but you never get it in a million years because the french are a bit precious about that thing, and we said, just nick them, and we did that and didn't pay for them. the other one held up was john major's mistress. >> and you described your personal role in matters. could you tell us how the news of the world obtained a photograph of john mayor's alleged misstress? >> yeah, i was sent to france and lived there and worked for an agency there for awhile and tried to track down the woman who took john major's virginity awhile ago, found her, but couldn't get a picture of her with her new boyfriend. the idea was she traded in the british prime minister for this french weekly, and i think the cleaning was in the house, and

so a bugged my way in and picked it off the mantle piece and copied it. brooks said, no, put it back, and piers said, no, who cares. put it in the paper, which is what we did. ..

so, you know, the normal things, kim may be for a spread and two or three for paid leave. we didn't pay her but because we didn't pay lagat 750 bonus for rubbing off the source of the story but we had a story already. that's why max kept useful for the story even though she takes a low cut. >> in the exchange for money. >> there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. i used to see if we didn't just have 15 speechwriters' we would have 1 million neither at the news desk news of the world all

the time just salles victoria beckham what can say i need ten grand. that's not good. [inaudible] every few minutes. it is the british public that would supply us a vast majority of stories for money. it's what they wanted to read and that they gave to us to find the way to get in the paper. >> the next subject i would like to deal with this payment and i want to be clear to you i'm not asking you to tell me about anything that you personally might have done. are you aware of the news of the world police officers for the information? >> it wasn't a crime, it was investigations commesso i don't

think much of the british police force think there are none among them, and i would prefer to stick my surveillance van outside the home of the policemen and get some dirt on him as a member of the establishment to be ridiculed and not down but didn't to bed with the police where as the crime goes, and a couple of times i have been sent on stories that the crime guys have gotten from policemen. you have to have a long time for him to risk his career by giving a story that is going to make it to grant for the page lead, ten maybe for a spread. that's the risk. some stories are worth a lot. for example the whereabouts.

maybe one phone call saying as indeed we got from the bodyguard but yes landing at helsinki airport this afternoon that was the defining story about as you know the helsinki link. but yes, dangling a carrot was a very good way of getting the best stories which the british public lacked. >> that answer but security guards could i rewind for a moment to pull police. do you have any feeling based on your experience to the extent to which police officers are

prepared to accept money in return for information? >> not as much as they did in the 80's but i think would be very difficult to offered location for pretty much anything but certainly hasn't the 70's was notorious corrupt but to then i got stamped on and got progressively harder to get information from the police unless it was a amana offical way but they got the stories, the ones they might be referring to came from a policeman who was paid. i wrote that story but it was the crime by that facilitated the payment. >> can i ask you now in your experience as a journalist being paid by an newspaper - you have worked for for medically

confidential the information. >> benign chollet and two years prior to that there was a girl like can't remember and 92 she was killed for the special medical record. there is a difference between you and answering the phone to the receptionist or doctors who have seen a positive test of a big star. what do you do? you can't put your fingers in your years. there is a difference in someone to go into that office and flow through the records may be. did we do that? i do know there was a special medical record.

i wasn't told -- generally rebecca's door was open all the time. >> i won't press you but perhaps i could ask this ethical question. however the information comes to you if it is confidential medical the information, if the story is published it is an ethical difference. >> again my feeling is that under the journalists i'm there to catch people out who lie to us and rule over any means i have no problem at all if the target was worth it looking at someone's medical record and i can't remember if i have or if i haven't, but it does justify the

means. mckenzie said if you don't get the story you get pulitzer prizes were you get sent to prison, so i don't know where i'm going with that question. >> are you aware of the newspapers you have worked for that are paying for information from credit card companies? >> actually yeah. i'm fairly sure the start they were able to attract people's credit histories or where they've been with credit cards. they have a recollection to fall back particularly, but again, i see nothing wrong with knowing for example if the government of the bank of england has the debt because that might be relevant to the job and something worth publicizing. >> that is twice you've given the same sort of example to rule

