in the sec that hasn't had a violation in the last 10 years. definitely the role that college football can have on campus. when the decisions like that are being made, where's the student voice in how that will impact their campuses in the long-term?

the reasons for students not having as much of a voice as they should have in the higher education process. i think this paper does a great job of laying them out and explaining the transient nature of student life. if you end up graduating you will not be there after a wiles of the college president that is maybe longer-lasting or the administrators or faculty are going to be longer lasting than the student, so those are things that impacted. but i do want to thank the center for bringing this issue to life so hopefully we can start to address some of the solutions to this problem. i would be remiss if i didn't talk about the actions we have taken in the administration to try to elicit some of that student voice and to empower students really think raced influence and power through the use of information and data, so especially when we think about cost and value of college. students in particular and their families have a lot of power and they can vote with their feet. you can't have that kind of

influence, you can't vote with your feet if you don't know what the outcomes on you don't really know if it sure costs are. so you were kind of waiting in the line. the administration has done a couple of things to try to address that. one, we we of the they have a new center for transparency on the department of education web site that looks at the trends and college costs by various types of colleges over time. we have also increased transparency with information on the fafsa so after you get your report back of the colleges you put on the financial aid for mattel is a little bit about their outcomes for students are thinking more about their graduation rates and the different types of colleges they are attending. recently, in the midst of an announcement about student debt and ways we are tried to help students manage their debt, there was maybe a less mentioned portion, one that i think it is important which is a financial aid shopping sheet of sorts of the developing conjunction with the consumer financial protection bureau which has a broader range of authority and

can also help students better understand the differences between the cost and value of the different types of colleges. so imagine if you were choosing between colleges you knew how much are student monthly loans would be first is he getting direct grant and scholarship aid and compare that on a similar basis for every college to attend. those are the types of things we are trying to do to empower students and their families with information that they can use to make a difference. but really knowledge is power, so we are trying to be as transparent as possible and encourage college universities do the same. we are always looking for additional way so when tobin said i'm always accessible that is because i don't think we have the answer here to how to solve a 2020 goal and all of its problems but we are always looking for more solutions. we now open arms students and families with the information they need we are more likely to have an impact on the higher education system. i think the center for american progress is doing great work and opening up this conversation about how student voices came a

good difference and i'm glad to see so many of you all here joining in the conversation. i am looking forward to the discussion. thank you. [applause] >> zakiya has agreed to take a few questions if anyone has any questions for her. wow, it looks like you might get off easy. actually i have one question. so, what's next? >> what's next in this war? or one, the consumer financial protection bureau is taking them put on the financial aid shopping so that that is one-way students one way students have an impact right now. if you look at it and say dismissing something right down the web site consumer finance.gov they are taking feedback so we would hope to have a final version of that the people could use in their everyday lives. i think beyond that, we have these lists of colleges that are increasing cost and looking for better ways to make sure students have that information.

>> how about what's next within that price calculators? >> we are looking -- right now there's a requirement that every college that receives federal financial aid dollars have on their web site a net rice calculator so for those of you who may not be familiar with the lingo net price is the difference between your cost of attendance, your sticker price of a college, what is it go there -- my cost to go there minus the financial aid and scholarships. something discouraging is too often especially in middle and low income students they are scared away from her expense of colleges because they see the cost. my alma mater vanderbilt cost $45,000. when i was there a cost may be $30,000. for me it was free and thankfully i wasn't deterred from its but i hadn't known it was free and harvard and yale because they have generous financial aid packages i might not have applied. you have no idea what the difference will be until you

apply. fill out your fafsa and perhaps you have filled out the css profile many get that but the net price calculator helps students and families understand before they apply how much college will cost them. we are looking for ways to pull that information from those web sites, all the different web sites and aggregated in making more accessible so students can have one shop stopping to find their net price calculator. >> anymore questions? this righty -- this lady right here in the back. >> we represent hundreds of thousands of students and parents, first-generation students. what can we do to encourage institutions to share more information about disaggregate it graduation rate success for low-income low income students etc. so consumers can make that her decisions about where they should attend college? >> thank you. that's a great point and i think

