Your full name, please?

Nicole Patterson.

Thank you. In file 1 of those bundles in front of you, you'll find under tab 8 a copy of your witness statement dated 16 September of last year.

Mm-hm.

You've appended to it a statement of truth and you've signed and dated it; is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

So you explain you're the head of legal at Express Newspapers. Does that include all the Northern & Shell titles?

The four newspapers, the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday.

Yes, but not the magazines, I understand?

Not the magazines.

Thank you. You've also provided six exhibits to your statement, some of which we will look at in due course.

As for your career, Ms Patterson, you qualified as a barrister, then worked at the criminal Bar?

Yes.

You then went to the Express in 2002. You returned to the Express after maternity leave and time off in 2006, and then after a diversion, if I can put it in those terms, to a firm of solicitors, you returned full-time to the Express in 2008 and now you're head of legal, have been since May 2011?

I started as a night lawyer in 2002 when I was there until -- in 2006 I started a three-day week.

Thank you.

And then left and then came back full-time.

Thank you. We, of course, have read your statement carefully. I'm just going to alight on a miscellany of points, certainly by no means all of them.

Can I ask you about paragraph 8 and the example you've given us about the Sunday Express running a piece on baggage handlers at Gatwick Airport and an application form for security clearance had to be completed. I was interested in the sentence:

"I advised the reporter on how to complete the application form as honestly as possible."

Could you help us a little bit with that, please, because presumably a degree of dishonesty was involved?

That was what I was trying to avoid.

Okay.

That's what I said to him:

"If you apply for the job as a baggage handler, you have to complete the application form as it is."

That was my advice to him. As I said, I don't know what happened to the -- whether any story was -- whether any story came out of it or whether in fact they did do that, but that was always my advice.

Did you see -- presumably you did see the application form?

I saw the application form, but I don't know whether he completed it and I don't know whether he actually applied for a job. It was just something that they were asking my preliminary advice upon.

Okay.

Would you expect to be involved in the merits of -- the use of subterfuge in any particular case? Would that fall as part of your responsibilities?

If they came to me for advice on anything they were planning to do, then yes, but I was never asked to advise on it. That was the only thing --

No, no, no, just generally.

Mm.

I mean, that's part of your remit?

Yes, it is.

Because we've seen a number of lawyers and some say, "Yes, that's within my remit", and others say, "No, no, that's editorial, not within my remit".

It is within my remit if they come and ask me about it but I can't do anything if they don't ask me about it.

No, even I recognise that. Yes.

If a form had been completed, which you don't know whether it had been --

No.

-- would you expect, however, to have been asked for your advice on the final version of the form?

Yes, I would.

Did you say that to the journalist involved? Make that point clear to him or her? Presumably a him in this case.

Well, he was asking me about completing it, "What should I do, how should I say this, what should I say to that?" and I gave him my advice and away he went, but I didn't see whether he had in fact completed it or applied for the job.

Thank you. Can I ask you about the internal investigation which was carried out or is still being carried out into phone hacking, blagging and related issues?

Mm.

This starts at paragraph 15, Ms Patterson, at our page 01533. You decided to carry out an internal inquiry. The first meeting took place on 26 July and you'd been leading it?

Yes.

You tell us at least at that stage it was still at a very early stage. We're now some months on and presumably things have advanced. Is that so?

Well, we haven't found any evidence to suggest that anybody was doing any phone hacking or anything of that nature, no.

Okay. It's not entirely clear how far back you're going. Are you going to 2005 or are you going to the year 2000, which is when Northern & Shell acquired these titles?

We went to the year 2000.

Thank you. In paragraph 16 you say:

"I have been particularly concerned with any large or unexplained payments."

Have you found any such payments?

No. When I say "large or unexplained", the largest unexplained payment I think we came across was about GBP 1,500 or 1,600, which in terms of our spend is very, very small.

Apart from carrying out a financial investigation, which you detail quite clearly in your statement, has your investigation extended further, for example interviewing journalists who were working at the paper at the material time, interviewing editors? Can you explain a bit more what's been going --

Not formal interviews, but we -- I asked the news editors and editors as well, and deputy editors, for names of search agents or private investigators that they had used, then we used those names to search in our accounts, but the names that we had, you see in my statement, they're companies Express Locate and SystemsSearches, and that was all I had.

Right. Can I ask you about the five agencies. This is paragraph 18. The second one, JJ Services, is that Mr Whittamore's company?

I believe it is.

It's clear from documents we are going to look at that your company was engaging JJ Services in 2004 and 2005; is that right?

Mm.

Is JJ Services still being used?