over us is one. now the government of the bank of england. >> what do you distinguish? because a moment ago you were talking about the celebrity. >> yes. this is the whole point about circulation and the public getting with the public wants. they want that because the circulation stays high. it is with the public wants to read and i think the public is clever enough to be the judge and jury of what goes on in the newspapers and they don't need an external judge and jury to describe what shouldn't be published because if they have any distaste for it it would stop buying it. >> what about the person who's the victim? >> the ordinary people who buy the product set themselves up for being the victim also. there is no difference between an ordinary man or woman, celebrity, or someone who rules

over us because it sells the product. it is clear this is the british public want to read. there is a taste and a market for it. >> the same question and related to the telephone companies, are you aware of any of the newspapers that they were fort for paying for information for example british telecom for the mobile phone company? >> that was kind of the trick. the people employed or more into bagging to try to trick people love their codes. that's why they made so much money because for some reason he was really good at that. >> moving into the question of the privacy investigators.

health extensive in your experience was the use of the private investigation news of the world? >> it was too expensive. i spent five years and then things were made suddenly confronted with the budget that was before me, and i really couldn't believe it. somebody paid 4,000 pounds. that's a lot of it but we did have to future writers and the answer was actually most of the time we didn't. it was amazing reporters would make the number of phone calls because they didn't want to sit outside the house the got an agency to do it for them. the turnaround the numbers and they got a picture without actually doing any work. in reality of what really needed was someone to drive up there in a car to follow whoever it was

we suspected of the wrongdoing rather than waste all of this money on the unnecessary detail. i would never want to bring anybody until i get the van outside the house it was just going to tip them off. whereas you got a much greater chance of getting a kiss on the doorstep you were looking for. so i tried to rein in. but not only that i wanted to know exactly what they were doing so demanding that bags you are paying to do this. so how do you do it? didn't want to answer because it was in their interest, not exactly to tell me how to, you know, obtain a pin number for the mobile phone because that is where they were making their money. when finally i said i'm paying you for the tape send it in. funny when i listen to some of the tapes they were awful.

they were worse than anything i could have done. i felt who are these people? you look more closely into from the private investigator is. you see a professional footballer in one case it was a hell's angel and steve at least had a pedigree and was quite respectable in the sense. excuse me. >> so i stopped using the hell's angel and felt this is going to get them into trouble and a lot of trouble with did get us into. >> what sort of trouble did you get? >> it was being taped by rios as an unnecessary things and a waste of money. no good could come of it, and

there were other parts of the newspaper pressing the accelerator and they were going there with anticarson. >> can you give an indication of the number of the different private investigators you were aware were being used? >> i remember one of my colleagues today shot in the investigative firm in britain. i spent an afternoon at a private investigative conference just saying sometimes some of your clients are going to have stories who might want to get revenge by also selling it to the news of the world and make another 10,000 pounds to actively recruit private investigators and most private investigations will have one good story on the books maybe

once a year or once every two years, but then there was quite a good way to go. >> [inaudible] >> we use the investigator who was legitimate and married to a police officer and knew exactly where the boundaries were and never stepped over them. >> and didn't commit any illegal act. can you give the inquiry an indication of the range of things required by the investigators? >> one of the hardest things working to the deadline he need to get an interview to know where that person is to have a knock on the door and it's quite hard in the old days and the worst case news agency we used to go to the records office to get a marriage certificate, name of first husband and the maiden name and then to the mother in

about ten minutes it's just amazing. they cannot triangulate where the most likely address is. that's good and that's legal. that's using computer technology you can borrow off the shelf. it's quite expensive and it's quite hard to operate effectively the good and legitimate private investigators can address in a matter of minutes because the deadline is going and somebody has to follow. >> you give an impression that it was the reason for the efficiency. would that be right to try to find the method of obtaining information that was perhaps removed from journalists that word in my will to some extent?

