Thank you.

Absolutely correct.

Sky News is part of BSkyB. We're a separate department. BSkyB is part of News International, but our journalistic endeavours, our journalistic activities, our management structures are very separate.

It is very regrettable indeed and I apologise.

It was inaccurate.

As I understand it, the letter that you sent, your notice on 11 August, concerned and its thrust was about telephone hacking and payments to public officials, and our response to you on 16 September, having taken external legal advice as well, was that we would focus on that particular ...

It has.

Yes; correct.

The letter that you would have received on 16 September?

It wasn't correct at the time, no.

Correct.

Yes. I think we will need to look very hard at the issue of proportionality and the -- you know, there will need to be a very clear guideline written into our procedures that spells out the balance, the fulcrum, if you like.

I think that's fair.

We had not found the information that we'd set out to find --

That's true.

We didn't find sufficient information that the local authority had been failing in its business.

No, it wasn't.

(Nods head)

Correct.

It is a far cry indeed.

I don't know.

Correct.

But I would argue that there had been discussions in the four days or so before that email was sent, because if you look at the top line of that email, it clearly suggests that there had been discussions beforehand.

Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry, which paragraph are we on?

Yeah, I do.

I guess it would depend on the outcome.

My understanding from Mr Tubb is that the local authority had stonewalled a number of enquiries from more than one Sky News journalist.

If you knew the answer at the beginning, you wouldn't set out on the start of the chain.

Sometimes stories are like that. They can be long chains.

Correct.

There might be some links.

Correct.

I don't think it was speculative, because by accessing the email account of Mrs Smith, we would be able to determine whether or not she was in contact with people back in Britain, possibly in the area where the local authority was set up, and also the extent to ...

It was a poignant story that we were interested in investigating and if we'd been able to demonstrate that the local authority had in some way failed, then that might have led to a change in systems and procedures that would save the lives of other children of -- ensure ...

Well, it might or might not.

Because the local authority, we believed, could have done more to find out the whereabouts of where the Smiths had run off to, given that it took two years for them to track them down.

Correct.

We don't know that, but no.

But only after two years or thereabouts.

Because you had Martin Smith, a suspected paedophile, on the run; their daughter, Rebecca, was already under child protection procedures, and it was clear that his wife was running a nursery in Barcelona. And Sky News believed -- and had reasonable grounds for suspecting -- that if the authority had done more ...

That's correct.

Correct.

That's correct.

He was on the case. In fact, I think the case was in Carlisle, and he was based in the north-east of England, but for whatever rota reason, he went across to the west.

Correct.

That's correct.

No, I'm not.

Well, as I've tried to explain earlier, Sky News is an instant news broadcaster, and Mr Tubb's job is to report the news as it happens, day in and day out, from the north of England. So that's what his job is and that's what he ...

That's correct.