Thank you.

And we shouldn't be surprised if people then cut corners. But -- I think the News of the World is possibly an enhanced example of the difficulties, in that they probably of all the papers had the most resources but nonetheless, because of an appalling culture there of bullying, you ...

I think that's possibly true, sir, but I think, going back to the biggest issue here, which is the phone hacking and the blagging and so on, there's no doubt that people, the reporters, are being put under impossible pressure to get first class stories without the resources ...

I think the biggest area of injustice in newspapers is the area of regular casuals, where most national newspaper groups employ large numbers of people which they choose to call casuals, who go there working every week, very often year after year, maybe as many as 20 years, and they ...

Well, the problem is the background to this Inquiry is that the newspaper industry is in deep crisis, isn't it? Probably more so in the provincial press than in the national press. You know, there just aren't the resources to produce the publications that we all would agree ...

Yes. Yes, like the Guardian model.

That's News International Staff Association, which does good work, but it was set up by Mr Murdoch to represent a different approach to things than independent unions.

That is a problem. I get involved in grievance complaints and in disciplinary matters and in appeals, and it's almost sort of distressing to see members expecting to be given justice through this process, and I've never seen it. And I have to generally say to them: "Well ...

Yes.

It could be set up by ACAS, who is the obvious group to organise that. The evidence of the background to this is, of course, the Driscoll case, isn't it? I mean, there was this very formal grievance hearing or very formal appeal against his dismissal hearing that was ...

If all those things worked satisfactorily, yes, that obviously would be satisfactory, but it's a tremendous pressure on an individual when they're being bullied to do anything about it, and if they go to HR, in my experience, the general tendency is just to sort of almost start ...

Well, what we really need is for journalists to see the sense of belonging to trade unions and then people could use their collective strength to do something about these things, because the law is too long-winded, too far off and too involved and too expensive to really be a ...

Well, as the paragraph goes on to say, physical assault is a criminal offence and the effect of bullying is in fact far worse. I mean, we've seen Matt have a nervous breakdown. I've seen other members -- several other members have nervous breakdowns in similar circumstances. It's ...

Well, the majority have ended up in people leaving the newspapers that they worked for, which I think is pretty serious because it's the loss of a career and people often then struggle to, you know, resurrect that career going forward.

I should think between 15 and 20 members would have been in touch.

No, there are more recent examples, but I'm very conscious of the sort of freshness of the cases, which could lead to identification.

Yes.

But the third one that Matt is referring to was when there was a hearing fixed for some time one year, I think in August, and the company wanted that postponed, and the ET wouldn't agree and they asked the EAT and they wouldn't agree either, so the ...

No, not at all.

And that was again turned down.

Yes, they did. My understanding of it was that they appealed the judgment, the EAT -- when I say they appealed the judgment, they made an application to appeal, and the EAT turned it down and said there were not sufficient grounds for an appeal, and then, which is what I ...

Oh, right.

Yes.

That was the point. And I was then representing him in correspondence with the company and they reinstated it I think about a month later.

I was just saying that, sir, to explain why I was then in touch. They then stopped his money because they said he was uncooperative.

Because -- I mean, they subjected him to the most amazingly unpleasant behaviour, you know, sort of bombarding him with phone calls and wanting to send a nurse to his home, that sort of thing --

Yes. The -- it was -- my recollection is he became ill at the end of July in 2006, was it?

Yes.

And then there was a second disciplinary hearing and he wanted me to accompany him to that hearing. I did so.

Yes, now and again. I think after the first disciplinary, my recollection is that he was not troubled for many months after that.

Sorry, please saying that again?

No.

-- hearing, and using the procedure I outlined earlier of advising him how to handle the process and hoping that, you know, that there wasn't really an attempt to oust him.

No, I'm -- was it 2005, 2006, something like that? I first started to represent him before his first disciplinary --

That's right.

That was probably about seven years ago, that example.

That, again, is about five years ago, yes.

No, but they were working at the same paper.

Not all, no.

Several of them are the same senior executive, yes.

Possibly seven years ago, yes.

I'm not -- I'm just trying to --

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, indeed.

No, there isn't, sir.

No, it's not.

Not really, except that the person concerned -- the reporter concerned had been bullied over a long period of time, many months, and he was probably ringing me up twice a week, you know: "What can we do about it?"

Because I've seen so many of these things end in ...

Yes. The person concerned is a very notable bully, and that was one of the examples of how he behaved, yes.

No, a different paper.