>> you are going to have to be more specific. if the news of the world commissioned a private investigator to do something it could be blamed on the investigator and not on the journalist. >> i can see that being one step away from that. yeah. i can't cross that an equally i think there was a -- that was a mistake that some of my colleagues have made and that is why there is a paper trail that links them directly to say as an investigator of some experience i didn't need to go down that route. i could get a little more comfortable using my own bags but i was the only one who knew about it. i didn't have to pay anyone. there was no paper trail leading to anything i'd done. these investigators of the news,

i think unless i was sitting here i would laugh at the police when they would say we are going to arrest you tomorrow what have you got you haven't got anything because i know what i did and i know how much it paid to do things. i wouldn't have paid someone to do something illegal then going to build the act. so why don't think you are going to get people like myself for others like that at all because they were double deutsch and the legal act any way. some people did have that the velocity let's put it one step away. >> turning to a new topic, that is pursuing celebrities. you have any experience at pursuing celebrities?

>> yes. >> and was a tabloid tactic? >> at news of the world we had about 12 that we could switch and a small round because you could park outside and the sankar is there on thursday and is quite handy, and yes i absolutely loved it. it was such a good fun. how many jobs can you actually have? was great. >> and afterwards? >> [inaudible] >> can you speak up, please? >> there was a change to read the news of the world photographers had to wear a suit and were quite clear in distancing ourselves from the pot for -- proper -- paparazzi

to the estimate was any consideration given to [inaudible] as a celebrity? >> quite rightfully the celebrities with excellently love it. i give an example of brad pitt. he has got a big motor bag. he would come out and he stayed as the number one star and isn't one to complain about. sienna miller should be [inaudible] occasionally he would come out and go let's go and they would just have a laugh.

so he had a very positive attitude towards that aspect of the job which was a whole other firm. >> was any thought given to the ethics of whether there was the proper thing to do? >> i think it was just something they said. >> do you have any experience or journalists searching through people's luggage to find information? >> whether or not this was legal -- >> there's no need to tell us about your own involvement what were interested in at this stage and not for practice went on

>> i think most journalists, me included with the content incredibly interesting. it gives you such a great startling point much better actually and hacking the phone. is it illegal to go through someone? >> what i'm saying is there is no need -- what i would like to know is whether there is information to the rest of your knowledge? >> that surveillance joost? >> i was trying to make a -- get

a cocaine smuggling ring and i got to know them quite well and the city among them and in the old days you didn't have the tiny little cameras sometimes he would have a battery pack strapped to the fact and the two guys who were nice to be at the drop of a hat. it was a very dangerous job and i had someone backing me about site in that particular and i was getting close to the end of the table and i'd been there about 45 minutes in 1945 just waiting for the quick and i had to get out of their. it was like a test, and i remember they brought a lot of cocaine in it there was about

two and a half left >> it was in the extreme panic about to click off and was being tested that is the kind of pressure you're under when you were doing investigations. it's not easy. you can't say to you smuggle a lot of cocaine? you can't, you have to be more clever than that. >> to understand the need for a clever activity that remains in relation to celebrity. >> yes. obviously it was. >> without the same threat? >> after my closest meredith experience of the us sunseekers

i thought i'm not getting paid enough to do this. the most dispiriting thing was a token perhaps of the squadron leader i was really enjoying it and i used to pull copies and i remember writing the front page of the times once and long pieces for the sunday telegraph and i thought this is great i hope i can stay a long time for the news editor saying the war isn't doing very well. they are on a satellite phone from can i come back to london and do some soul be the commercial business? so i suppose i threw myself out

to enlighten the british public who have now turned against journalists somewhat. >> when engaging in the covert celebrities was there any sort of consideration as to whether or not it was an ethically proper thing to do? >> absolutely. it's nonsense. hugh grant prances but for the camera and then complains about it. steve says i'm a serious actor and a writer and i want to talk about my privacy. sienna miller, what does she do? [inaudible] you're interfering with my privacy. and another one. a series of calls for the enquirer on robert patton pattenson. i can't believe this sienna miller go away.

