Law firm urged to explain claims

A TOP law firm yesterday came under renewed pressure to explain claims it failed to raise the alarm over evidence of police bribes at News International.

House of Commons home affairs committee chairman Keith Vaz has asked Harbottle & Lewis to clarify why it did not hand over files while representing the newspaper group.

The MP was referring to evidence from Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, who said a police probe into payments to officers could have been launched as far back as 2007.

Despite the law firm saying it was barred by News International from responding to the claims, Vaz wrote to its managing partner to request “why the evidence they held was not acted upon sooner”.

Harbottle & Lewis took possession of hundreds of internal emails from the News of the World in 2007 after being hired by News International to defend a claim for wrongful dismissal by former royal reporter Clive Goodman, who was jailed for phone hacking.

News International chairman James Murdoch told MPs a letter the firm wrote made News International believe phone hacking was a “matter of the past”.

In another committee meeting, Lord Macdonald told how he had discovered files containing “evidence of serious criminal offences” and advised the News Corp board to hand them over to the police.

Lord Macdonald told the committee: “If the police had seen that file in 2007, Operation Elveden would have opened in 2007.”

Harbottle & Lewis said it was prevented from responding “to any inaccurate statements or contentions”.

During his evidence, James Murdoch said the letter helped to explain why it had taken a long time for new information to come out. “It was one of the pillars of the environment around the place that led the company to believe all these things were a matter of the past,” Murdoch said.