the caller texas organizations have a great role to play between high school students or adults looking to go to college and colleges themselves. one thing is that colleges right now are required to provide health grant graduation rates, so pell grant is a grant that goes to mostly lower to moderate income students and by looking at a former disaggregate it graduation rate. is not a reporting requirements, meaning we don't get that information for many -- every college and university. but if you call them and asked them or fewer in his to her and asked them, they are supposed to tell you. there has been some work out of another think-tank in washington that suggested that maybe they don't do that and maybe no one even knows that is a requirement and they should do that? one thing i should say leading an organization like that saying you should be asking for this information and shaming people when they don't give it to you. that is a great role for a consumer or the general public to play with their art

disclosures required but not necessarily reporting consequences from the federal government when those things don't happen. >> the the gentleman in the back there. >> david gaskin, so you are talking about resources for consumers and that is really good. i work with colleges everyday who are looking for best practices on how they can -- what are they doing for administrators to help them? >> i think we are big elite institutions, there are their differences and institutions doing good things for college completion that others. which is to say we get it bunch of kids, open access. you have to assume our completion rates will be low. look across open access institutions and there's a difference even when you control things like income and grades, control for things like low income status of colleges can do something to improve obviously you would think, do something to improve the quality of students

coming in. what we are doing is in every competition we have had any office of post secondary education, the grant to give back to college universities for various things, most of those we have attacks attached something called a priority for college completion and data tracking so we are saying you get extra points in this grant if you are focused on college completion. at abu ghraib may have been about building institutional capacity, we want you to build that capacity for students to complete college. i was talking to one of my colleagues and she said isn't that what they are supposed to be doing? it's interesting when you ask colleges and universities who is their customer? the student is not always the primary person. there could be the view that colleges are here and if you are not taking advantage of what they have to offer, you no shame on you. we take the perspective of we are providing lots and lots of subsidies for students to attend college and because the public purpose of higher education is so great both for economic and

civic future it is incumbent upon colleges to think about things they can be doing so we are trying to support that in any way we can. >> join me mehgan in thinking zakiya. [applause] i just want to take the liberty to introduce our lead author on the issue today. i see many folks here that no julie says she doesn't need much of an introduction but julie morgan as my colleague at the center for american progress. she has her doctorate in higher education policy from boston college for she was an adjutant faculty member. she got her j.d. from boston law school and her b.a. from the college of william and mary. she is our lead consumer information work and is excited to take on this project about student voice. julie. [applause] >> hayek. thanks so much for that kind

welcome and thank you being here zakiya and our panelist. i'm really excited to do this work. it was a little bit out of sight of what i've been working on for sort of tied in. we started this work from a simple idea. students are the biggest stakeholders in higher education and get they are often not included in the policy discussions that have a huge impact on their lives, how much they pay for college and what kind of services they are getting, what kind of campus they live on, and so this really goes along pretty well with the work on post-high school education. our work has at least been premised on the idea that higher education should be more student centered. there a lot of different constituencies polling at colleges when they're making their decisions and you know we want to encourage them to take a good look at the student body.

how has the american student body changed over time and what can we do to make our colleges better. and you know what sort of seem silly to think about creating a more student centered higher education system without including students in that conversation so that is how i feel this tyson with the other work we have done. when we set about finding that problem of student voice in higher education we felt like there was a problem but it has to be defined pretty well because there are student groups like ussa and our own campus progress who are working every day on higher education policy issues. but i think the occupy wall street movement has helped us to really think about the problem here. you have the students out there at the occupy wall street protest to our demonstrating the fact that a large group of students are really ready to speak out on higher education issues and the issues that matter most to them.

