The oh-so-fearsome Press Complaints Commission
How tough is the Press Complaints Commission? (If you don’t want to know the answer, look away now.)
Not at all. (Yes, I know, it’s a surprise, isn’t it?) Following the charge of a News of the World reporter with tapping Prince William’s phone, here’s what was said by Sir Christopher Meyer, chairman of the PCC:
One hears stories and rumours all the time that this may be going on; nobody has come to me with hard evidence of this. The Press Complaints Commission sets out in clause 10 of its code of practice that the press must not intercept private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails and a whole bunch of other things…
You have to have a very high bar of public interest to justify this, and so that’s enshrined in our constitution.
Except under strict judicial criteria — and on the condition that you’re the head of MI5 or one of a small number of other individuals — tapping a phone is illegal. Not frowned upon, not ill-advised, just plain illegal. Journalists can’t do it. It’s got nothing to do with public interest, high bar or not. Journalists aren’t exempt from the law, and Sir Christopher Meyer is living a fantasy if he suggests anything else.
