Associate director of Hacked Off, Evan Harris. Picture: Reuters/Neil Hall
A former MP and ex-director of campaign group Hacked Off has told the High Court that he did not pay for witness testimony.
Dr Evan Harris, formerly the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, gave evidence in support of claims brought against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
ANL denies wrongdoing and is defending the claims brought by a group of household names including Prince Harry , Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish.
Dr Harris, who works as a researcher for the legal team representing the group, was cross-examined by ANL’s barrister during Wednesday’s hearing.
In his evidence, Dr Harris “absolutely” denied a suggestion that witnesses had been “paid for witness statements to say certain things” by him or former journalist Graham Johnson.
Antony White KC, for the publisher, said: “It was part of your and Mr Johnson’s modus operandi to pay witnesses for testimony, wasn’t it, Dr Harris?”
Dr Harris said in response: “No.”
The former MP continued that while he did not think it was inappropriate to pay people for their time finding documents or similar, “what you could not do was pay witnesses for saying particular things”.
He continued: “The suggestion that I or he paid for testimony is not right.”
Mr White later asked Dr Harris about an email he had sent in March 2016, where the former MP said he had been “contacting victims to persuade them to instruct lawyers to sue the arse off the Mail”.
In the email, which was shown during the hearing in London, Dr Harris was seen to mention potentially contacting Gary Lineker, adding that while the presenter did not have any dead children, he was “a national treasure”.
Dr Harris told the court: “This was my black humour… While I recognised he was a celebrity, he was someone who was very well regarded.”
He also said: “Hugh Grant took the view, rightly, that to get the public to take this more seriously again, given that they were ‘Levesoned out’, one had to avoid talking about celebrities.”
Dr Harris added: “Hugh never thought that he or Steve Coogan were particularly good poster boys for this sort of thing.”
ANL argues that the claims against it have been brought too late, and the household names involved, which also include actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley as well as campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence, were aware of their potential cases before the October 2016 cut-off date for legal action.
In written submissions, Mr White said that evidence supported a “clear inference” that Dr Harris had sought to “camouflage” when politician Sir Simon Hughes would have been aware of his potential claim. This involved the placement of a story in the website Byline Investigates.
But in his witness statement, Dr Harris said that he “totally” rejected the allegations “which are founded on a misinterpretation of the words” of an email.
The trial before Mr Justice Nicklin is due to conclude in March, with a judgment in writing due at a later date.
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