you know as tuition rises, we on the students are taking on more debt to finance their education and they are graduating into a really slow job market. they are frustrated with their situation. they are either unemployed or underemployed. if you look at the tom mboya blog that chronicles, we are the 9010% movement, there a lot of students writing about their student loan debt. i will just read to you from one of them. a student says i graduated from one of the country's top universities with my masters and $150,000 in debt. wanted to work in nonprofit and help make the world a better place. i now work in business giving advice to billion dollar companies on how to best push their products and i do this because i have a 2-year-old daughter who needs to be provided for. and nonprofit seller within 1100-dollar month student loan payment won't cut it. within two weeks of her birth i started saving for college

education because i never wanted her to have the burden of student loans. wanted to be able to follow her dreams i can never got the chance to however i will still warn her that when people tell her she can be anything she wants to be it's a lie. you can only do what you wanted life if you have the money and none of the debt. clearly students are expressing expressing -- recent graduates are expressing quite a bit of frustration with their situation and the idea that the american dream is a lie is a powerful statement. a lot of the students and former students who are protesting at the occupy movements across the country are asking for student loan forgiveness. they have gotten a little bit of this in the white house. the president announced recently a plan that would lessen payments on student loans for students who are involved in the income-based repayment program and those who can consolidate and a direct student loan with a non-direct student loan. those of us who work in higher education recognize that the problem of rising tuition and a

steady decrease in financial aid for especially at state institutions, these require a series of solutions so student loan forgiveness is going to be part of it obviously as the white house has demonstrated. but there are other things we need to do. you to think about ways to cut college costs more and smarter investment in financial aid. strategic uses of on line courseware and even sort of a rethinking of how we manage the quality of educational institutions. so the question that we felt defined a student voice problem is, can students on a college campus have a stronger voice in these complex conversations to have a chance to make a real change on issues they care about including cost, quality and financial aid? we think the answer is yes which is great. that is a great take away from this paper. and so our report just examines the voices that are out there and some of the key barriers

that students face in being a really effective participant in these conversations. it turns out students have a number of avenues available to them for voicing their opinions in higher education so i will just name a few. student government as it did way to voice opinions on campus and a way that they can voice their concerns to the college administration. it on the other hand it can also, many college campuses, it's another club that doles up money to other student organizations and is kind of ignored by the administration so it kind of depends on the structure of the student government as well as how well it really represents the interests of the whole student body. student newspapers can also hold the administration's feet to the fire. on university policy issues and bringing to light the challenges students face that may not be well recognized by the university. but on the other hand journalists have to have access to and knowledge of the

decision-making process on campus on higher education policy issues. we also have statewide and national consumer organizations like. , ussa, the united council of students. these are large organizations that work across multiple campuses and have a lot of potential to support student voice on campus. they oftentimes have a professional staff to provide some continuity as students are graduating. they are also -- there are also grassroots student movements. the protest in the university of california system are a good example of this. is not coming out out of any institutionalized group on campus but rally around a particular cause. working from outside of the university structure can cut both ways in terms of the effectiveness. and then there is also the institutionalized student voices as i call them in the paper but i think they don't really come

to mind when you think about activist student movements. but colleges do have soliciting opinions and getting feedback. student course evaluations would be a major example of this. that is a way for the university is trying to get feedback from the students. the only problem is that it's entirely up to the university how well they incorporate that student voice into changes on the campus. each of these avenues has some potential to help students voiced their opinions but there are some barriers to their effectiveness and here are some of the most common barriers. first there are practical barriers to organizations and these can be campus regulations or rules around organizing. we were talking about this before the event, the campus is oftentimes have rules around how many students can gather in a place at a particular time, what kind of permit to have to get to gather.

also police presence on campus around student activism can be a huge barrier and we see that at the you see davis, the instance of pepper spray used on students. that can have a real chilling effect on the student voice. also a lack of unity within one campus or across several campuses on the policy solutions. occupy wall street i think it's us a little bit of taste of a broad agreement on the fact that student indebtedness is a problem but maybe not exactly what the solution of to the the lack of unity on solutions problem should be. can turn the student voice of it. there is also a failure to develop strong student leadership. there are of course strong student leaders who are arriving on campus is all the time but we need to make sure they are coming from all aspects of student life so particularly low-income and minority students who often are the most at the