I don't know the answer to that.

How do you know the methods deployed by any or all of these search agencies, in particular if they are illegal methods?

I don't.

But in terms of your remit, Ms Patterson, an internal inquiry into, amongst other things, blagging, it might be said you ought to be approaching these agencies to get an explanation of how they carry out their business. Would you agree?

You might say that. We -- the way that it operated was that the news editor of the day went into morning conference with the editor, picture editors and everybody, everybody concerned with the production of the newspaper. They would decide on the agenda for the day, on the stories that they wanted to cover, what was in the news, what was coming up. The news editor would then -- as I understand it, the news editor would, as it were, divvy up who was going to be covering what story, and the reporters would go and they would do what they -- what they -- how -- do their own research.

As I understand it from the news editors and reporters, as they have told me, we don't have systems to -- search systems and that kind of thing internally, and they would ask for details of how to contact people or addresses or whatever it was, but I -- at the time that we were looking at, I don't think anybody had really asked, "How do you do this? How do you find your information?" They were -- as far as we were -- well, I can't say as far as we were aware because until we started having a look at this, I didn't even know that we used these search agencies.

Longmere Consultants, Searchline, SystemsSearches and Express Locate are all names of search agencies that I know that are used by law firms to find and serve people with papers, and totally legitimate as far as I was aware, and I'm not sure that when you employ anybody that you ask in great detail whether they -- how they go about doing what they do. You employ a company to do something for you and you expect that they would do it within the law. You expect that. Not that you don't care. You expect it.

Maybe one hopes that, Ms Patterson?

Well, I wouldn't -- I wouldn't say that. I would say if I employ a company to do something for me, then I expect that they would do it professionally and within the law.

Do you know the nature of the information these search agencies were obtaining for Northern & Shell?

No. No, I don't. Sometimes the search was -- just the subject matter of the search is detailed and sometimes it says "confidential enquiries" but it's impossible to marry up a story with a search. We tried as much as we could, but even when we were able to marry up the dates and stories, it's impossible to tell from the article that appeared in the newspaper what information was gathered.

Well, one could ask in those circumstances the journalist involved, if still at the paper, to assist, could one not?

One could ask the journalist to assist when we had a look at the lineage sheets and I went to the journalist and said, "What was this for?" -- you know, it's so far back, they don't remember. More often than not, it was GBP 75, GBP 80, GBP 100. It's very little money, according to our kind of spend. So they would just be basic computer searches for names and addresses, things like that. That's as far as we were able to take it.

Okay. You presumably had in mind the two reports from the Information Commissioner, ""What price privacy?" and "What price privacy now?"

Mm-hm.

The papers in the Express Group do feature in the Information Commissioner's table in the second reform report.

Yes.

And we know that JJ Services was really the focus of both reports?

Mm.

Did you carry out more detailed enquiries in relation to the activities of JJ Services in 2004 and 2005 of both the financial records and the journalists?

No, we didn't. In the table that appears in the second report, I think as a group we were mentioned in I think about 63 searches that we had asked Steve Whittamore to do. I'm not sure what -- over what period that was. It was prior to 2005, certainly.

We tried to marry up to the two, but, as I said, it's almost impossible to do that.

We'll spend a little bit of time, but not much, looking at the exhibits. I should ask you about the last sentence of paragraph 20, because some words are clearly missing. Maybe if you can just add them back in for us. Just look at that sentence, please. It doesn't at the moment make complete sense.

Is it something along the lines:

"If the work is more time-consuming, the fees will not be a set fee but will be subject to negotiation, and the vast majority of these fees are below £500."

Is that how --

I have no knowledge of how the fees were negotiated.

We're trying to understand the sentence, actually.

Oh. Possibly, mm.

It's your sentence.

It is. Always when one writes a statement, when one reads it back, sometimes it's like this.

It did appear from the searches -- the financial searches that we did into our records, that there were a lot of similar amounts, GBP 75, GBP 83, whatever. So I took it from that that that was a similar type of search each time that they were asking for from a particular database and sometimes there are fees that were a little higher, sometimes there were fees that were more than £1,000. So I took it from that that if the fee was a little higher, that it was a different type of search or it was subject to a negotiation, that kind of thing, but I had no hand in doing those negotiations.

Let's just see if we can deduce anything further from the exhibits. Maybe we can't. If you could go, please, to NP2, which is under tab 10, and the first page, 01549. Here we're looking at Express Locate International Limited, an invoice which was paid on 31 January 2005. We can work out the rest. It's just the VCHR line description, that is the subject of the article, is it, or the story?

I believe so.

