THE former News International legal manager Tom Crone was yesterday accused by Labour MP Tom Watson of ‘trying to conceal widespread criminality’ at the News of the World.
Crone, former Legal Manager of News Group Newspapers, contradicted evidence given by James Murdoch to the parliamentary committee in July.
Murdoch had told the committee in July that he was not aware of the ‘for Neville’ email, which revealed widespread hacking, when he approved an out-of-court settlement with Gordon Taylor, the Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive, over the hacking of his phone.
Crone however gave evidence that he did know of the email.
When it was sent, the News of the World’s royal editor Clive Goodman had already been jailed for hacking into phones of the royal household.
Crone told the committee that he told Murdoch about the email at a meeting in June 2008, where he discussed settling with Taylor over the hacking of his voicemail.
Questioning Crone, Tom Watson MP said: ‘Isn’t the reason you paid many hundreds of thousands more to the Taylor settlement because you were trying to conceal widespread criminality at News of the World?’
‘No,’ replied Crone.
Watson asked: ‘Why did he agree to settle for so much money?’
Crone replied: ‘In order to get out of the case.’
Watson continued: ‘Did James Murdoch set you any limits on the amount you could settle?’
Crone responded: ‘I can’t remember that, I certainly came away with authority to settle for the best figure we could get to.’
‘So it was an open-ended figure?’ asked Watson.
‘Yeah,’ responded Crone.
Watson went on: ‘It was your job to see that endemic criminal phone hacking at the News of the World was concealed.’
‘No,’ was the reply.
‘You did this by paying Goodman’s expensive lawyers and you continued to pay him when he pleaded guilty and was on remand . . . Was it right to pay him even when he was in prison when he had been found guilty by a court?’ asked Watson.
Crone responded: ‘I have nothing to do with how his salary was paid I didn’t even know it was paid.’
When asked whether it was right to pay Goodman a salary, and a £240,000 pay- off, Crone responded: ‘My view is irrelevant Mr Watson.’
Crone responded with ‘nonsense’ when Watson declared that ‘as far as you were concerned the only problem was he got caught’, and that ‘you had to conceal the crime’.
Watson insisted: ‘You were desperate to ensure that it didn’t become known that hacking was standard practice at the News of the World, weren’t you, and that is why you told Goodman that he could have his job back if he didn’t implicate the paper or any of its staff.’
Crone replied: ‘The allegation you’ve just made, which was also made by Clive Goodman, has no truth at all.’
Watson continued to say: ‘You promised him his job in order to suppress evidence of criminality at News of the World,’ adding ‘And that is why James Murdoch agreed to pay the Taylor settlement, wasn’t it?’
Crone responded: ‘That is not true.’
