Alan Rusbridger: I think it would have been better to have it all tested in court in the way that Harry’s case against Mirror Group Newspapers was tested and the judge came to findings of fact, so we haven’t got facts here. But I thought it was quite significant at the end that Lord Watson said that they were going to hand the whole dossier of evidence over to the police. So I think in that sense, it’s now in the police’s decision whether they’re going to carry through and look at allegations of criminal behaviour, of perjury, of destruction of evidence and so forth. So I don’t think it’s the end.
Alex Thomson: Disturbing, though, isn’t it? There’s a sense in which it is justice, but justice for the super wealthy. One doubts whether Tom Watson would have been involved had he not been to some extent able to hang the case financially on the deep coffers of Prince Harry.
Alan Rusbridger: It was also the deep pockets of Rupert Murdoch. Someone was going to lose £10 million at the end of this case and Prince Harry has made sure it wasn’t him. In that sense, Rupert Murdoch has been able to do what he’s done in other court actions, which is to buy his way out of the justice system and make sure that these allegations aren’t heard. What we’ve got here is the original crime, and you remember the defence there was that it was one rotten apple and then in the subsequent 15 years of cover-up that shifted to it was one rotten newspaper. Now they’ve finally admitted that it was more than one rotten newspaper. So we haven’t been given the truth over a long period of time. And that matters because this is a newspaper at the heart of it. This is about journalism, and journalists are supposed to tell the truth. News organisations are supposed to tell the truth.
Alex Thomson: It’s not just the Murdoch stable, Associated Newspapers. Mail, Mail on Sunday and so forth. There are certainly a lot of rumours, there are also outstanding legal actions in that department, isn’t there? This has not gone away.
Alan Rusbridger: There are more cases to come and it’ll be interesting to see whether Associated, they want to fight through in the way that the Mirror Group did or whether they’ll do what Murdoch did, which is to not want this tested in court. The blackening of Prince Harry’s name and his wife by large chunks of Fleet Street has been really awful to watch. And it seems like an almost deliberate tactic to destroy the credibility of somebody who is a threat to them. I suppose one thing that you hope is going to come out of this action after the really grovelling apology by Murdoch, not only to Harry, but also to his mother Princess Diana, that it would be really unseemly now if they just started that all over again now that he’s won this case.
Alex Thomson: The Murdoch executive down there at Wapping, Rebekah Brooks, her words revisited today, ‘I ran a clean ship’, meaning The Sun, that seems somewhat in tatters, to put it mildly.
Alan Rusbridger: It was Prince Harry’s KC using the word, ‘it wasn’t a clean ship, it was a criminal enterprise’. It is extraordinary that Rebekah Brooks is still in position tonight or indeed for the last 15 years, apart from the time when she wasn’t. And it’s difficult to think of any parallel in any other aspect of corporate life where the CEO, who’s now admitted today that her company was indulging in unlawful activities while she was editing, she was editor for six years, should still be in place.
Alex Thomson: And to those who say, ‘come on, this is all a long time ago. The tabloids have long since been eclipsed by social media, which is much darker in some ways, let’s face it. Time to move on’. What do you say?
Alan Rusbridger: You can’t have it both ways. The Murdoch organisation is a powerful organisation. It sets the agenda. It wants to be noticed. Its chief executive is a very powerful person. I think the legacy media wants to be believed, wants to regain trust and see off social media. And it’s difficult to see how it can do that in these kinds of circumstances.