affected by high tuition, low financial aid. we need to do you -- be developing leaders out of those groups. another barrier students often don't have access to people and conditions -- positions of power within the university either administrators are at the state and federal government level. a couple of final barriers in case i am boring you with barriers, as more and more nontraditional students enroll at sort of nontraditional universities and i don't really like those terms because it is becoming the new normal in our universities, we need to find a voice for them so students who are involved in on line programs who program to don't have any contact with a campus oftentimes have less of a voice in the traditional age students who is on a freer campus and feels like they are part of a community where they should be voicing an opinion. and then i think one of the really major barriers to student voice in higher education in

particular is a lack of transparency within the university, and also within the government decision-making around higher education policy. it makes it really difficult for students to be fully engaged in higher education debates when they don't know the language that is being used within those debates so as lewis mentioned they weren't there when the decisions were being made. they were all me notified of them later on. so with a diversity of universities out there and a variety of student avenues for student voice, there are a lot of different positive solutions we can recommend. there are a couple of common elements. for one, strong student voices need leaders to come from all kinds of backgrounds particularly low income and nontraditional students. but also strong student voices need a place at the table in higher education policy discussions. that includes greater transparency around college in government decision-making, on policies that affect colleges

and people in positions of power. i think an olive these areas there is a role to be played by the federal and state governments colleges themselves but also philanthropic organizations come organizations like cap that can do a better job of communicating directly with student groups on these issues. and even the student groups themselves. as lewis mentioned this report was meant to be a first step in supporting student voice in higher education and we hope a subscale research we can delve into these areas and they hope that your organizations will do the same. [applause] >> can i ask the panel is to up and join julie here on the dais. their bios are on our web site so i will do a quick

introductions starting with the furthest to my right. dance up on his campus organizer with the u.s. public interest group. to his left, tiffany will loftin vice president of the united states student association and directly to julie's right is angus johnson and his expertise is in student government. take it away, julie. >> so i just want to talk of course you can read their bios but we will get into the interesting part of what exact way you do. if dan wouldn't mind talking a little bit about how your organizations work with students and may be one of the campaign to have been involved in recently? >> good morning everyone. tiffany loftin again. we have been around since 1947. a believe education is a writer

not a privilege. we are student rights student led national organization and i think i can't stress that enough. student run, student led. wave of order of directors at 33 students elected every single year so membership stays fresh and organization stays fresh. we have a president, vice president which is myself of course and we have full-time staff that worked were the organization. the staffer graduates or recent graduates of colleges and universities across the country but all of her students are still in college. we have been trying to tear down barriers for underrepresented communities and low-income students for a really long time. we are based here in d.c. and we also work with the statewide student associations that she was talking about earlier. we have six states actually that are direct members of the ussa and i can go into what those states are of course if questions are asked later. we have him working on a lot of the workaround programs right

now. reaches three issues to work on this year. they work pell grants, the trio program which is a federally funded program which is a pipeline from high school achievement to colleges and community colleges. and we chose preparation ward vote 2012. we want to be sure we are building capacity on our campus is campuses so students have access to dorms and students indifferent student sectors and things like that. those are the issues we chose and working on a pell grant this year when of a supercommittee is making some very crucial changes to the pell grant and his trio program which only serve 10% of the students that it could be serving. students across the country including minnesota which is not a member of the ussa, we did a postcard where students, social media on facebook and twitter. 18% of millennials have a twitter and 80% of congress have twitter so we figured that would be a smart way to get peoples

attention so we did that. we did facebook. we did a call then to congress -- call-in to represent students on the federal level and a postcard campaign where we gathered over 45,000 postcards and delivered -- we are going to deliver them to patty murray's office so we are excited about that. it was a very successful campaign and we got a lot of students involved in the organizing. we got a lot of students engaged in the education around the pell grant and what it means. a lot of students need the pell grant and we know the requirements are changing. what those changes could be, what they might be in finding proactive ways to keep the students voice heard at the front table. >> my name is dan herb and i'm a campus organizer at the university of mellon park. it is the federation of state a student directed and student

