Stig Abell’s diary: My days in court with the Sun

Soon after I joined the Sun as managing editor (among other things, I used to review novels for The Spectator), I read an interview with Keir Starmer, the outgoing head of the Crown Prosecution Service. What an unhealthy thing it would be, he said, if journalists had to consult with lawyers every time they pursued a story or asked a question. He was right — yet this is precisely what it is now like for most people in the business of trying to break stories in Britain. More journalists are on trial or facing prosecution here than in many banana republics around the world — as my newspaper knows to its cost. Last week, Clodagh Hartley, the Sun’s Whitehall editor, was finally cleared of paying a source within HMRC. Together, they exposed plenty of government waste: a £1.3 million bill for promoting a Whitehall department, then the £24 million cost of moving a schools authority from London to Coventry. Clodagh was obtaining hard facts about how taxpayers’ money was being spent — free from the spin and misdirection of the government information machine. She spent two and a half years within the tortuous English legal system, unable to work, with the threat of prison hanging over her. Some 72,000 are currently on bail without having been charged; 5,000 for six months or more. No wonder that Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and others are campaigning for pre-charge bail to be reduced to a maximum of 28 days. There are more than 20 Sun journalists still on trial or facing prosecution — some of whom have been on bail for three years, their lives and careers on hold. As the old saying goes: justice delayed is justice denied.