But I think that's all we can deduce. We can't work out what the service provided was?

No.

If you look a little bit lower down, four lines down, the story is:

"Liar love rat exclusive."

Mm-hm.

That could cover a multitude of sins -- well, actually only one sin but a multitude of targets.

Multitude of potential targets, yes. Well I wouldn't call them targets; subjects.

We'll gloss over one or two of the others. Middle of the page, celebrity enquiries, all very vague. We do get some names two-thirds of the way down, Jade Goody, Big Brother. That might have been for the Star, wasn't it, because we can see STR?

Yes.

We can work that out anyway probably from the subject matter. And then Charlotte Church.

We can see a bit more about JJ Services --

That could relate to New! and Star magazine, possibly not the Daily Star.

Fair enough. Move forward please to 01558. This is JJ Services. We know Mr Whittamore's company was JJ Services. It's possible this is a different JJ Services, but it's doubtful.

It's unlikely, given it says "JJ Services (Whittamore)".

Oh, does it?

Yes, unlikely.

Then the possibilities are dwindling. I didn't see that, actually. Oh yes, it does, in very, very small writing at the top.

That's why I've taken off my glasses.

Yes, one does need to. I can't really read that.

This is my search.

It's your search?

It's my search, so the accounts department would have been searching under the name of Whittamore or JJ Services.

What's quite interesting, though, is the dates. The earliest date, at least on this search, is 31 January 2005. He's still carrying out services last year. If you go to 01560 --

Mm.

-- you can see the last item there is 30 July 2010.

The other thing that's interesting is the amounts of some of the invoices. Go back to 01558, and about 12 entries down you see the amount GBP 2,287.50.

Yes.

That may be for a number of different searches, but -- well, perhaps you can help us with that?

I'm afraid I can't. I have really no idea what it was for.

Mm. Is he still working for Northern & Shell?

Well, the last search or the last entry was -- what date was the last entry? 2010?

Yes.

I don't know the answer to that.

Someone might say there's at the very least a cloud hanging over him, as he has a criminal conviction. You're still using him. Why not find out from him what methods he deploys?

It's a matter for the news editor and the editor. It's not something that is within my remit, I'm afraid, and I can't speak for them.

No, you can't. Have you drawn these matters to the attention of the news editor and the editor?

Yes.

And what advice -- you don't have to tell us the advice.

No.

But I think what you can tell us is whether this is being pursued with Mr Whittamore?

I can't tell you that.

Okay. You can't because you won't or because --

No, because I don't know.

Okay. NP3, page 01589. These, I think, are lineage sheets, is this right?

Yes.

In a sentence or two, what is a lineage sheet?

A lineage sheet is -- I'm not sure I can do this in a sentence or two. It's what -- whoever is responsible for the accounting on the day on the newspaper on the news desk. So it could be the news editor or one of his deputies, and every time there is any type of expense that is not a cash expense that doesn't result in a receipt, it goes on lineage and then it's written down and then recorded by the managing editor's office.

Thank you. I think what you've tried to do here is to ally entries in the lineage sheet with particular stories.

Mm.

You haven't got very far, we understand why, and there is such a story, is there, at the next page, page 01590?

Mm-hm.

Just trying to work out which -- well, it doesn't -- oh yes, we can see. It's the one "Girls' gang killers face life". We can see that in the lineage sheet.

It's very difficult to tell from the lineage sheet, marrying up the article, what information was gleaned or what they asked Express Locate to do.

The same applies to JJ Services, because we can see JJ Services further into the lineage sheets.

Mm-hm.

But we glean as much or as little from examining those as we have already done.

Further analysis, I think, of the lineage sheets is under tab 12, NP4; is that right?

Mm-hm.

To summarise it, is that equally inconclusive?

It is. The writing on the sheet here is -- I believe it's one of our accounts department, and we asked them to marry up the amounts with the entries that had gone into the computer, and they tried to get what they could, sometimes they couldn't find anything and sometimes -- sometimes they could. We were searching our records for days trying to marry these things up. But as you can see, there isn't a great deal of information on there.

No. And then NP5, again, Ms Patterson, in a nutshell what is this?

This is just an explanation of some of those things that we did find. We asked them to have a look at certain names that were perhaps of interest, so you can see at 1693 there's a mark A, which says:

"Natasha Murat."

That's a day rate, so £240 would have been a day rate. I don't know what that really means.

But the accounts department then prepared this -- the managing editor's office actually prepared this sheet for me:

"Search for possible connection to Robert Murat."

What type of search that would have been I really can't tell you. A computer search? I just -- I don't know.

It looks as if your internal inquiry is not getting very far thus far; is that right?

