It would be “extremely dangerous” if journalists were not allowed to pay public officials when a story was justifiable and of public interest, a court has heard.
Duncan Larcombe, the royal editor of the Sun, said the government and state bodies suppress stories that don’t show them in a good light and if paying a public official was the only way to expose them that could be justified.
“My view is you, if a newspaper is not allowed to hold public bodies to account, be it the police, the NHS, the royal family, the Ministry of Defence, unfortunately they are not likely to tell us when there are things going wrong like Rotherham child abuse, like 1,200 patients dying in mid-Staffordshire.
“Funnily, government-paid press officers don’t tell us about these things in press releases.
“In that kind of country if you are saying you can’t ever pay a public official, that that’s always a crime, I think that would be extremely dangerous in my opinion,” he said.
Larcombe is on trial along with three other senior Sun journalists over allegations that they plotted to conspire with public officials for stories, thereby causing misconduct in public office. All four deny the charges.
His charges relate to payments allegedly made to an officer at Sandhurst for stories about Princes William and Harry.
Prosecutor Michael Parroy QC put it to him that he was also involved in payment requests to a “serving police officer”.
Looking taken aback by the question, Larcombe replied: “No, I don’t accept that.”
He was then asked to examine an email to a news editor regarding a payment to a “police contact” who had come up with some tips about Prince Charles’s country residence, Highgrove, including a story about new security after a series of break-ins.
Larcombe explained that the emails were being sent on behalf of staff photographer and the contact was a “freelance journalist” who had insisted on being paid cash.
“Are you deceiving Mr Pharo?” asked Parroy. “Yes, I suppose I am,” replied Larcombe.
Pressed on the deception, Larcombe said the phrase “police contact” did not mean public official.
“If you assert that a police contact means police officer, I’ve got stories here that say ‘royal contacts’ but I wasn’t paying Prince Harry.”
Earlier, Larcombe went into detail about the good working relationship he had with the princes’ press team and said he was proud that the Sun had helped humanise them by showing their imperfections and the “lighter” side to their personalities.
”I think what I was trying to do was to be fair to the princes on the period of time I did the royal job. I got to know them well, I think they are fantastic guys. They are not perfect. Many of the stories show their lighter side,” he said.
“I think the public have taken to the princes because they are humans. I’m proud that I and other papers have shown their human side … they don’t have a public image of sitting in their castles and palaces and occasionally coming out to hug a sick child or stick up for rhinoceroses,” he said.
Larcombe said the Sun behaved responsibly and would never have compromised the the security of the princes.
He told how the paper acceded to a request by their spokesman Paddy Harverson not to publish a reporting claiming that a bounty had been put on Prince Harry’s head by an insurgent in Iraq.
“I won’t say he begged me, but he urged me not to run the story, if we ran it, Harry would not be able to go to Iraq,” said Larcombe.
The freelance journalist who had come to the paper with the tip then passed it on to the Observer who published the story, he added.
The trial continues.
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