Former tabloid editor and ex-Downing Street communications
chief Andy Coulson was sentenced Friday in London to 18 months in prison for
phone hacking offenses.
Coulson, who was editor of News of the World from 2003 to
2007, was convicted last week at the Old Bailey court of conspiracy to hack
phones between 2000 and 2006. He had denied the charge.
He could have been given up to two years in prison.
Handing down sentences to Coulson and four of his former
colleagues, Judge John Saunders said the Prime Minister's ex-aide had to face
the heaviest penalty.
"There is insufficient evidence to conclude that he
started the phone hacking, but there is ample evidence that it increased
enormously while he was the editor," he said.
"On the jury's verdict he knew about it and encouraged
it when he should have stopped it. It was his reputation as an editor and
journalist, which was increased through the stories that were obtained by phone
hacking and, even though he resigned, he did so with his reputation
intact."
Coulson's former colleagues pleaded guilty to phone hacking
charges before the case came to trial.
Two of the four, journalists Neville Thurlbeck and Greg
Miskiw, were each given a six-month prison sentence, reduced in part from what
it could have been in light of their guilty pleas, the judge said.
Journalist James Weatherup received a four-month sentence,
suspended for a year, and 200 hours of community service. A suspended sentence
means he should not go to prison unless he breaks the law in that time.
Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire was given a six-month
prison sentence, suspended for a year, and was also ordered to do 200 hours of
community service.
Sentencing Mulcaire, the judge described him as
"lucky." The sentence was complicated by the fact that he had already
been sent to prison for six months for phone hacking in 2007. This trial
involved additional charges.
The judge said that besides Mulcaire, the defendants
"are distinguished journalists who had no need to behave as they did to be
successful" but that their reputations in fact aided their wrongdoing.
"They all achieved a great deal without resorting to
the unlawful invasion of other people's privacy. Those achievements will now
count for nothing."
He added, "All three have expressed remorse for what
they have done. I am afraid that that has the appearance of regret for the
consequences, both to them and others, of getting caught, rather than true
remorse."
Coulson, Thurlbeck and Miskiw are all in custody and will
start their sentences immediately.
Victims of hacking.
In his remarks to the court, the judge also recognized the
controversy surrounding the case.
"There will be those who will be outraged that I
haven't passed sentences well in excess of the permitted maximum," he
said, "and there will be those that think that it shouldn't be a crime for
the press to intrude into the lives of the famous and that the legislation and
this prosecution is in some way an attack on the freedom of the press to carry out
their vital role as public watchdogs."
He also focused on the impact on the thousands of victims of
phone hacking -- who were not just those who put themselves in the public eye.
"Targets of phone hacking were politicians, celebrities
and royalty. In addition, there were people who were targeted simply because
they were friends of, worked with or were related to famous people," the
judge said.
Journalists in search of stories listened to "intensely
personal" messages that should have remained private, he said.
As a result, information "ended up as front page
exclusives and caused serious upset and distress to the subjects and to those
close to them," he said. It also fostered an "undercurrent of
distrust" between friends and family who -- unaware of the News of the
World's practices -- suspected each other of selling the information.
He also commented on the News of the World's
"unforgivable" hacking of the voice mail of murdered teenager Milly
Dowler.
"The fact that they delayed telling the police of the
contents of the voice mail demonstrates that their true motivation was not to
act in the best interests of the child but to get credit for finding her and
thereby sell the maximum number of newspapers," he said.
The 168-year-old newspaper, owned by media baron Rupert
Murdoch's News Corp., was closed down in 2011 in the wake of public outrage
prompted by the hacking of Dowler's phone.
Retrial on additional charges
Coulson faces a retrial on two charges of conspiring to
commit misconduct in a public office after the jury was unable to reach a
decision.
The newspaper's ex-royal editor, Clive Goodman, also faces a
retrial on the same charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Coulson resigned from the Sunday tabloid in January 2007
after its then-royal editor, Goodman, and Mulcaire were jailed for hacking into
voice-mail messages left for royal aides.
Coulson said he knew nothing about the hacking but resigned
because he was editor of the paper at the time.
In that July, then-opposition leader Cameron hired Coulson
as his director of communications. Cameron became British Prime Minister in
2010, and Coulson moved with him to Downing Street.
In January 2011, Coulson resigned from his post as coverage
of the phone hacking scandal broadened. He insisted he was innocent but said he
had become a distraction for the government.
Cameron apologized in Parliament last week for hiring
Coulson, saying it had been "the wrong decision."
Another of Murdoch's former newspaper chiefs, Rebekah
Brooks, was cleared of all charges after the eight-month trial at the Old
Bailey court. Her husband and three others were also cleared of all the charges
against them.
