A Sandhurst instructor accused of unlawfully selling information about Prince William to the Sun has told a court he gave conflicting accounts of his contact with the paper because he felt “bitter and twisted” after he was revealed as a source.
John Hardy was accused by prosecutors of telling two different accounts of his contact with the paper, one in his evidence at the Old Bailey, and another in his defence case statement, written in 2013.
Giving evidence at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, Hardy said his first contact with the paper was in 2005 when he rang the newsdesk after seeing an advert inviting soldiers to ring the paper with stories.
He was then told by the paper’s legal department that he might get into trouble with his bosses, but leaking information would not be a criminal offence.
Some time later he made contact with the royal editor Duncan Larcombe and became a paid source for the paper.
On Wednesday, the prosecution pressed him on why he gave a different account in his defence case statement.
In that, he said he had met someone known as Duncan in 2001 on his way back to his barracks after the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. He said he believed him to be a photographer and he had given him a card with the name “Duncan” on the reverse.
The prosecution put it to him that he phoned this “Duncan” years later and that this was the paper’s royal editor, undermining his claim the previous day that he had responded to an advert from a national paper.
Hardy has been charged with misconduct in public office, while Larcombe has been charged with aiding and abetting him. Both deny the charges.
Hardy said he had been under pressure at the time of his first account, he had misremembered what had happened and may even have claimed the card said “Duncan” because he was so angry about being arrested.
“I think it was someone else, the reason – I was bitter and twisted that Duncan Larcombe and the Sun had put my information out; that they had promised they would have kept confidential.”
This, the jury heard, was a reference to the management standards committee disclosing internal emails to the police investigating allegations of wrongdoing at the paper and its sister title the News of the World.
Asked about his defence case statement he said he had phoned the person on the card in 2004 and asked him if he knew if he could get any work as a photographer as he was studying the craft.
He told jurors he was in debt to the tune of £15,000 to £20,000 when he started at Sandhurst in 2004 and because army pay of £24,000 a year was so low, he always needed a second job to make ends meet.
He remembered asking the photographer “Duncan” if he had any information about his trade or if he knew of any work as a security guard as he had worked in security at the Daily Mail building in 2000.
“This [the date of the defence case statement] was a year after I had been arrested. I hadn’t been served the files, I was trying to remember, I was trying to get some work and I couldn’t get work.
“Is it distorted this? Yes it is. Is it what I thought was true at the time? Yes,” he told jurors.
Hardy told jurors the payments he received from the paper were “easy money”.
He said he couldn’t remember what he got his first payment for in February 2006, as he didn’t think he had given them any information.
The trial continues.