there's a joke actually i'm writing a book the title is i've never heard it sienna miller until she starts going on about her privacy and exactly the same with hugh grant. he hadn't made a film for two years. the pictures i took of him could hardly sell. fiber his publicist and would say your career will do battle with a sudden ten times the number of photographers outside his house than there were before so the huge amount of cynicism for both hugh grant they've done rather well with their careers by their privacy. >> you don't need to do that. all you have to do is people lose interest in you very, very quickly. it doesn't take long but if you jump back onto the stage it

happens all the time. it happens with katie price going to hear dressers and she knew i missed her because she was too good at pretending not to like the just because i saw her going to the hairdressers. she came out of the hair dressers and she gave me the finger through the hair dresser's door and she knew exactly what she was doing. she came out and gave me the bird, and another example -- >> i'm going to stop you there and ask you this so that we can

understand. are you telling us in your view there should be no such thing as privacy? >> in 21 years of invading people's privacy i've never come across anyone who's been doing any good -- people who i think need privacy are people who do bad things. privacy is this these bad people need to do bad things in. privacy is particularly bad and if you keep that in mind, privacy fundamentally no one else needs it. privacy is evil. it brings out the worst qualities in people. they've got hypocrisy. allows them to do bad things, and once the british public wises up to the true perils of

one spinoff ferc sample if there is a privacy law your secrets are going to be much more available than they were before, so i think an example of somebody who is in a free and open society who for example gives a lecture and wants to pour a child. in britain you can do that privately but if that person goes on there is power to the person that has the secret where if you live in a society as you can have an abortion but you must do it openly. you cannot have any privacy in the same way as legalizing heroin will get rid of the drug dealers privacy will have really bad consequences not just for democracy but in a whole host of

ways. >> can attest that against the article you root against jennifer l. yet? jennifer l. yet was the daughter and you wrote a story about her in 1995, didn't you? and the theme of the story was that she was begging and working part time as a prostitute. >> there are a couple of stories that i regret to read more so after she was caught stealing and then i interviewed her again and she kills herself and jennifer went on to overdose

after an article that absolutely humiliated her and it was unnecessary and i regret it because i got to know her fairly well and quite liked the position. her father just died of aids and she was on a methadone script which i knew about for the heroine needles and also there were notes with of the same number in her been. so i knew exactly where she was sad and the fact that she was digging out side of the station came to the claimant reporter from the police officer who was surprised who he had told to move on because in fact they had been in the trading places and had been a millionaire and indeed his daughter lived in a really nice flat in camden but she didn't have any money to get

the ten lb bag or whatever it is she needed. i went too far on that story. she was crying out for help not to me as a news of the world reporter, and i said quit digging and gave me 50 and came back to my place and the tape recorders running, photographer hiding in the bush. it gets worse but i don't need to go into the details of it because it is not something children should be listening to. we then took her back to the flat and took a load of pictures of her topless and then i think

she was in the grips of addiction and she said she described me as her boyfriend so i had befriended her. i did want to help her but i was driven primarily to write the best story i could. it was here is the golden girl on the carpet as her dad goes to pick up a golden globe and she was really pretty and here she is with digging at the change station offering sex in return for money and also a police officer had come across her and should have helped her as well,

and then when i learned a few years later that she had killed herself that was one regret but not many. >> does that experience make you think that in fact there ought to be some form of protection for privacy? >> no because the news of the world didn't decline after that putting off on buying at. the judge about the leadership came with that. >> i don't think you can argue that you are not allowed to read this. people should have freedom of speech and people should be able to choose their own judgment about whether or not they want to buy something no matter how distasteful it is and crack is distasteful to me.

