Sun reporter says he did not know paying for tips was a crime

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/31/sun-reporter-paying-tips-crime-tom-wells

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A Sun reporter “would have run a country mile” from paying public officials for stories if he knew he may be committing a crime, the Old Bailey has heard.

Tom Wells is accused of paying two prison guards for tips on murderer Jon Venables, and funnelling money to an immigration centre official for stories about the way detainees were being held.

He told the court he was unaware his three contacts were classified as public officials and had no idea his actions could be considered criminal.

“Have the prosecution made you sure that when you come to Tom Wells you should effectively call him a criminal?” asked Adrian Keeling QC, defending Wells.

“Can you say what he has done is conduct so far below acceptable standards as to not just be a breach of a duty, but so far below as to be worthy of condemnation and punishment – a high threshold,” he said to jurors.

Wells is accused of paying immigration guard Mark Blake for inside information from Colnbrook Immigration Centre, including news that detainees were being given Nintendo Wiis to play with and large amounts of taxpayers’ money was being spent on bingo gambling. He also told how posters of slavery were put on the walls during Black History Month.

Keeling said the jury must balance the “harm to the public interest” in stories like detainees having games consoles instead of proper discipline.

“On the harm side, Blake was paid some money, but on the good side he revealed accurately a rotten practice and a practice that was changed for the better and maybe even changed as a result,” said Keeling, in his closing address to the jury.

He asked them to consider whether Wells had acted criminally by dealing with Blake and prison guards Scott Chapman and Richard Trunkfield.

“Imagine you are arrested and you end up here facing a charge you have never heard of, criminality you have never envisaged, and would have run a country mile from,” he said.

“You are being asked to go back in time and put yourself in the position of these people and say you can be sure that what they did was clearly a crime.

“There’s a very large ask that you are being asked to do, it’s a very high threshold and something we urge you can’t do on the evidence that’s before you.

“It’s a big ask to say you can convict of an offence of a law they have never heard of and of a principle they were never told,” Keeing said.

“Not for one moment did Tom Wells think the payments he made were criminal and if he had done, he wouldn’t have gone anywhere near them.”

Keeling continued: “Imagine you are Tom Wells, you train as a journalist, no one ever told you during your training there is an offence called misconduct in public office.”

He said it would be a “lovely idea” if whistleblowers were not paid and complaints were handled properly, but that does not always happen.

“It would be a lovely world where NHS staff are never suspended for criticising the hospital where they work, and a lovely world where MPs self report their second homes and duck ponds”, he said.

“In the meantime, public officials were getting paid – the Sun did it and the Mirror did it.

“It was something not just known to the state but on occasions applauded and facilitated.”

Wells is in the dock with fellow Sun journalists Neil Millard and Brandon Malinsky, and ex-Daily Mirror reporter Graham Brough, who are all also accused of paying public officials for stories. All have denied the charges.

Brough, during his evidence, said he considered it wrong to pay public officials including prison officers.

Keeling told the court: “He said he felt payment to a police officer was wrong. When pushed on that, he said that might extend to others, and yes, that would extend to a prison officer.”

“He said if any prison officer said to him they wanted payment, he said he would have been amazed and his answer would have been ‘you’re joking’.”

But Keeling said the evidence to the Leveson inquiry of former Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace, in which he admitted the paper had paid prison officials, showed Brough was wrong.

The trial continues.