murdoch, james, through all the civil actions, have you been paying glenn mulkhair's legal fees? not you personally, but your organization. >> as i said earlier to the question from mr. davies, there are -- >> no, no. let's keep it short. yes or no? it's a yes or no question. >> i don't know the current status of those. you asked the question are we paying all of his legal fees. >> have you been paying legal fees during the course of the civil actions? >> i don't know the details of the civil actions but i do know that certain legal fees were paid for mr. mulkhair by the company and i was as surprised and shocked to learn that as you are. >> can you understand that people might ask why a company might wish to pay the legal fees of a convicted felon who's been involved -- intimately involved in the destruction of your reputation if it were not to buy his cooperation of silence? >> i can understand that and that's exactly why i asked the question. that's exactly what -- when the allegations came out, i said are we really doing this? is this what the company is doing? on legal advic

going back to the trial of glenn mulkhair and clive goodman, clive goodman, was pleading guilty to a criminal offense. did news international pay clive goodman's legal fees for his trial? >> i was not -- i do want to be clear with the chronology. first of all, i do not have firsthand knowledge of those times. remember, that my involvement in these matters started in 2008. in 2007-, up until december i ws totally focused as chief executive of a public company. >> who would know. >> but i can try to answer the first question first. it is customary with employees or with other -- with litigation to pay some set of legal expenses on behalf of those to try to bring all of the evidence to a court and so on, and that's all been done in accordance with -- since any involvement that i've had any knowledge of this in accordance with legal advice about what the proper way to do things was. but i can speak to the 2007 arrangements. i don't have firsthand knowledge of those. >> i'll try to help out. clive goodman employed the services of a qc called john kelsey frye. i don't know if he's a lawyer