Forum Topic

Leveson Fiasco used by the CPS

The following comments are purely apolitical: It feels me with disgust to have heard that Rebbeca Brooks has been charged with 3 serious offences:1/Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice2/Concealing Computers3/Removing Materials from the Newspaper ArchivesIf anyoine watched her attendance at the Leveson Inquiry late last week then perhaps they came to the same conclusion as I, Robert Jay asked and expected answers to only questions that he considered relevant, he wished to know how many times Mr Cameron had visited her house in Gloucester(NONE) and what was discussed,yet when Miss Brooks began telling of a conversation that she had had with Tony Blair he was quite uppity and said that he was not interested in their conversation.When one considers that this fiasco began under his auspices and that without Rupert Murdoch Labour would not have managed or even gotten into power in the first place.An Investigation should cover ALL aspects of everything and anything appertaining to it.When you consider that Miss Brooks was BANNED FROM PUBLISHING HER BOOK about this ERA, then both the Levison and Police Inquiry is absolutely ridiculous because the truth will never ever come out to we the lowly public only what the powers that be consider that we should hear. FREEDOM OF SPEECH ALSO FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY TO ALL OF US AND SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO BE TAKEN FROM US.

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d46 Comments

Why should any one politician judge such a grandious scheme, no one person should control such a vast media organisation.The question should have gone before Parliament and been voted on however it would appear that none of them have the *alls to give an opinion, just in case it is the wrong one.

Dawn Hardy ● 4823d

Quite frankly Tony I'm sure politicians wish that this Pandoras Box was never opened.

Dawn Hardy ● 4823d

I thought Jeremy Hunt was due to appear today and yet it has been put off until next Thursday. Tony Blair is to appear on Monday.The thing that I cannot get my head around is why Lord Leveson deemed it appropriate to allow newspapers to publish this memo, after all if you listen to Robert Jay go through the mountains of files he continually states that that or this is confidential.Will we be able to listen to all of Tony Blairs cross examination or will it be a tat r tat,(scuse the cock-eny) I shall ask one of my grandchildren to teach me how to use their IPAD, would'nt want to miss a minute of this saga.

Dawn Hardy ● 4823d

"An awful lot of money is wasted on a daily basis when the Investigation could and should have been left to the Police Force..."  That's a novel thought,I suppose it could work. Having the accused,the investigators,judge and jury all under the same roof would save money,   It's growing on me the more I don't think about it.

Tony Wood ● 4823d

'Private Eye':1 - comments to undercover journalists which rendered Vince Cable unfit to judge BSkyB takeover.161 - E-mails to and from News Corp lobbyists which apparently do not render Jeremy Hunt unfit to judge ongoing media regulation.

Vanessa Smith ● 4823d

Jeremy Hunt wrote to Dave and told him that the Murdoch bid would be good for the UK.Dave, being a good friend of some News International types had no reason to doubt this unbiased opinion of course.Vince Cable doesnt like Murdoch and told some pinko BBC Peston journalist that he would block the bid.Unacceptable said Dave and Cable was despatched.Hmm thought Dave, who shall I get to act in a quasi judicial role on this matter - I know, young Jeremy !Nothing to see here Dawn, it's just a nice bedtime story.

Richard Smith ● 4823d

Do you know, Dawn, I agree with you about the police downloading info from people's mobiles when they've not even been charged with anything, let alone convicted. I find this unacceptable.I'm going for a lie down now.

Susan Kelly ● 4823d

I watched Fred Michell & Adam Smith today being questioned by the overpaid QC Robert Jay however hard he tried he in the end was disappointed because they both refused to say that Jeremy Hunt was compliant in any plot to assist the BSKYB (Murdoch)takeover.I thought the Leveson Inquiry was to ascertain whether Reporters and Editors of the now defunct NOW were guilty of phone hacking over a 13 year period, it certainly seems that Mr Jay is really only interested in the period 2010 onward.As far as I could ascertain it would appear that Jeremy Hunt acted in good faith by putting the decision to! wait for it!! a committee, even though according to Fred Michell News Corp had approached the Europeans on whether it would be acceptable.Is this inquiry all about bringing down the duo government we have at this moment in power I ask myself. An awful lot of money is wasted on a daily basis when the Investigation could and should have been left to the Police Force...

