The family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler would be “horrified” if it was proved that an incorrect report in the Sun saying her body had been found in a river came from an illicit police tipoff, a court has heard.
A trial of six journalists and senior staff at the newspaper for allegedly paying cash to public officials in exchange for stories over almost a decade, was read a statement from Milly’s father, Bob Dowler.
It referred to a Sun front-page story in April 2002, a month after the 13-year-old disappeared, saying a decomposed body found in a river near the Dowlers’ home in Surrey was that of Milly.
In the statement presented by the prosecution, Bob Dowler said the family had been told by police that the body was not his daughter’s. But, he said, the next day the Sun story ran a story saying, “Milly: body found”, citing a “police source” as saying the body in the river was her.
“We did not know what to think,” he said in the statement, read to the jury at Kingston crown court. “Our telephone did not stop ringing from distressed friends and family.” The family was forced to speak constantly on the phone while wanting to keep the line clear in case Milly called, he said.
Saying in the statement what he thought of the idea a police officer could have passed the information to the Sun, Dowler said: “They had no thought for what we were going through or that their information was different to what we had been told.”
He added: “We would be horrified to find out that officers who were supposed to be helping us were more concerned about selling information to the Sun.”
The body in the river was confirmed to be that of someone else, a much older woman.
The court has heard that one of the six Sun staff who face trial for conspiring to commit misconduct in public office, reporter Jamie Pyatt, allegedly paid a Surrey police officer, PC Simon Quinn, for information over several years. Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said Pyatt and Quinn exchanged text messages and phone calls before the story about the body in the river.
The trial has previously heard that in a police interview that Pyatt said the source for the body in the river story was not an officer.
The prosecution case, which opened last week, alleges Pyatt and his colleagues conducted “corruption on a grand scale” in paying cash to public officials for confidential information on a range of stories, including about Milly, inmates such as the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and Soham murderer Ian Huntley, and celebrity arrests.
The Sun’s head of news Chris Pharo, 45, faces six charges of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office, while former managing director Graham Dudman, 51, and ex-Sun deputy news editor Ben O’Driscoll, 38, each face four. Pyatt, 51, and picture editor John Edwards, 50, are each charged with three counts, and former reporter John Troup, 49, charged with two.
They all deny the charges.
