The jury in the trial of a senior Sun journalist on charges over payments to a Ministry of Defence official for leaks have been told they must decide if the tip-offs “cross the line into criminal conduct”.
After three days of deliberations, the 11 men and women sent a note to the judge asking for a “definition of breach of the public trust” and clarification on one of his legal directions about the paper’s chief reporter John Kay.
Kay is on trial for allegedly requesting unlawful payments amounting to £100,000 to Ministry of Defence official Bettina Jordan-Barber for tip-offs and assistance on stories over eight years.
The jury has been asked to decide whether Kay knew at the time of requesting payments for Jordan-Barber that her misconduct was so serious it amounted to a crime.
“It is for you to say, as representatives of the public, whether the public official’s actions amounted to misconduct and was sufficiently serious as to be an abuse of the public’s trust in the official,” said Mr Justice Saunders.
“To amount to an abuse of the public’s trust, the misconduct must not merely be disciplinary misconduct, but must cross the line into criminal conduct.
“I say ‘not merely misconduct’ because disciplinary misconduct and criminal conduct are not mutually exclusive and criminal conduct in the course of performing the function of a public official is likely to be disciplinary misconduct as well. Equally, you must recognise that not all disciplinary misconduct will necessarily amount to criminal conduct,” he added.
The definition of the breach of the public trust is one of the key steps on the jury’s route to a verdict as directed by the judge.
The jury also asked for clarification on the relevance of his legal directions relating to Kay’s knowledge of Jordan-Barber’s role at the MoD.
“If you were trying Bettina Jordan-Barber, you would judge the seriousness of her misconduct on all the facts that you know about her, including that her job, at least in part and at certain times, was preparing news briefs for the press office and for ministers,” Saunders told the jury.
“Whether that would be relevant to your assessment of the seriousness of her misconduct and, if so, to what extent, would be for you to decide. When you are deciding the cases of the defendants that you are trying on count 1, it is Bettina Jordan-Barber’s misconduct as the public official that you are concerned with, but you judge that on the facts as known to them,” he said.
He reminded them it was Kay’s evidence that he was not aware her job involved preparing news briefs for the press office and for ministers.
“If that may be true, then this would not be a fact they would consider, then you ignore the fact that that was part of Bettina Jordan-Barber’s job” when answering questions in relation to what Kay knew at the time.
The jury are now in their fourth day of deliberations.
