The ex-deputy editor of the News of the World has an ‘absolute alibi’ for the day he allegedly listened to a hacked voicemail from the answerphone of Bond actor Daniel Craig, the Old Bailey has heard.
Neil Wallis is accused of overseeing three-and-a-half years of phone hacking at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid while working under editor Andy Coulson.
The main witness against Wallis, former features writer Dan Evans, claims he hacked Craig’s voicemail and found a message from actress Sienna Miller telling him: “I love you”.
Evans initially said he rushed in to work on Tuesday, 25 September, 2005, and played it to Wallis, Coulson, and features editor Jules Stenson as proof that Miller and Craig were having an affair.
However, Coulson and Wallis were at the Labour party conference in Brighton that day, not returning to London until at least the following evening, the jury has heard.
Neil Saunders, defending Wallis, told jurors in his closing speech that Evans was a “self-confessed liar” and his evidence against Wallis cannot be trusted.
“The big point Mr Evans makes is that he [Wallis] was present when the tape was played”, he said.
“On all occasions when asked up to and including trial one, Mr Evans said he played the tape on Tuesday, 27 September.”
Saunders told jurors that when the date was proved to be wrong, Evans had changed his account to say it may have been the following day or the Thursday, and prosecutors admitted Evans was mistaken on the date.
“We have the spectacle of both the witness and the prosecution simply guessing at what day it’s said to be because both realise there’s an absolute alibi for some of the time,” said Saunders.
Wallis is accused of being a “hands-on” presence at the defunct Sunday tabloid, and therefore must have known reporters on the features desk and the news desk were routinely hacking the voicemails of celebrities, politicians, and sport stars.
Saunders spent three hours picking apart Evans’ testimony at the Old Bailey and told the jury they could test Evans’ credibility by looking at other details he offered.
Evans, the main prosecution witness, also told the court Wallis had tried to recruit him to the News of the World midway through 2004, telling him: “I know you can screw phones, what else can you do?”
Saunders said there were inconsistencies in Evans’ account of meeting Wallis, including whether he arrived at the bar alone or in Wallis’s chauffeur driven car.
“If you are driven by one of the senior men at the News of the World in his chauffeur driven car and remember where you were sitting and where you were collected, that would be quite clear in your memory,” he said.
“It’s a sign of the way this man seems to lie without any difficulty whatsoever, he doesn’t bat an eyelid,” said Saunders.
Separately, the jury has heard that a former commissioner of the Metropolitan police said he would not have turned to Wallis for professional advice if he thought he was breaking the law.
Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington offered a character reference for the Fleet Street veteran, who has become a close personal friend after many years of working together, the jury heard.
Stevens became a columnist for the News of the World after retiring from the Met, with Wallis helping to ghost-write his articles.
“I respected Neil Wallis as a senior journalist but also someone who had an insight into the public attitudes, politics, and politicians at the time of the newly elected New Labour government,” Stevens said in a statement read to court.
He said Wallis had helped him write a mission statement to officers when he became commissioner, and continued to advise him on media matters during his term in office.
“Neil Wallis was generous with his time and advice at a time of transition from deputy to commissione,” he said.
“I trusted Mr Wallis and would not have allowed our professional relationship to develop if I suspected him of law breaking of any kind.”
A second character reference was also read from former Tory minister David Mellor, who was hired to write a column for the Sunday People while Wallis was editor.
He described Wallis as a “totally professional journalist of the old school” and “an “old style hack”.
Mellor said he himself had been embroiled in a tabloid scandal.
“He seemed to me a pillar of common sense and decency throughout this entire period,” he said.
“Despite a few of the reprehensible things done to me down the years, I always see Neil as a different class to the people who did that kind of thing.”