Dawn Hardy ● 4823d

It would seem that Jeremy Hunt is due to appear on Friday concerning e-mails supposedly appertaining to the BSKYB deal. Ed Miliband should remember that there are far greater concerns occurring within the UK, he should use his Shadow position better.He would better served by insisting on a Parliamentary vote on whether Mr Murdoch should be permitted,or when given the opportunity he would buy the additional shares to own BSKYB completely.IMO no one person should be allowed to own a conglomerate, to much power.

Dawn Hardy ● 4825d

You are quite right however I tend to take opportunities when they show themselves otherwise there is absolutely no input from others such as yourself.

Dawn Hardy ● 4825d

Sorry, Dawn, but I feel a good grief coming on.  If you are going to start on the Tax system better make it fair all round and analyse what we what we want and expect of it, then start a whole new thread, nay a whole new forum! (ditto immigration; ditto child benefits; ditto education; ditto....).

Sarah Felstead ● 4825d

Apologies I assumed wrongly that these Police were part of the Investigation ongoing, this is to do with a 250 Million Pound fraud...

Dawn Hardy ● 4825d

Tax Avoidance Arrangements are "Endemic" within the Civil Service so says Danny Alexander.Why not halt the Leveson Inquiry to investigate just how much tax is owed by these overpaid bureaucrat's after all if we do not pay our tax we are penalized.Preferential Tax Avoidance should not be allowed.

Dawn Hardy ● 4825d

Two Former Scotland Yard Detectives and one serving Officer have been arrested on "suspicion" of bribing a serving Detective!Consequently another four lives and families are to be torn apart. When will it end!!Quite frankly it should never have been started.Why? it means MP's know have Carte Blanche to do as they please.Who watches the watcher?

Dawn Hardy ● 4825d

To continue it would appear that even if you are innocent the information downloaded whilst under arrest will be kept on a main frame.My question is Why? are we having an investiugation into alleged phone hacking when  some of our Police Forces are doing this on a daily basis.Surely this is an infringement of our rights and whilst I do appreciate that there are some really bad people out there, would it not be legally right for the individual Police Forces to apply for a Warrant to download the Phones.We cannot have one rule for part of our society purely because they are the Police, we must all adhere to our set laws. Is this the start of a Big Brother Society!!!

Dawn Hardy ● 4826d

Is anyone able to tell me when the Law to download arrested peoples mobile phones was passed by the Houses of Parliament unfortunately I do not remember this actually happening.If this is the case then why are Police Forces all over the country doing this, no it is not my imagination it was actually on Ceefax Beeb late last week, I have waited this long to hear it live, that has not happened.

Dawn Hardy ● 4826d

Lord Leveson is to be congratulated he has at last began to bring this fiasco into perspective, he voiced his concern that Tom Watson does not bring a dispassionate eye to the issues with which he Lord Leveson is concerned.Lord Leveson took time to acknowledge that not only News International wrote criticisms about political issues. How is it that Tom Watson was reading whilst answering questions from Robert Jay, it appeared that he was given knowledge of his questions before time, very worrying.

Dawn Hardy ● 4826d

Ah! Considering I only read the Beano & Dandy when I was an awful lot younger, it's not so bad. In the context of the paragraph "we" was used as the operative word.After all not everyone pays Income Tax do they? Us would have encompassed the whole population.

Dawn Hardy ● 4831d

'I asked earlier just how much this fiasco would cost we the tax payer? 'That would be 'us, the taxpayer', Dawn. Would you say, 'How much has this cost we'?

