A senior executive on the Sun has denied bribing a serving police officer for information about the investigation into the Soham murderer Ian Huntley.
The paper’s former managing editor, Graham Dudman, was accused of “hiding behind journalistic privilege” after he refused to elaborate in court about internal emails that showed he made requests for payments totalling £2,250 to what the prosecution alleges were corrupt police officers.
Dudman was being quizzed about two emails from September 2002 about payments and expense claims for meals for a police contact. He refused to be drawn on his source saying he had a duty to keep them confidential.
Dudman denied being “happy to feed-up on the corrupt motives” of a police source. He said the information he received had led to a “fantastic” Sun scoop revealing that the policeman assigned to comfort the family of murdered schoolgirl Jessica Chapman had been detained in relation to allegations of “child porn” offences.
Dudman said the information was “seismic” and the public had a right to know.
Prosecutor Peter Wright QC put it to him that “the truth” was that in 2002 there was “an insatiable appetite” for any information relating to the Soham murders and that Dudman was “prepared to pay for any slight advantage over your rivals”.
Dudman replied: “The information I had received was some of the most jaw-dropping information I had ever got as a journalist and the public had a right to know about it.”
The Sun journalist, who went on to become the paper’s managing editor, is on trial for allegedly paying cash to public officials while assistant editor (news) on the paper 12 years ago. He denies the charge.
Dudman, who was more subdued in the witness box than when giving evidence last week, answered many of the questions with a single word: “yes” or “no” or “yip”, refusing to be drawn on questions about the sources he allegedly paid.
The jury was shown two emails in which he requested cash payments for a “City of London police officer” and for a “serving police contact”.
In the first email Dudman tells a colleague: “Just for the record … you may see some paperwork for cash payments of £350 and £400 originated by Claire and signed by me yesterday (Sept 10th). This is for 2 payments for a City of London police officer contact of mine, of whom Sue T is aware”.
The payment, he said was “for excellent background information on the Carr/Huntley investigation in which he is involved.”
In the second email in September 2002, he wrote: “For the record – you’ll see some paperwork today for a cash payment of £1,000 I have signed for a confidential payment – it is for a serving police officer contact of mine who gave us the early steer and name of the Soham police child porn suspect.”
Wright put it to him that his referral to a “City of London police officer” was a way of “authenticating” his claim for cash because he knew it would work because there was “a culture within the Sun of the payment of police officers or public offials for information?”
Dudman said: “I had to put something down, so I put that down.”
Asked again if he was aware of a culture of paying public officials at the Sun, he said only in “wholly exceptional circumstances”.
Dudman was also asked about several expense claims for “entertaining City of London police contact” for varying reasons including “Maxine Carr/Huntley/Huntley father background”. One was for £56.50 for a meal at the Joe Allen restaurant in London’s Covent Garden.
He admitted he had falsified expense claims but said he could not remember this specific claim from 12 years ago. He added that it was on the last day of his paternity leave and it was “unlikely” he would have gone to a work-related meal.
Wright put it to him he falsifed this claim “because that was the most likely method by which you would receive your £56.50. Because you had worked at the Sun long enough and risen through the ranks far enough to know that such a claim was most likely to succeed”.
Dudman replied: “Yes.”
“Would you accept over the course of your time as a journalist you’ve submitted expense claims were plainly false?” Wright asked Dudman.
He replied: “That’s right”.
Dudman said the claims were considered an “allowance” and a “perk of the job” and reminded jurors that he had already told them he had made up contacts, including a “BBC contact” for one expense claim he had made.
Dudman was accused of ‘rank hypocrisy” over a Sun report that included details of a suicide of the career criminal David Croke who was found dead in his cell in 2007.
Dudman denied that it had given details.
“Slumped in the corner in a noose of sheeting around his neck ... that’s giving clues isn’t it?” said Wright. “Possibly,” answered Dudman adding that it might have breached the code of practice “if it had said with a six foot long bit of sheeting or a bit of sheeting died in a certain way”.
Turning to his decision not to answer questions in his police interviews, Wright put it to Dudman that he had used his “claim of source protection against probing questions that would reveal criminal conduct”.
“I absolutely refute that. I had been given and accepted legal advice not to answer any questions,” said Dudman.
He said he did not remember ever making “a query” about “the propriety” of paying a police officer or public official. He told jurors he had “hundreds” of requests for payments every week. It was, he said “an awful job, hated doing it, just tried to get it done as quickly as I could”, he said in the final minutes of his cross-examination.
“I spent literally seconds on them. How generous I was often depending on what mood I was in ... whether the reporter concerned had been bringing in some great exclusives.”
The trial continues.
