Astonishing story of the photographic agency's surveillance exploits : Media : guardian.co.uk

by Roy Greenslade, guardian.co.uk
July 20th 2012

A disturbing insight into the intrusive and unethical nature of tabloid story-getting was revealed to the Leveson inquiry earlier this week by the owner of a photographic agency.

Matt Sprake, who runs the NewsPics agency, told of carrying out surveillance on more than 300 people in a two-year period, almost always involving the use of covert photography.

The inquiry ensured that the names the people were redacted from the list supplied by Sprake but two of his targets were specifically mentioned during his questioning - Gerry and Kate McCann.

Sprake admitted flying to Canada in July 2008 with a reporter from The People, Daniel Jones, to follow the couple, whose three-year-old daughter, Madeleine, had vanished in May 2007. It was the McCanns' first holiday since her disappearance.

The result, in an article headlined "Wish she was here", was billed as a People picture exclusive (but the photographs are not shown on the paper's website).

The exchange about the incident between Sprake and the Leveson inquiry counsel, Robert Jay QC, is particularly revealing. Jay began by asking whether the assignment caused Sprake any concern whatsoever?

Sprake: "I have to be careful what I say because of where we are, but I recall a conversation as to where the information came from, that they were in Canada, and it came from a source close to the family.

"So at the time I felt it was appropriate, bearing in mind, with the McCanns, there was a feeling that publicity - keeping Madeleine in the news was helpful to the cause of finding Madeleine."

Jay: "But if they wanted to be photographed with that objective, they simply had to pose for a photograph. Could you not agree?"

Sprake: "No, because it doesn't work that way. We get tips from celebrities who tell us that they want to be photographed, but they want to make it look like it's not been set up for the newspaper.

"That is also something that happens regularly, so it doesn't look
like they're colluding with a newspaper.

"In fact, I got criticised by somebody on a website after the pictures were published of the McCanns saying that I'd worked with the McCanns to set that set of pictures up, because it looked so set up that I was accused of setting it up with the McCanns."

Jay then confirmed with Sprake that the pictures of the McCanns taken at Vancouver airport were not the result of collusion.

During questioning, by both Jay and Lord Justice Leveson, Sprake indicated that ethics were the concern of the newspaper editors rather than himself.

For example, asked whether it was ethical for one of his photographers to use of a covert camera on a story about bankers spending money on drink, Sprake replied:

"I think's it's an answer for the newspaper, really, rather than us. We're tasked to provide the evidence."

Sprake was then asked about a specific assignment in order to show that a woman was "a drug-taking prostitute". Before she met the paper's journalists a video camera had been placed in the hotel room.

Jay suggested to Sprake that it was unethical under the editors' code of practice to covertly film the woman in order to elicit information "which has little or no public interest." He asked: "Would you agree with that?"

Sprake replied: "Yes, I probably would."

In his written evidence, Sprake listed 330 assignments carried out by his agency between June 2010 and July 2012. The vast majority were for The People and, until its closure, the News of the World. There were seven for the Mail on Sunday, four for The Sun, just one for the Daily Mail and a handful for the celebrity magazines New! and Now.

The jobs typically involved surveillance from a car or van and the covert snatching of pictures in order, said Sprake, to verify the truthfulness of tips to the newspapers. Many turned out to be untrue.

Before Sprake launched his agency in 2001, he had spent 10 years as Metropolitan police photographer. He had been called to give evidence to Leveson following a report on the website Exaro News by David Hencke that alleged NewsPics was offering money to police and public officials for information about the private lives of prominent people.

Sprake told the inquiry he had removed that offer on 4 July, the day the Exaro investigation alerted him to the "inappropriateness" of the wording on his website.

Sprake also said he had fired two photographers for breaching the editors' code. One had harassed a former Big Brother contestant by following her down a street and backing her into a doorway.

The other one had refused to call off an arranged job photographing a celebrity couple and their respective parents after the couple had had a change of heart. Sprake had explained that his agency had collaborated with some celebrities, or their agents, to take supposedly snatched pictures in order to raise their public profile.

Sprake was asked about a case in 2007 in which his agency carried out surveillance of a former senior Metropolitan police officer and a married woman who was working for the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

He said he had been asked by The People to trail the woman and take pictures of her with her husband, and had then followed her to a meeting with the officer in a pub on two consecutive evenings.

He said the story had been dropped after the couple left separately on both occasions, but was picked up months later when the affair was confirmed on a TV programme. The People and the Mail on Sunday then jointly used the pictures after the latter bid £10,000 to buy them up.

Sprake said the story had been in the public interest as the IPCC were investigating the officer's unit at the time.

Sprake's evidence - which has come late in the Leveson inquiry process - casts a harsh light on the way tabloid newspapers go about their business to obtain stories that rarely, if ever, have a public interest justification.

It also puts The People into the spotlight. Its editor from 2008 until May this year was Lloyd Embley, who is now editor-in-chief of the Daily and Sunday Mirror.

In his written evidence to the Leveson inquiry, he said:

"I seek to ensure that my team and I act in accordance with the editors' code of practice...

I owe an ethical responsibility to the readers of the newspaper. Our staff are
expected to behave with respect, common sense and common decency. When dealing with
members of the public our staff should identify themselves as reporters and the newspaper
for which they work - unless they are dealing with criminals or putting themselves at risk in an undercover investigation."

So here's the situation. The photographic agency says the ethics are the responsibility of the newspaper and the newspaper expects the journalist it hires to take responsibility for obeying an ethical code.

Clearly, Embley has questions to answer. Even at this late stage, Leveson should recall him.

Sources: Leveson: written and oral/Exaro News/The People Hat tip: Hacked Off

Original Page: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/jul/20/leveson-inquiry-thepeople

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