Susan Kelly ● 4832d

You are being ridiculous now, however you have also made an excellent point Rebecca Brooks will not get a fair trial purely because of the Leveson Inquiry. The next thing we will know is that her trial is to be in camera. Are this charges absolutely boni-fide, who has given this information and are they to be believed.As you undoubtedly know each computer in a large corporation is attached to a main frame which has a vast memory bank so why would they hide computers to conceal evidence! Then we have the 7 mysterious boxes! Now what on earth did they contain that was not on the main frame, if they were in archive then they had already been input? The charge of Conspiring to Pervert the Course of Justice appertains to the 2 previous charges that allegedly took place over the period of July 6th and July19th 2011.Why on earth has it taken the CPS so long to actually make these charges, or is it just a brave face that the CPS have put on to placate the public over the cost of approx 10 Million Pounds Plus spent over the last 18 months of Police investigation.Let’s also note that the 3 charges do not include the alleged phone hacking purely because there is no proof, it is all conjecture. I seem to remember a certain Surrey Police Person being dobbed in by a friend for giving information pertaining to this poor young girl; he was actually taken of the case. Never reprimanded that was 2002 was it not?At the end of the day this all about BSKYB and Murdoch owning it outright, well why not all our Politicians collectively say that he cannot buy the remaining shares, end of story and will save the country many millions.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

After reading the recent stream of messages from Dawn, since my last one, I now realise I was wrong.I blame the BBC and European Union.I am with Charlie Brooks, who's poor wife has apparently been tried in public before any facts have been examined. (unlike all the ordinary and non-ordinary people the Sun scandalised over the years of course)How dare anyone go after the manager of a team, when it was clearly in the public interest to hack into Milly Doweler's voicemail and withhold information and clearly in the public interest to try to get Rupert Murdoch in complete control of all media in this country. For goodness sake, without St Rupert, all we would have would be the BBC !

Richard Smith ● 4832d

Is'nt it just,when our NHS is failing through lack of funds, that money could be better utalized. Thank you for agreeing.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

George, I guess I started small and got carried away, I will use word tomorrow. It will be much better for me. How did you know that I did not use Word.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

Bonkers, completely bonkers!!!!!!!!!!!

Vanessa Smith ● 4832d

I thought you just said you were going to use Word.But your subsequent postings show you have not stood by your word.What is going on?

George Knox ● 4832d

I asked earlier just how much this fiasco would cost we the tax payer? well after listening to the Beeb I did a very fair agregate of salary that we have paid to the investigating police force, it is as follows:140 Police Persons on 40,000 pounds per year over the 18 Months that they have been working=8,400,000 pounds.172 Police Persons on 40,000 pounds per year over the 18 Month period=10,320,000.This does not include the Leveson Inquiry that has been running in paralell with the Police Inquiry, how much is Robert Jay QC on a day at least 3000 pounds per day probably more, so we as a bankrupt country are going to waste at least 100 Million Pounds to achieve what!

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

I re-read what you posted and I cannot believe that you actually advocate that we be kept from the truth whenever it is expedient by whomever to do so.I cannot and will not except that only the now extinct NOW and the Sun are the only papers that allegedly paid whoever for pertinent information for publication. This is what I cannot fathom why there is so much going on with just one paper group, my point being that if you investigate one then why not all the others thus making a clean sweep. Of course this will not happen, newspapers have an awful lot of readers and politicians need good publicity.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

Sarah,Thank you so much, I will certainly do that it will be good to have them saved.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

Hugh Grant was on TV and angry because he had demanded 5000.00 pounds from the Sun because he said that they had hacked his mail he had no proof, do you now why he was angry because they told him to "F" Off.All Stars plus Politicians will RUE the day that this particular Pandoras Box was opened, especially when all of those accused get so p****d off that they will all eventually come out with their truth woe be-tide those back stabbing politicos then.Also it is about time the other paperss started to look out for themselves, otherwise Censorship will prevail and we Joe Public will be kept continually in the dark just as politicians like.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

Come now surely pyjama parties supercedes the realationship between newspapers and politicians.When you are in charge of at least 350 staff it is extremely difficult to know what they are doing at anytime of the day. Why is the assuption that only the Murdoch Newspapers were in bed with politicians the dish of the day.Your comment about Murdoch before Blair may well be true however it came to complete fruition with both Mr Blair and Gordon Brown.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

Hi Dawn - have you tried typing your posting in word then 'cut and paste it' into the reply box?  If something goes wrong you still have it there to try again!  :-)

Sarah Felstead ● 4832d

It is grossly unfair of the amount of ERRORS that have occured with at least four of my postings this afternoon. Censorship should not occur in a free country such as ours.

Dawn Hardy ● 4832d

Too much at stake.This will fizzle out into nothing and be fudged imho.

