Evaluating the witnesses

From the full judgement of Mr Justice Mann, in Sir Cliff Richard v The BBC...

"Sir Cliff gave evidence of how it was that he came to hear of the search of his property and the police investigation, and the effect that the events of this case had on him. He was a compelling witness, and was not accused of any exaggeration. I accept his evidence in full."

On the evidence of Carrie Goodwin, head of Corporate Communications at South Yorkshire Police: "I am satisfied that she was a careful and reliable witness, and an honest one. It is necessary to make that last point because part of the case of the BBC involves allegations that she fabricated notes of meetings and conspired to present a false story to the world when SYP and the BBC came under criticism after the search. Based on my impression of her in the witness box, the probabilities and the rest of the evidence, I find that she was not guilty of such dishonesty."

On BBC reporter Dan Johnson: "Mr Johnson was the reporter whose investigations started the whole ball rolling in this case, so his evidence was central to the BBC’s case. He was, at the time, a relatively junior member of the news gathering team, covering the north of England, though he was not without experience. He was, like any responsible reporter, anxious to get knowledge of, and become involved in, big stories, and in my view was anxious to make a bit of a name for himself by getting this story and bringing it home. I do not believe that he is a fundamentally dishonest man, but he was capable of letting his enthusiasm get the better of him in pursuit of what he thought was a good story so that he could twist matters in a way that could be described as dishonest in order to pursue his story. Thus in the present case, as will appear, he was happy for SYP to be under the false impression that he had a story to broadcast and was in a position to broadcast it when that was not true; and he was also prepared to give another false impression to Miss Goodwin, again, as will appear below. That sort of attitude has caused me to consider more carefully than I would have wished his evidence in respect of the main issues in this case on which he gave evidence. In saying that I am in no way characterising him as a generally dishonest man. I am sure he is not. It is just, to repeat myself, that I considered he was capable of letting his enthusiasm for his story get the better of his complete regard for truth on occasions."

On BBC News' North of England bureau chief Declan Wilson: "Mr Wilson was in effect Mr Johnson’s superior at the BBC, being the then manager running the BBC’s North of England Bureau. He gave evidence of how it was that Mr Johnson originally came to him with the story, what he was told about what Mr Johnson had been told, what he passed on to his superior (Mr Gary Smith) and (principally in cross-examination) what passed between him and Mr Johnson after the 14th August when he saw Mr Johnson on his (Mr Wilson’s) return from holiday. I found various aspects of his evidence unsatisfactory, which is significant in this case because his evidence as to what Mr Johnson told him about how he dealt with his informant and SYP would, if accepted, be important corroboration of Mr Johnson’s important primary evidence on those points. Mr Wilson’s evidence of his post-search conversation was particularly unsatisfactory. The totality of his evidence needs to be approached with caution."

On Gary Smith, at the time BBC UK News Editor - now Head of News and Current Affairs, BBC Scotland: "Mr Smith was the BBC’s UK News Editor. In terms of the command structure, Mr Wilson reported to Mr Smith. Mr Smith received news of the story from Mr Wilson and made arrangements for background research to start. He was responsible for keeping the story alive within the BBC, and in due course briefed Ms Unsworth (see below) about the possible police search. He remained closely in touch with the pursuit and development of the story, arranging for a helicopter to be put up to cover the search, and participated in the final decision to broadcast and name Sir Cliff in the broadcast. He was, in my view, one of the employees of the BBC who became very concerned (I am tempted to use the word “obsessed”) with the merits of scooping their news rivals and that probably affected some of his judgment at the time, and gave rise to a certain defensiveness in relation to his later conduct (in particular his participation in internal BBC email traffic after the search). I consider that Mr Smith was unduly defensive, and to a degree evasive, in much of his evidence, particularly in relation to post-search email traffic. That was probably to try to defend the BBC’s position on what happened at the July 14th meeting, because some of that traffic was significantly inconsistent with the BBC’s case. I regret that I felt I could not always rely on him as a reliable witness.

On Jonathan Munro: "Mr Munro was Head of Newsgathering at the BBC at the time in question. He reported to the Director of News, Mr James Harding whose deputy Ms Unsworth was. Gary Smith reported to him. He first knew of the story when it was “red flagged” internally on or about 31st July, but had little involvement until after the search. He did not take any part in the decision to broadcast and most of his evidence concerned the aftermath. I thought he was a thoughtful man and a thoughtful witness, although he was overly guarded when the content of certain parts of the BBC’s Defence (on which he signed the statement of truth) were compared with his emails, almost wilfully failing to acknowledge inconsistencies and refusing to acknowledge the plain effect of some of the emails in the case. "

On Fran Unsworth, at the time Deputy Director of News, who made the decision to go ahead with the broadcast: "I considered Ms Unsworth to be a careful, thoughtful and conscientious witness. In my view she was honest in all that she said in the witness box. There is one respect in which I do not accept her evidence, a respect which I consider to be tinged with wishful thinking and a bit of ex post facto convenient rationalisation, but that does not detract from her honesty. Mr Rushbrooke criticised her for poor recollection of detail in several respects, but I do not consider her failure to recollect some details such as timing to be at all surprising or to reflect on the more positive evidence that she did give. Her evidence was straightforward. Her acts and thinking on the day, like the acts and views of others, were affected by the desire to protect the scoop, though perhaps less than others."

On using the helicopter shared with ITN to hover over Sir Cliff's apartment, without telling ITN the story as usually obliged: "Mr Rushbrooke (for Sir Cliff) described the BBC’s conduct in this respect as “disgraceful”. I do not think that I need to apply that label, but it was hardly commendable."