No, Portuguese police and journo.
2.46pm: Daniel Sanderson's witness statement has now been published. It says that the former News of the World news editor Ian Edmondson approved a €18,000 payment to a Portuguese journalist for the Kate McCann diaries.
12.19pm: Sanderson explains how he got in touch with a Portuguese journalist and they discussed payment for a copy of the diary. Sanderson then liaised with the news editor at the time, Ian Edmondson.
Edmondson hired a freelancer, Gerard Couzens, who is based in Spain to travel to Portugal to meet the journalist and collect the diary.
Sanderson says he wasn't aware at the time that the ultimate source was the Portuguese police.
http://themaddiecasefiles.com/topic17221.html
Statement of Daniel Sanderson
In response to the numbered questions set out in the letter from the Leveson Inquiry dated
2nd December 2011
1. Please explain exactly how NoW obtained a copy of Dr Kate McCann’s diary: you are not
required to name any sources, but you are required to identify the precise provenance of
the diary, explain the circumstances in which NoW received it, and confirm (if it be the
case) that it was of the original which had been seized by the Portuguese authorities.
A story appeared in The Sun newspaper on July 28, 2008, which said that extracts of Kate
McCann’s diary had emerged in Portugal, covering the first weeks after her daughter
Madeleine disappeared.
In the article there were two extracts that Mrs McCann had made in her diary.
I was asked by my news editor lan Edmondson to track down the person who was in
possession of the diary and was leaking extracts of it in Portugal.
After Mr Edmondson agreed, I called several newspapers in Portugal to ascertain who had
the diary.
I was put in touch with a journalist in Portugal who confirmed that they were in possession
of a copy of the diary and were willing to sell it to the NoW for, if my memory serves me
correctly, 18,000 Euros.
I believe the newspaper agreed to pay something like 9,000 Euros immediately and the rest
on publication of the story. The purchase was authorised by Mr Edmondson.
I liaised with Mr Edmondson and was told to ask a freelance journalist called Gerard
Couzens, who is based in Spain, to travel to Portugal to meet the journalist and collect the
diary.
From there my involvement ended until the diary reached the offices of the NoW.
My understanding is that Mr Edmondson took control of the diary’s delivery to our offices.
I believe that Mr Couzens met the journalist on Friday September 5, 2008 in Portugal and
paid her Euro 9,000 for a copy of the diary.
It’s my understanding that Mr Couzens delivered the diary to the NoW’s offices on Saturday
September 6, 2008.
It did not appear to be the original diary, but a copy that had been translated from English
into Portuguese.
2. Was the copy
NoW
obtained in English or Portuguese?
The NoW copy was in Portuguese.
3. What steps, if any, did you take to establish its authenticity and that it was a document
which you were entitled to possess?
Over the course of the working week commencing on Tuesday September 9th 2008, I
organised for the diary to be translated back into English using a London-based translation
service (I cannot recall the name).
It was a laborious task and the final section was completed on Friday September 12, 2008 -
two days before the story was published.
I spent the week writing the story as and when sections had been successfully translated.
In terms of its authenticity, we approached the diary from the viewpoint that it was a fake.
We had to cross check every entry against our online cuttings system to check that each
I was first made aware that the newspaper had the document when I returned to the office
after the weekend on Tuesday September 9, 2008.
Mr Edmondson showed me the diary that morning.
3. What steps, if any, did you take to establish its authenticity and that it was a document
which you were entitled to possess?
Over the course of the working week commencing on Tuesday September 9th 2008, I
organised for the diary to be translated back into English using a London-based translation
service (I cannot recall the name).
It was a laborious task and the final section was completed on Friday September 12, 2008 -
two days before the story was published.
I spent the week writing the story as and when sections had been successfully translated.
In terms of its authenticity, we approached the diary from the viewpoint that it was a fake.
We had to cross check every entry against our online cuttings system to check that each
entry was correct and the diary was genuine.
For example, if there was an entry where it said the McCanns had met The Pope that day,
I had to check in cuttings that newspapers had reported that the McCanns had indeed met
The Pope on the corresponding date.
My understanding of the situation was that the news editor, Mr Edmondson, would also
confirm with the McCann’s press spokesman Clarence Mitchell that the diary was genuine.
4. What was paid for the diary and to whom?
I believe 18,000 Euros were paid to the Portuguese journalist (the P J). It was paid in two
parts; 9,000 Euros up front and 9,000 Euros on publication. I can’t be certain of this figure,
but it is certainly a fairly accurate estimate. I am aware of the approximate figure because
that is the price that had been agreed with the PJ in my initial phone conversations with the
PJ. The PJ set the price, which I had communicated to Mr Edmondson. Mr Edmondson then
authorised both payments to the source. The PJ then contacted me after publication to
organise the second payment, which was authorised by Mr Edmondson.
(...)
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http:/www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Witness-Statement-of-Daniel-Sanderson.pdfThe journalist in question appears to be a woman if Sanderson is correct.
Way before this though, there were extracts published way back in the September 07 Portuguese anti-McCann media blitz.
