Parliament may now call for PCC to be disbanded or 'totally overhauled', says Nick Davies

By releasing a News of the World/phone hacking report ahead of the House of Commons select committee's inquiry, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) may provoke a call for its own overhaul, investigative journalist Nick Davies has told Journalism.co.uk.

"The PCC has been so stupid. It produced its report while the select committee were still drafting its own and so there must be a good chance that the select committee will draw attention to the inadequacy and dishonesty of the PCC inquiry.

"Its work was so clumsy that they provoked an unprecedented reaction from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which was were so shocked that it has commissioned an inquiry specifically into the PCC's handling of the phone hacking scandal.

"Ultimately, I think the PCC's handling of the scandal has been so bad - and so obviously bad - that Parliament may now call for the PCC to be disbanded or, at least, totally overhauled.

"That, of course, will then set the stage for a fascinating political struggle, with the big media groups calling on the Conservatives to protect them by protecting the PCC."

Davies hit out, as he has done before, at the PCC for being 'structurally corrupt' in the annual Benn Lecture at the Arnolfini Theatre in Bristol last Thursday evening.

He cited that only ten per cent of complaints made to the PCC were taken to adjudication stage, and of these only 0.69 per cent complaints were upheld.

In response, the deputy director of the PCC, Stephen Abell, said: "It would be wrong to respond in depth to these intemperate remarks, but it is worth pointing out that the description of the PCC results from a clear misunderstanding of our figures. 

"The PCC issues many rulings other than the published adjudications to which Mr Davies refers, and fully considers every complaint made under the terms of the Code it enforces. 

"More importantly, the PCC spends most of the time doing what its complainants actually want: resolving complaints to their satisfaction. While this may not please Mr Davies, we are more interested in pleasing our customers, who continue to use the PCC's services at a greater rate every year."

[Benn Lecture audio published on IndyMedia at this link]

PCC report deceitful, claims Davies
Davies, who earlier this year revealed details surrounding phone hacking at News International, once again criticised the PCC's report in an email to Journalism.co.uk.

"On the idea that the Guardian was writing a story about phone hacking since 2007, I say that was a dishonest manoeuvre by the PCC.

Davies stated that the Guardian's evidence related to activities pre-2007.  "[I gave the PCC] a very clear offer to help to provide it with the crucial evidence which shows that Clive Goodman [royal reporter sent to prison in 2007] was not the only News of the World journalist involved in the phone hacking. This gives the lie to [PCC chairperson] Peta Buscombe's claim that we offered no help.

"The PCC never came back to me to ask for the hard copies which I'd offered and so I'd assumed that they had taken the documents from our website, where they were and still are available on the Guardian site.

'Neville email'
"But if you read the PCC report, you'll see that they refer to the 'Neville email' [one of the items of evidence; an internal News of the World email] as consisting of the transcript of a single voicemail message. If they'd read it they would have seen that it is the transcript of more than 30 messages, hacked from the phones of two different victims, Gordon Taylor and Jo Armstrong. I conclude that the PCC chose not even to read the evidence which would have contradicted the conclusion which they wanted to come to.

"Finally note how, in its report, the PCC summarises my evidence, glossing over the first paragraph of my reply and then quoting other paragraphs in order to give the overall impression that I offered no evidence at all. I think it is reasonable to conclude that in the report and in public comment, the PCC have deliberately given the false impression that the Guardian failed to offer the evidence on which its story was based in order to try to justify ignoring that evidence."

In response to Davies' complaint about the use of his evidence, Abell claimed the PCC quoted Nick Davies' evidence 'very clearly in our report'. "This reveals precisely what he said to us - including the fact that he was not in a position to supply the PCC with any further evidence," said Abell.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).