Thank you.

I don't think so.

Well, yeah, as I've explained, my main reason for being here is to be here for my children. If, for any reason, I'm still in the public eye by the time that they're grown up, I really hope that they won't be subject to what I ...

Um ... I feel -- I feel strangely strong because I have survived it all and I'm not really sure how. I really don't know how because at times had has been -- just really, really messes with your mind, and especially because I was growing and I was only just ...

And in his speech he said that there were many journalists who were exposing the misdeeds of the rich, the powerful and the pompous, and it just struck me that Mr Dacre himself, and possibly other editors, et cetera, are probably rich, definitely powerful -- I'm not sure about pompous ...

Yes, it struck me -- and I don't want to single out Paul Dacre at all, but it was generally just in terms of editors and people who are high up in these tabloid papers, that he said in his speech to -- I think it was the Editors' Committee --

The only thing that I really want to get across from giving my statement is that, as I said, all of this -- well, a lot of this happened to me whilst I was a minor and whilst I was really very young, and it was really hard and it has ...

Because -- because it's just totally inadequate for -- there is a massive problem to deal with and they just don't deal with the problems. They don't deal with it at all.

No.

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, there's a massive financial implication and if it is a defamation claim and it's resisted, then your costs will be ten or 20 times what the initial costs would be, which would be maybe around £5,000 or £10,000, just to put in an ...

Well, first of all, if you challenge -- I've always -- well, I used to always be of the view that if you challenge these individual tabloid papers, then there would somehow be some bad feeling and I've always been led to believe that to be true. So there would ...

No. I wasn't anywhere near there. I was doing a gig with a large public audience somewhere totally different.

I have seen it. I also saw the legal letter that went to them before this which said that we didn't just want a normal run-of-the-mill apology because it's just not good enough, but I don't really know the ins and outs of it. My lawyers know ...

Yeah, we contacted the newspaper itself just is to say this is totally untrue and therefore -- and it's also defamatory, and those are ongoing legal procedures.

I gave a statement saying that it was a complete fabrication and that this was a case -- you know, this was an exact reason why this Leveson Inquiry is happening and how it's out of control and it simply shouldn't be allowed to happen, and part of my ...

Absolutely. That's just generally the way it goes. It just kind of blows up. Everybody -- the main thing about this whole Inquiry, I think, is that everybody -- everybody really believes that there are a set of proper rules and regulations that are adhered to, and therefore these things are ...

Yes.

No. They phoned my publicist very late on the Friday and didn't say -- I think it was just a freelance journalist and just said, "What is the nature of Charlotte's relationship with her partner?" of which my publicist, generally, unless they would kind of state where they were ...

No, surprisingly.

The photograph is from 2007, when I was doing a radio show with Chris Moyles. It was a Christmas radio show and because at that time my parents owned that pub, then he decided it would be a cool thing to do it from the pub, and so it was ...

Not one shred.

It does.

Okay. So this article basically said that I was out at a pub in Cardiff with my partner and we were both inebriated and I was singing "Be my baby", apparently, to which afterwards I apparently slumped into a chair and said, "That was for you, baby. Will you be ...

"One of the most denigrating claims was the comment I supposedly made about the celebrity of some of the 9/11 firefighters. The comment I had actually made was not disparaging of them. It was quite the reverse. I recall referring to their appearance at the British Television Awards and ...

I was alleged to have said -- sorry, I'll read, if that's okay?

Looking back, I was actually 15 when I referenced the article. I'd literally just flown back from New York. The record company had set up an interview for me which was general -- that was quite normal -- and I'd been out in New York for a while and my ...

Possibly.

I should imagine. I mean, there was always -- there's always a two and fro of you can't -- you know: "You can't print this", or: "This is totally wrong", but -- between, you know, kind of the publicist -- I never personally contact the journalists, although a lot of the ...

I don't think so.

Looking back at my complaints to the PCC, what's actually stood out to me is how kind of sporadic they are, and also about much lesser stories than stories that stick in my mind as being really, really important or really dreadful, and I think that's mainly because ...

Mm-hm.

The article, I think, was the one that like literally named every single one of my girlfriends, their occupations, their age, and then, as you said, went on to just give the most ridiculous account of what had apparently happened, which was -- it was nowhere near that interesting or debauched ...

Yes.

Okay.

Well, basically a lot of their telephone numbers were on the Glenn Mulcaire notes, so I should imagine -- it's hard to know the extent of it because you just don't know, looking back. But yeah -- I mean, basically there was always paparazzi around, there was always journalists about ...

This is -- this is something that my dad seemed to recall more so. I just remember there just being a massive amount of information. I couldn't swear to that there was definitely transcripts of telephone calls. I remember there being something to do with like live interception phone calls ...

Yeah, information about me, information about my friends, family members, criminal records, DVLA records, you know, mobile numbers and house numbers and just all sorts. I was just -- we were just completely taken aback, to be honest.

I do, actually. I remember being in my mother's house, because she said she'd been contacted by them and I should come over, and they brought a massive, massive black book, which was just full of information, and it -- there seemed to be much more information in the ...

Yes.

I mean, even though we, as a family, felt that the press had always used some dreadful tactics in order to get a story, it was still -- it was still quite bemusing, and especially that -- when I was younger, I remember having a big group of girlfriends and the more ...

Yes.

How did we find out? I think we were contacted by the police. Yeah, we were contacted by the police, who showed us all of the photocopied notes of Glenn Mulcaire's notebook, which in turn had passwords and PIN numbers and phone numbers of lots of people in my ...

I'm sorry, I'm not doing very well on this point.

Crikey. I can't -- I can't remember. Earlier this year.

I was obliged to do so and also because I didn't really have any formal training from when I was 12, and generally whenever asked a question, just told the truth, and sometimes, you know, you get yourself into a conversation with a journalist and you just tell the ...

It's not even necessarily just a signed recording artist. If you have a new show on television, if you have a book or, you know, kind of whatever, generally it's -- you're signed to a company, whether it be a book company or TV company, and therefore you ...

Well, when I was a young girl especially, basically it was kind of a commodity. It was that I was this really small girl with this big operatic voice and therefore you kind of needed to see it. You know, it was quite a visual and audio thing at the ...

Categorically no, but then also to expand upon that point is that -- I think -- I wrote some little bits of points down. Basically, there is no rule book for dealing with the tabloid press and I tried lots of different approaches of how to deal with it. Sometimes I've ...

Mm-hm.

Yes, I totally accept that.