funded, don't want to emphasize student director. groups working on a whole range of social issues. the idea was that students would pool their resources to hire professional staff of organized an in advocates for help and run statewide and local campaigns and actually are able to bobby old-time on state capitols and washington d.c. on behalf of students. a quick highlight, i want to keep it short so we can get more questions than for me. when i assisted was a student at the university of california santa barbara i was involved with the -- and i actually did a lot of work in the spring of 2010 on the pell grant program. pell grants are very similar to pell grants at the national level. they are a state based, fee-based program in california. governor schwarzenegger at the time put pell grants on the table. this made a lot of students nervous. a lot of students were defend --

depended on pokhran sustained school. unfortunately they are putting them on the table as an option. we had a bunch of other groups in keating -- including ussa organize a campaign. what we did was actually give personal stories from students on campus so finding students who were personally affected by what will happen if you are pell grant is cut? essentially the immediate response is, wouldn't be able to be in school anymore because i wouldn't be able to afford it. we have 10 chapters in california and showing them to legislators, having a lobby day in sacramento. we met with legislators to let them know this is an extremely important program for students to stay in school. the cool victory was governor schwarzenegger came out in march march 2010 and completely reversed his position. he came out saying how important a pell grant is and doing everything to defend the pell grant program. that was empowering me as a

student to become a student leader on this issue, train the other students on how to create this grassroots movement and coming off the staff after graduating in june, working on similar issues and helping them become student leaders. >> it sounds like you have pretty sophisticated means of getting attention within state government. how do you think he could help other students to get involved in those kinds of campaigns? >> we'd run a massive drive on campus so just come to our meeting and get involved. i have close to 40 student interns at the moment working on a whole range of campaigns. climate change legislation, poverty issues in our community and really if you have an opinion and you want to get involved look for these institutions whether the ussa programs, berg or grams. what i've come to learn as the

students, a lot of students which is very evident in the paper, there's a lot of energy around this and it is really organizations like us like purge and other organizations to amalgamate that and to make it a solid voice, to find a specific solution that we can advocate for and get them to set up lobby days so we can go to legislators running these grassroots campaign so our forces can be heard. is really just bringing them all together. >> angus t. want to tell us a little bit? you are an expert on student activism. maybe you can tell us what is going on with the occupied movements? >> i am a historian of student activism and have a web site student activism.net which is attracting not only historical organizing but also what is going on in the contemporary world. the rise of occupy wall street has really been a coming together of a few different trends. one of which is the student

movement that has arisen since really the fall of 2008 in the course of the current financial crisis in the united states and worldwide. starting in the middle of 2009, there really was a large-scale new student movement coming up in response to cut backs in state funding, to public higher education particularly and also increased tuition, combined at the same time with cuts in enrollment, increases in class size all this kind of stuff. and that movement was actually in california called itself and occupy movement starting in the fall of 2009, has been growing for a while and his sword if merged with the larger occupy wall street movement in the last couple of months. and what we have seen their, you address this a little bit in your opening remarks.

what we have seen there is a tremendous amount of repression reticular be coming out of california student organizing come more than 300 students in the cal state student university systems have been arrested in the last 2.5 years including 66 students at wrigley and one incident who were peacefully occupying the building who were broken up in the middle of the night about 12 hours before they announce their occupation was going to end, and not given an order to disperse, not given a chance to leave, just arrested and taken 40 miles away and kept in holding for a day so that they couldn't rally against their treatment. we have seen what happened not only had davis a few days ago but at or click the week before that, and that kind of police force, physical force against student activism has actually

become routine particularly in california over the past couple of years. what we are seeing now is an interesting moment for us to be having this discussion because with the current amount of attention that the you see davis incident in particular is getting, think we are seeing a much bigger public spotlight on questions of student activism. >> and we in the paper i think native bit of a reference to the idea that universities don't always -- but generally approaching it from a position that universities should be encouraging student voice. it's good for higher education policy but also from that perspective it's good for individual student development. from all of your stances what do you think the approach of the university of administration has been to student activism and what you think it should be?