Former ‘News of the World‘ royal editor denies stealing cash from paper

A former News of the World journalist charged with paying public officials for royal phone directories has denied stealing cash from the newspaper, a jury in the Old Bailey has heard.

Clive Goodman, the paper's former royal editor, told jurors yesterday that cash requests for £214,000 over a six-year period were all genuine.

Mr Goodman said police records purporting to show that he was not withdrawing money from his own bank account could be partly explained by the fact he inherited £140,000 in the year concerned.

He added that the cash claims made when he was at the News of the World were part of a system of keeping sources confidential and off the newspaper's financial records.

Under cross-examination by counsel for the paper's former editor Andy Coulson, the jury heard that Mr Goodman had made cash claims for £28,000 in 2001, £44,000 in 2002, £56,000 in 2003, £31,000 in 2004, £44,000 in 2005 and £11,900 for part of 2006, the year he was arrested on suspicion of phone hacking.

Timothy Langdale QC asked if all the money went to the sources that he had claimed. “It did actually go to the person named,” said Mr Goodman.

Asked if there was “evidence” to support his assertion, Mr Goodman said there would not be any evidence because of the “very nature that they are confidential sources”.

The jury has previously heard during his testimony that he had three sources he would pay cash to, including one newspaper executive on a rival paper. "Did you keep for yourself any of the money from News of the World? " Mr Goodman was asked. "No I did not," he said.

Financial history
Mr Langdale pressed him on police records of his financial history over the six years, which allegedly show that he stopped using cash machines to withdraw money from in 2004 and 2005.

Records show Mr Goodman did not make cash withdrawals between February 2004 and June 2006 when he withdrew £200 from his account.

Mr Goodman said there was a simple explanation – he and his first wife did not have children or responsibilities and lived a “high-spending lifestyle”, but they separated in 2001 and divorced in 2003. The following year his girlfriend, now his wife, became pregnant and he stopped using cash machines.

“My lifestyle changed. I stopped spending money. I started to get cash back in the supermarket and garages. I lived on expenses from the cashier’s office. I lived a much more quiet lifestyle.”

Mr Goodman said that in 2004, he had received “a legacy of £140,000 from the death of my mother” and that he had other bank accounts that were not accounted for in the police documents on which he was being cross-examined.

“What we have here is an incomplete record of my financial history,” he said. Asked “what was it the police missed in terms of cash withdrawal?”, Mr Goodman replied: “I’m sorry, I think you are going to have to ask them.”

Mr Langdale put it to him that he was known as “the eternal flame” because “you never went out” of the office. Mr Goodman said the phrase was coined by the paper’s former news editor Ian Edmondson and that “no, it wasn’t accurate”.

Series of payments
Mr Goodman was challenged about a series of payments for stories.

The jury heard that one of Mr Goodman's regular sources "Anderson", a fake ID for a journalist to whom he made cash payments, was paid £300 for a spotting an item about Sarah Ferguson in the Observer .

Mr Goodman told jurors it was "absolutely commonplace" to pay other journalists who "spotted" stories they had missed. "The skill is identifying the story and passing it on, not writing it. The Observer is not a paper I normally take."

The trial continues.