The role the Sun’s former editor Dominic Mohan may have played in authorising alleged backhanders to public officials for stories has been questioned at a criminal trial in Kingston Crown Court.
Jurors in the trial of six current and former Sun journalists were told that they had been “completely misled at the outset” by the prosecution in relation to authorisation of cash payments.
Oliver Blunt QC, for Graham Dudman, the paper’s former managing editor, told jurors that all cash payments were authorised by the editor of the paper, Rebekah Wade [now Brooks], or Dominic Mohan. They were the only executives with the authority to do so and Dudman’s function was to “rubber stamp” the authorisation electronically in order to release the cash through the system.
“You, the jury, were completely misled at the outset [by the prosecution] with regard to authorisation of cash payments.
“The vital layer of the editor, deputy editor was completely disguised from you,” he said hit closing speech.
“Prior to every single cash authorisation you have in this case, there is an editor or deputy editor approval,” he added.
Of the 77 cash payment authorisations identified by the prosecution, 56 were signed by another News International executive Richard Barun, who still works at the Sun.
This left just 13 that were processed by Dudman and five of those were all signed off by Mohan on 4 December 2007, jurors were told by Blunt.
“We are regrettably handicapped by the fact the there are some 3m emails deleted,” he said in reference to a decision by News International’s former chief executive to delete emails at the company.
Driving his point, Blunt continued: “Where are Dominic Mohan emails? Dominic Mohan is the man who signed off those five cash payments on 4 December 2007 which led to Mr Dudman sending those two emails … saying why are we paying cash for these stories?” said Blunt.
“Unfortunately, whether it happened deliberately or accidentally, we simply don’t have Mr Mohan’s emails,” he said.
Blunt said once “all the hyperbole of industrial scale corruption” was “stripped out” when looking at Dudman’s case, it “boiled down” to two days of alleged offences when the five payment requests were “rubber stamped”.
Of the five signed off by Mohan, two related to a “Fireball” story about an explosion in Afghanistan, two to a story headlined “Maniac stabs two nurses in hospital”, one to a story “Rachel [Nickell’s] killer on suicide watch” and one to a story “Hitman hanging”.
His email questioning a cash payment request by Jamie Pyatt in relation to the Rachel Nickell story showed that Dudman was an “obstruction rather than facilitation” to cash payments.
“The prosecution argument is absurd,” he said.
He told jurors they “could be forgiven for thinking” after hearing the prosecution case, that the route to authorisation was “journalist to deskhead, deskhead to managing editor” because of the way the prosecution had portrayed the system.
He pointed out that the 13 payments were “sandwiched in amongst thousands of contributor payments” Dudman would have processed over his seven-year tenure as managing editor. “That was frankly grossly unfair,” said Blunt.
Cash payment requests were a tiny proportion of the 5,000 requests he had to deal in his working week, which was typically filled with other responsibilities including hiring, firing, contracts, disciplinary issues, redundancies and liaising with the PCC.
The 13 processed by Dudman represented just 0.00017%, in the £420m Sun budget over that seven-year period. “An absolute drop in the ocean,” said Blunt.
In total, these payments came to £7,100 or £1,000 per year, hardly “industrial scale” corruption as alleged by the prosecution.
“The case against Mr Dudman on these three counts is simply not made out.
“I hope it will be your privilege to acquit him of all three counts,” said Blunt.
Dudman and all his co-defendants deny all charges against them.
The trial continues.
