Costly

An argument over legal costs means Alan Yentob's lawyers might not get quite as much dosh from the Mirror Group in the phone-hacking case as previously thought.

Mr Yentob and his solicitors Steel and Shamash entered into a conditional fee agreement (no win, no fee) in September 2013 , but didn't officially inform the Mirror legal team that the deal was in place until April 2014, and that's against the rules. In a hearing to settle disputes over who pays what, lawyers for Mr Yentob agreed it was an oversight, and that there was no good reason for the delay, but that it was clear to everyone this was a CFA case. Master Gordon-Saker said that wasn't good enough.

It looks, to this amateur, like Mr Yentob's solicitors will lose out on three months' fees. Maybe Al, who was awarded £85k in damages, can help them out.