FORMER News of the World (NotW) editor Andy Coulson was trying to identify who was leaking information at the newspaper and not asking for Calum Best's phone to be hacked when he sent an email saying "do his phone", the Old Bailey has heard.
The former spin doctor wanted to check the phone records of NotW reporter Rav Singh, who was suspected of leaking information to the television celebrity, Timothy Langdale QC, defence counsel for Coulson, said.
The jury in the phone hacking trial was shown an email sent by NotW reporter Chris Tate to his then news editor Ian Edmondson on May 20, 2006, about a story involving Calum Best, the son of footballer George Best, and Lorna Hogan, who claimed to be having Calum Best's baby.
"Had a call from Lorna Hogan last night claiming Calum Best had texted her at approximately 10.20 saying 'how can you be so low selling picture of unborn child?"' he wrote.
"She says he must have been alerted from within News of the World and that she had a similar text before our other story on pregnancy.
"She believes he is being tipped off in advance and freaked out last night threatening to go to Max Clifford today and that she should have stayed with him instead or returning to us. Doubt he'd be best pleased by her. Flakey (sic) as you know."
Hours after the email was sent, Coulson sent a message to Edmondson asking, "you think Calum a leak?"
Edmondson replied claiming Mr Best had been "bragging" about having "close mates inside News of the World", the court heard. Coulson then sent an email which stated "do his phone", the jury was told.
The trial was adjourned and the jury will return to court on Tuesday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article