Keith Iddon ● 4833d

Dawn Hardy, defender and apologist for the criminal class (as long as they are white, Tory, and not immigrants) returns to TW8 with drivel as usual.I do not know whether the charges against Rebekah Brooks will be upheld by a jury. Unlike standard practice at the Sun and News of the World, I will withold judgement till the jury announces its verdict. Given that the conspiracy charge relates to a limited time window in July 2011 in which Ms Brooks and others are accused of conspiring to steal and conceal materials relevant to an ongoing police enquiry, only a fool would suggest this is an attack on freedom of the press. The evidence presented in court should should show whether or not the accusation is valid.

John Connelly ● 4833d

Quite - Dawn cannot seem to 'get' that there is a line between what is in the public interest and should be exposed and what isn't - Hugh Grant's voicemails for example. We all want a free press but that's a long way from giving them carte blanche to do as they will, including criminal activities. Someone knew what was going on and I agree if it was Brooks she must face that responsibility, that's what she was paid for.

Vanessa Smith ● 4833d

Surely the whole thrust of the Leveson enquiry is to discover what extent the government, the press and the police were in collusion.The press were paying off the policeThe politicians were doing the press's biddingThe issues with Mudoch's empire started well before Blair, when he gained too much of a foothold in "news" and pressed his own agenda which spread to phone hacking for personal info.If Brooks knew that her staff were acting illegally, she should face trial

Richard Smith ● 4833d

You do tend to forget, that the core of these allegations occured in 2001-2 and just perpetuated if true(that is the question)if legal investigations had been properly carried out then none of this nonsense would be happening now.Nobody can say that doing nothing was the right thing todo it was conjecture then as it is now,can you honestly say that a text that you made and deleted 5 years ago can be brought back in all honesty we have all probably had 3 updated phones in that time.

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d

Yet again you are completely wrong, my arguement is A-Political can you not understand that if we permit this dreadful fiasco to continue without comment, then before you know it Editors will have to submit there stories on a daily basis to another bloody committee that cost us the earth and achieve absolutely nothing at all.

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d

Incidentally the amount of public internet interest is this,the Leveson Inquiry is 137 on the hit list of people looking at it. It is yesterdays news LOL and we all know that it is just a political scam to enable them to monitor what the newspapers will be able to tell us.We are fast becoming a Draconian Society,bad very bad.

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d

It appears that you - as usual - are very keen on blaming anyone and everyone as long as they are not from the Conservative party, who, as we all know are so far above us ordinary mortals as to be blameless for absolutely anything that goes t*ts up. Perverting the course of justice is a very serious offence, and the CPS are not known for flippant prosecutions, they obviously know more than any of us do.

Vanessa Smith ● 4833d

This is something that I vehemently disagree with, these people did not steal money, they did not murder or rape anyone, they gave us all information that would have been witheld from us.It is outrageous that Rebecca Brooks has been banned from publishing her book by politicians that have lots to hide,all of them are afraid of what she just might reveal. Well if I were her I would say to hell with you I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't,so I'm publishing on the Continent and the USA after all the politicos have ruined her career and for what? their own well being that's what.

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d

Don't you think that the whole investigation is purely conjecture after all if they had had very real proof,all of these accused would have been charged at the inception of this farce.The Leveson Inquiry and the Police Inquiry should not be taking place at the same time it is making a joke out of our Judicial System.Even Lord Leveson got fed up with the jocularity between Alastair Campbell and Robert Jay yesterday afternoon, it would appear that Mr Blairs lies about Iraq and the consequential playfullness by the above mentioned was ill advised. Preferential Treatment is not acceptable under any circumstances.

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d

Unfortunately an ERROR occured that stopped me from posting a very good response!!!!

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d

They are not going to take lightly such a high profile case for an offence which technically could end you up in jail for life .

George Knox ● 4833d

I fear you will be in a very small minority on this one. Knowing the CPS I doubt very much they'd have gone ahead with these charges had they not had very good cause.

Vanessa Smith ● 4833d

Andrew Neil of the Sunday Politics show is the only Political Reporter who has shown absolutely no BIAS, I congratulate him. He told it exactly as it is and offended Chris Bryant because he spoke the Truth.

Dawn Hardy ● 4833d