[inaudible] the public carried on. >> i asked you earlier i understand there was an occasion where you gave prior notice of the story to jefferson king, and when you give that prior notice in that case what was your objective? >> he was a gladiator and have problems with drugs he was a role model needed to be fired and said of the sting to captured and we had a mold of

what tell us exactly what they were up to and so we knew so i run him up and said you are in the trouble because you have been caught by by teeing cocaine. tell me all about it and i will tell you do it like this and he wasn't very bright and said [inaudible] yes, i've done a lot of cocaine. he went i've got a lot of cocaine. thanks very much. so he hasn't really worked since. >> do you consider that ethical? >> i like to think they are responsible for a lot of misery around the world.

esen yes. >> legal oversight. how much was there when you were working for the press? >> what you read in the book is on tape. you would not be allowed to get -- not to do an interview that wasn't recorded. if there was any doubt or problem with it if the editor was a bit concerned he would have you sit down and transcribe it turned out and then tom would want to listen to the transcript. >> did you get the impression that the judgments the were being made prior to the publication were aimed at insuring compliance with the law

or were they based on the judgment of how much profit would be made from publishing the story with possible financial consequences of the collection? -- legal action? >> boustany sure we didn't get sued. any possible story could go in the paper and was tom crone's job to make sure that any attempt to sue us here's the for u-haul thumb here's the tape. least once a month someone would try to attempt to sue every story i've written because it was a way of making a lot of money and the but deny it, they would deny everything said. and you would turn around and say join the conscript and they would back away. in seven years i said i.t. fi

diane upright and about 300 stories and news of the world. they were on tape. >> and the question of the expenses. can you tell us a little bit, again, without any personal examples of the culture in the tabloid newspapers that you work for in relation to expenses crux first of all, the news of the world. how would you describe the attitude of the consensus in news of the world? >> in some regards we were not well paid. the salary was only 60,000 year and as a way to bump up the salary we were given a certain amount of leeway of 15 or 20 a

year. is that legal? it's not. that was just the way for example one guy was living the side down and they would say listen you've got to start making up so your expenses match the rest of this so it was almost a direction from above. we were not fooling anyone. >> without telling us what you personally did, was it a case of people putting in excessive expense claims that did not match the actual expenditure? >> it can be slightly creative

but also that is one we they would get rid of you as well. for example, i remember i was trying to get back from kosovo but the only way out was fleeing the last plane and they were charging so much money for that flight and just for one time in my life put his hand in his pocket and gave a five-star hotel in greece and first-class flight because he knew in that particular the reporter had gone out with us we had gone to that checkpoint and the then shot in the head by albanians and we had met with them and the machine guns but missed and so we want to get out now and yeah, you are allowed only way if there is give-and-take.

that is great for the two or three grand of expenses. thank you. >> can i ask you now a question about the relationship between the news of the world and are you aware whether any sticks and carrots were provided by the newspaper to turn a blind eye to anything? >> welcome and would have to say that the way it developed from the time that margaret thatcher wanted to develop and he said well you back me and he did. the next time tony blair flew to sydney when it was his turn to ask will you back me and he did and he won the election, then

comes cameron's turn and he does the same but for the previous 21 years, you've got the political parties and the prime minister says we have a lot so we are going to turn a blind eye to what really devotee might be going on. if that's the way your viewing news of the world into an equally this is the way we will view it, too and so that's why we get to the point where david cameron wants to become prime minister and he ends up so for the 21 years you have the culture of the illegality of the phone hacking of expenses if you like and it's going on under brooks, so what we have is the future prime minister cozying up

and, you know, being molded by the criminals in chief, the association, cameron's election based on criminality and that is why i was excited when i first met davis that's why i'm gwen to stick my surveillance outside of flecha brooks house because fundamentally it was a great story and james and can run all kind of planning and scheming how they were going to try to make him an the next prime minister and for the back of trucks and discipline to jail for the things she did which helped cameron become the prime minister this is my watergate. i'm going to bring down the government and the way to bring down the news of the world was a shock of the turnaround but i'm responsible for the reopening of the investigation which has led