We've done what we can. In my statement I did try to put it into a bit of context. I think our total spend on these types of searches in the ten years that we did was about £115,000. I had a look yesterday with the managing editor, and in 2008 we spent 9 million on pictures. So in terms of our total spend, these -- they're very small amounts for very little work is what I'm saying. So £240 for a day rate, I'm just not sure what they would have been -- if they would have been doing anything other than simply searching for information. But, as I say, I can't say what they were doing.

Someone advising you might say, "Why not write to each of these five companies and seek a detailed explanation from them as to the nature of the work they tended to do for your company, the methods they've deployed in each case and the sources they attain in order to provide the information".

Mm.

That someone advising you may be me in posing the question, but could you not have taken those steps before giving your evidence?

We didn't.

You haven't, okay.

In relation to phone hacking, I think yesterday's witness told us that what she did was to look through the records to see whether there's any reference to Mr Mulcaire or any company associated with him. Have you done that?

When I asked the questions of the editors and news editors, the name never came up. Any company associated with him didn't either, so --

I'm sure that was the position, but it's a question of what the financial records might or might not have shown. Have you undertaken an analysis of the financial records, even a cursory one, to see whether relevant names come up?

No. No, because I wasn't even told that we'd ever used anything in connection with Glenn Mulcaire, so ...

Okay. Can I ask you finally some more general questions, please. Paragraph 28. The circumstances in which you queried the source and the veracity of the information, can you tell us a little bit more about that, first in the context of accuracy libel, which is presumably your first concern, and then in the context of privacy, Ms Patterson? When do you query a source?

Every time I think that there might be a problem with the information I've asked them "Where is it from? Who gave you this material? Where did you get it from?"

But what alerts you then to any suspicion that there might be a problem?

I don't fact check, because if I was fact checking, I would be there all day and that's for the journalists to do, but if I read a particular story and there is a fact and I wonder whether it is true or not, or if it isn't true would lead to a problem, then I ask them, "Where did this come from? Can you be sure of this? Where did you find it? How did you come across this information?" and I expect them to go back and I expect an answer before I clear it.

Thank you. That's very clear. So that's tackling the first question and perhaps paramount question of accuracy.

Mm.

But when it comes to privacy issues, what, if anything, do you do in that context?

It depends whether it's information or whether there are photographs. If there are photographs, I ask who took them, where did they come from, how did they come to be taken, is it a member of the public that sent it in, where did you get it from, what are the circumstances. All of those questions I ask.

Thank you.

But of course there are certain photographs that we have that are taken on yachts, especially in the summer season, and there are all sorts of people who parade around on yachts and some of them want to be photographed and some don't, so there are all those considerations to be taken into account as well. It's a very fine balancing act.

Just before you leave photographs, you said, "I don't fact check", which I quite understand, "but if I see a fact and if it's not true, there would be a problem". Does that mean that when you're asking questions about facts, you're asking questions about facts which might generate a legal problem?

Yes.

So if it's a general story, which is unlikely to generate a potential claim in libel, then that would not concern you? I understand it, but I'm just trying to get to grips with what you do.

Of course I am concerned with accuracy, but if someone presents me with a story which says anything, you know, "There are 5 million people standing outside this building", I wouldn't necessarily ask them to go out and count them. You know.

Yes. That's not a bad example in one sense, but you may not necessarily make a decision whether it's true or accurate or not in that sense, but there isn't a legal problem with that fact.

Mm.

So is that a fair description of the line?

Mm.

If you see a legal problem with the fact, you'll want to analyse it?

Yes.

To fact check. But if there is no legal problem, then obviously you want it to be accurate but you're not going to be bothered about asking questions about it?

It's not that I'm not bothered about it.

I'm sorry, that's a poor choice of words. You would not be concerned to make further enquiries about it.

No.

Is that fair?

That is fair, because I expect that when I'm presented with a story or some copy for legalling that the journalist will have done their job and that those facts will be correct, and if there is a legal problem with any of them, then I ask them, "Where did it come from? How did it come about?"

I think the issue is not just the legal problem as regards accuracy, which I've described as the first problem; it's the second and possibly third problems which arise in the context of privacy and perhaps wider ethical issues and the code. It's the extent to which you, if at all, investigate those matters. Do you see the point, Ms Patterson?

Yes, I do.

And what do you do? You've told us in the context of photographs, I understand your answer, but what about in the context of the printed word?

Give me an example. What do you mean?

Well, there will be stories about celebrities which might involve health issues or might involve personal matters, intimate relationships, which may appear in certain of your titles, more likely in title X rather than title Y. It's whether you address your mind not just to whether the story's true, but whether the correct public interest, private rights balance has been conducted?

