From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tom Crone
is a British
barrister
, last working for
News International
as Legal Affairs manager, before he
resigned
during the
News International phone hacking scandal
in 2011.
[1]
Career
[
edit
]
Crone qualified as a barrister, and after five years of private practise joined
Mirror Group Newspapers
.
[2]
In 1985, he joined News International, appointed as Legal Affairs manager.
[3]
During his time at the group, acting for
The Sun
and the
News of the World
, he won plaudits from both colleagues and rivals for his unerring journalistic instinct: "He is a unique lawyer in that he has great journalistic instincts. He is sort of 10% journalist and is incredibly streetwise."
[4]
A close personal friend of the late
George Carman
QC, Crone was one of the first media managers to use libel defence specialist
John Kelsey-Fry
QC.
[5]
He also hit out at then
Attorney General for England and Wales
Lord Goldsmith
for clamping down on media coverage of high-profile cases, such as the allegations of
rape
made against a group of
Premier League
footballers, before they go to trial.
[6]
Resignation
[
edit
]
As part of his role at News International, Crone gave evidence before parliamentary committees in 2009, stating that he had uncovered no evidence of phone hacking beyond the criminal offences committed by the royal editor
Clive Goodman
.
[7]
In 2011, within 10 days of the revelation of the hacking of
Milly Dowler
's phone, he resigned from his position at News International.
[4]
[2]
He maintains that he did not see an internal report suggesting that phone hacking at the paper reached more widely than Goodman.
[7]
Since police renewed investigations in 2011,
90 people have been arrested
and
16 formally charged with crimes
in conjunction with illegal acquisition of confidential information. Many of these people were employees or agents of
News International
during the period that Crone was the legal manager there.
On 30 August 2012, he was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and was taken to a local police station for questioning.
[8]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
|
---|
Events
| |
---|
Companies and
organisations
| |
---|
People
| |
---|
Investigations
and legal cases
| |
---|
In popular culture
| |
---|
Related topics
| |
---|
|