to the notebooks being gone through and ended up with the realization that the phone had been hacked and here we are today. >> you've explained what you think is the relationship between the various politicians and murdoch. is that something you have direct on the job or not? >> i spent a while going around all the parts we used to meet each other around side their houses. you don't need to regulate the press. we will regulate ourselves. not only over here with the surveillance van outside and also somewhere in there the daily mail living of the learnings because the number of

them who advertise in the publications. when i confronted him it was i hadn't noticed a good bit of journalism so if the story anybody that is a celebrity be it press or you're own boss if there is a good enough story and that is the job of the journalists to keep the journal of the day and write about what happens and about those that have power over us. >> here's what you said in your answer about the police and how they might have behaved with the news of the world is that a matter of speculation or is that something that you have direct knowledge of? >> wally have the direct knowledge in the sense that they made three requests to come in to give evidence in the caution which means i would have been arrested before giving evidence

and i refuse and they read me a letter saying i must come in to give evidence and in return i just said no, i'm not coming into the you know where i am but drive down interest me if you want to. instead note new evidence, case closed. i kept jumping up and down about that and that's why it was reopened in the that is why we are here today follow because clearly there had been a cover-up because journalists are involved with senior police officers and have become quite an intimate relationship between politicians, the police and the journalists, too cozy maybe.

on a lot more comfortable with that side of things and deeply suspicious of the police officers and i prefer to come at that question from the ankle than to say. >> let me ask you now about acc to read to you have an opinion in your experience about how effective the acc has been as a regulator of the press? >> people have stepped back a bit. the days when it was so much fun to have gone. they don't want to be taken off in the proprietor may say you

have to many against you we need a new editor because public opinion will go against us which fundamentally is the product has to sell but the moment it isn't selling well. my new agency was the best because they were not the commission to keep their journalists in work anymore. you don't need to tap down because the press is without restrictions to its changing industry and i think in ten years' time newspapers will be quite a different. >> you've spoken out since the story broke. can i ask you this, have you been by news international or

any other not to speak out? >> some of my former colleagues have given me a day in the lives and a few of them passed by me because fundamentally the low men, the reporters were skirred but our bosses so for that reason alone -- >> they were not risks. >> they would record them and throw it back in their face. steve nicu said at one point in your evidence that others were worse i think. are you in the position to give an informed view about whether

or not they work with evidence based cox. about ten years ago i did a shift on the sunday mirror and the news editor. it's a guangya knows and is he going to leave it behind? i'm not going to say anything about any other newspapers because i'm pretty unplayable residues so i better not carry on the on that route. >> is their anything you'd like to say to assist in the

recommendations for the future of the press? >> yes. this came about due to the phone hacking i don't think anyone disputes two celebrities being panned by the same companies paid me, 20 of century fox and the international. but, i have a two-year old son who went missing for about 20 minutes and i felt emotion i imagined when her child went missing and it is one of the most powerful emotions you can feel sprinting up and on the street and went to the park thinking the guard opened, and

now it's clear that he appears to have furnished the information to allow the hacking of the phone and it's very difficult for me to say actually because i know how corrupt the police can be, and the hacking of her phone was not a bad thing for journalists, a well-meaning journalist trying to help find the girl. we did a world famous interview. for the people there saying the police are corrupt and more likely to commit them solve one so they reached me and said help

waukee the enthusiastic trigger for journalists on their side looking and heroin weighing it must be for colleagues to hide away information when it's not such a bad thing. there's a number of articles i wrote. i will show you one. not the first journalist to put a link to the real way. cool ending story to read our intentions were good and honorable. we were doing our best to find the little girl and the police were utterly incompetent and should be ashamed the man who killed her were able to carry on and now there's a number of others without children and i

felt the same emotion losing a child that i imagine and you must put that aside and say actually the press and the free press and the press that stays in the grey area is a good thing for the country and the democracy and that's all. >> thank you. thank you for you

>> although he lost his had a lasting influence on american politics. he other final candidate in c-span's 14 week series, the contenders. live friday at 8 p.m. eastern. to see all the programs of our series go to c-span.org/thecontenders.