30.
It appears that at some time in the morning of Friday 14 April 2017, which was bank
holiday Good Friday, Mr Newton Dunn worked on the first draft of the article. At
1145 hours on 14 April 2017 Mr Newton Dunn sent the “Good Friday Politics Late
List” to the news desk. This is a list setting out news stories so that the editor can
make a decision about which ones to print. The first story related to the treatment of
armed forces veterans by the NHS. The second was the outline of the story related to
Mr Burgon. Other stories were set out.
31.
The next activity occurred at some time before 1242 hours when Mr Newton Dunn
telephoned the Labour Party press office. The evidence showed that the contact
details for Mr Burgon’s office were published, and it was suggested that Mr Newton
Dunn should have phoned Mr Burgon’s office. Mr Newton Dunn said he did not
contact Mr Burgon directly as he did not have contact details for him. Mr Newton
Dunn said that there would have been no one in the office on the bank holiday Friday
14 April 2017 and that inquiries to cabinet ministers and shadow cabinet ministers
tended to go through party press offices.
32.
Mr Newton Dunn said he did not contact the band because “so far as I was concerned
there was no doubt the band had used Nazi iconography on its album and the
interesting thing was not that the band was using it (that would not have been a story)
but that the Shadow Justice Secretary was associating with a band that was using it”.
I will deal with the issues about whether contact should have been made directly with
Mr Burgon and the band below.
33.
Mr Newton Dunn spoke to Vicky Street, the duty press officer, about his proposed
story and his question or query for Mr Burgon. Ms Street asked for the query to be
put in writing and at 1242 hours Mr Newton Dunn emailed Ms Street showing a link
to the Dream Troll image taken from the Twitter post, albeit with the hashtag Black
Sabbath not shown. Mr Newton Dunn wrote “Our question; is it really appropriate for
a shadow justice secretary to be associating with a band that uses Nazi iconography to
promote itself? Thanks”.
34.
Having sent this email Mr Newton Dunn then emailed the pictures desk with the
pictures “to go with a story we’re doing tmrw, list line below”. He sent links to the
Dream Troll image as sent to Ms Street, and the picture of Mr Burgon taken from his
Facebook post.
35.
Ms Street emailed Mr Fraser, Mr Burgon’s political adviser, at 1334 hours
apologising for making contact on a bank holiday, and asking “is this anything that
Richard wants to send a comment to? Let me know if you need anything”. The
evidence shows that Mr Fraser was flying to Rome for the Easter weekend. By 1439
hours he had landed and he replied to Ms Street saying “Sorry I’ve been on a flight
I’ll ask him”.
36.
Mr Fraser sent by WhatsApp a copy of the Guido Fawkes article, which included Mr
Burgon’s Facebook post, to both Mr Burgon and a Parliamentary assistant, Ben
Folley. Mr Folley reported at 1500 hours that it was quite concerning and they could
“seek to turn this into another `problem with anti-semitism’ story”. Mr Folley was
concerned that the public will agree with a media assertion “it looks like they are