Leveson: My phone-hacking story

Seven years ago last Saturday my then client Elle Macpherson accused me of speaking to journalists without her permission and that I did this while under the influence of alcohol. She claimed I drank to cover up the guilt of having a disabled child. The only part of the accusation that is true is that I do have a disabled son.

We had both been concerned for some time that her phones were being intercepted, not only because of stories that appeared but because of calls from journalists asking for comments about so called stories that were not published. I had organised a security company the previous month to carry out a search of her home, cars and phones. He found nothing. Neither Elle, nor I, nor most other people knew anything about the hacking of voicemails then and I could not explain how information was getting into the hands of journalists.

I was subjected to the very unpleasant experience of being forced into rehab in Arizona, then frozen out by Elle in January 2006 before being fired by my employer in March 2006. When (Glenn) Mulcaire and (Clive) Goodman were arrested in August 2006 and Elle was named as one of their victims I thought my ordeal was over and that all concerned would apologise. Sadly this did not happen.

I called and wrote to the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, MPs. No-one responded. I took this personally until I met John Prescott at the Leveson inquiry and he told me that he’d written to the same people I had and that even though he was Deputy PM they hadn’t responded to him either.

Politicians, the police and the legal system failed us miserably.

I gave my first interview to the Guardian in July 2009, I expected to hear from Elle and my former employer’s lawyers, nothing happened. Then I was contacted by the New York Times about the investigation they were carrying out, I helped them. They published their report in the Autumn of 2010. I kept writing to people but no one responded. I didn’t have a lawyer and it seemed the only people who believed me apart from family and friends were journalists. In January 2010 I did an interview with Paddy O’Connell on Radio 4 and later that week another with Mark Colvin on the ABC’s PM programme.

Suddenly I was approached by lawyers from around the world and in March 2011, I chose Mark Lewis at Taylor Hampton and we filed my claim in the high court soon afterwards. I testified at the Leveson inquiry on the second day, a year ago last week. It was very stressful in some ways but uplifting in many ways. Although the system has failed me and so many others, I felt while testifying and all the other days I attended the Inquiry that this was democracy in action. Testifying also had the effect of restoring my reputation and I was approached immediately by lots of my former clients and am now working again.

Certain sections of the media have been running a very aggressive campaign in an attempt to confuse the public and shore up their own untenable position. Our current system of self regulation has failed. I am the other core participant victims have never sought to give politicians and the establishment any sort of control over the press. Why would we seek that? Politicians, the police and the legal system failed us miserably. We want a strong, free and curious press. What we don’t want is a press dominated by two powerful companies whose version of a free press is one that allows them to print what serves their interests and to self censure things that don’t serve their own purposes.

Finally, those who have been so loudly condemning Lord Justice Leveson, we victims and Hacked Off, claim we are left wing agitators. Rupert Murdoch tweeted that some of us were “scumbags”. For the record I am deputy chairman of my local Conservative Party branch and a longtime member of the Carlton Club. Not exactly a leftie.