Former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck today defended the public interest of publishing stories which alleged that David Beckham had cheated on his wife and F1 boss Max Mosley had taken part in a "Nazi orgy".
Mr Thurlbeck was fired by News International in September after being arrested in April on suspicion of hacking phones while working at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid. He told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards that he would not comment on phone hacking.
Instead he was questioned about the justification of publishing so-called “kiss and tell” stories.
In the case of David Beckham’s alleged affair with Rebecca Loos, Mr Thurlbeck said there was a “huge public interest” in going to print.
“He was sponsored left, right and centre,” he said. “He was always promoting himself with his family as a happy modern man. It was a wholesome image that the family cultivated and the public bought into on a massive scale, and we exposed that as a sham.”
He said that although the average payment to the source of a front-page article was “£15,000 to £20,000”, Ms Loos was paid “a six-figure sum”.
Mr Thurlbeck said he spent six weeks in Australia and five to six weeks in Spain in order to validate Ms Loos’s claims in 2004.
Formula 1 boss Max Mosley won £60,000 in privacy damages over a News of the World story claiming he took part in a "Nazi orgy".
Mr Thurlbeck, who wrote the article, said it was the “suggestion of the Nazi theme” which persuaded the newspaper that it was in the public interest to publish it.
He told the inquiry: “We firmly believed at the time that we had a story that was massively in the public interest.”
Mr Thurlbeck was questioned about the decision not to contact Mr Mosley before going to print, but he said that that was the responsibility of more senior colleagues. “I’m just a person who is writing the story,” he said.
But inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson asked him: “Aren’t you being a bit unkind to yourself Mr Thurlbeck? You weren’t just the reporter, you were the chief reporter for the paper, who had been the news editor, who had been the investigation news editor. You weren’t part of any of this?”
“No I was not,” Mr Thurlbeck replied. “This was the strategy. You might find this hard to believe but this is the way the newspaper worked. I can only tell you what I know to be true and happened.”
Mr Thurlbeck also gave evidence about an email he sent to a contact of the women involved, asking if they would give an interview in return for money and having their faces pixellated in photographs.
If they declined, he wrote that the newspaper would print pictures identifying them.
But he said that although he did sent the message, it was dictated to him by Ian Edmondson, who at the time was the News of the World’s assistant news editor.
Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, said: “One theme which is coming strongly across if I may say so, reading (and) preparing for this week’s evidence is that he’s getting blamed for everything Mr Thurlbeck.”
Mr Jay went on to ask the witness about the contents of the email. “Did you say to Mr Edmondson that this comes close to threatening the women?” he asked.
In his reply, Mr Thurlbeck said: “We didn’t see it as a threat. We saw it as an offer, a deal to do with the girls. In order for them to help us we would respond by helping them too.”
Earlier, Mazher Mahmood, who was the defunct newspaper’s investigations editor, told the inquiry his most high-profile inquiry had been into Pakistani cricketers who were subsequently convicted of match-fixing.
Mr Mahmood, who became known for disguising himself as a "fake sheikh" in order to carry out undercover reporting, said he had exposed "criminal and moral wrongdoing" during a 20-year career at the News of the World.
He gave evidence in a room occupied only by lawyers to protect his identity. His words were broadcast to an annex where journalists and members of the public could listen.
Inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson, who is sitting at the Royal Court of Justice in London, said he had made an order allowing Mr Mahmood, who now works for The Sunday Times, to give evidence away from the public gaze for "good reason".
PA