Yes, of course I do.

How do you do that?

Well, if there's a story about somebody's medical history or something like that, we absolutely say, "Under no circumstances should you print that information", or -- but obviously there are a lot of stories that we get through celebrity PRs and there are a lot of things that come to us from the celebrities themselves, which in any other circumstances might be considered private, again that's another fine line that we have to balance. Although it may appear to somebody reading the paper that perhaps it shouldn't have been in there, if it's come from the person themselves, then -- but that person is never going to say that it would come from them. So --

That's a straightforward example, because the only fetter, if the stories come from the celebrity himself or herself, the only fetter would be, I suppose, taste. But if the story has not been sourced from the celebrity himself or herself, a third party, it might have been paid for, what is your approach to that? Particularly in the context of intimate relationships, privacy issues.

We're talking about kiss-and-tell now, are we?

Well, for example, yes.

We just don't do that. We don't do that any more. If it's private information, it's private information, and that's the advice I give.

Okay. So it's not the policy of any of the Express titles to print stories, is it, which bear on the private lives of celebrities? I doubt whether you would go that far?

I can't say what the policy of the title is. That's not a matter for me. I'm the legal department and the policy of the titles is down to the particular editor. If I am asked for my legal advice, I give very strident legal advice.

Which in general terms is what?

Which in general terms is, "If it's private information, it's private information, and you shouldn't do it."

Okay. I've asked this general question of others in your position. To what extent in percentage terms is your legal advice followed? Is it generally followed or not?

I would say it is generally followed.

How often in a year would your advice be overruled or not accepted, rather?

Not so much overruled. Presumably you advise on risk.

Yes.

And you say, "This is the risk of taking this step", and --

Well, not very often. I think we -- I am a bit more strident than that. I would never -- I don't think I would say to an editor, "The risk is 75 per cent". I don't think we work like that.

You're prepared to say this is just --

"Don't."

"Don't"?

Yes.

All right. Two other questions. First of all, we've seen from other evidence in relation to the Express titles that following its departure from the PCC there was an in-house internal complaints committee.

Yes.

One or two witnesses cover how that works, but I understand you are at the centre of it. So in your own words, how does that committee work, please?

All of the editors and group editorial director are part of that committee, but in essence how it works is the complaints filter directly through to the legal department. The legal department will deal with the complaints. If it's a financial settlement, then that goes elsewhere to the -- one of the group managing directors in negotiations with myself. And any apology or correction is dealt with by the legal department and the particular editor concerned.

We haven't yet had -- I was going to say an opportunity, but that's not the right word. A reason to convene as a whole, because we haven't had really anything that needed that level of discussion.

We have had an amplifications and clarifications column in the Daily Express I think for -- well, certainly since I've been there, since 2002. Anything that needs amplifying or correcting goes in there, and any other apology will be subject to negotiation with myself and the editor and the complainant, and that's how it works.

Thank you. And the amplifications and corrections column, is that on page 2?

No. In the -- if it's simply clarifying something not potentially -- well, not -- I was going to say not a big problem, but just simply a matter of a word that's wrong or something, it goes on our letters page, and it's always -- it's been there for about 20 years, that column.

If it's something more serious, it will go on a page to be negotiated between the legal department and the editor and the claimant's solicitor or the claimant, if they don't have a solicitor.

On the Daily Star, our apologies page is on page 2.

Thank you. And finally this question: did you advise in relation to any of the McCann stories?

Yes, I did.

Which, of course, culminated in legal action?

Yes, it did.

I'm not going to ask you about that. The focus has been on a number of stories between September 2007 and January 2008, as you know.

Yes.

Did you advise in relation to all or just some of those stories?

If I was on duty at the time, I would have advised as and when.

I can't ask you, I think, what you did advise --

No.

-- unless privilege is waived, and you're not the person who could waive privilege. I don't think I can press that question further.

Thank you. Could I just ask a slightly different question -- sorry, Mr Jay, have you concluded?

Yes, I have, sir.

A slightly different question. You talk about your contact with the Press Complaints Commission and the code, but to what extent do you consider your clients bound by the terms of the code?

Absolutely bound.

Why is that?

Because as journalists we abide by -- we state that in the newspaper. We abide by the Editors' Code. We still do.

And that's irrespective of your not being members of the Complaints Commission?

Yes. On the back of all four titles, we have a section that says, "We, as a newspaper, abide by the Editors' Code."

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms Patterson. The next witness is Ms Dawn Neesom, please.