Clive Goodman's lawyer tells court his client forfeited his chance of sympathy from jury by admitting to hacking royal phones

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The Duchess of Cambridge deserved privacy just like anyone else when she was dating Prince William, a jury at the Old Bailey has heard.

The former News of the World royal editor forfeited his chance of sympathy from the jury in the phone-hacking trial after his "shameful" admission that he hacked Kate Middleton's phone 155 times, his lawyer said.

David Spens QC said Clive Goodman had "recognised" that his standards of journalism had fallen below those expected of him and was not proud of what he had done.

"I am not inviting any sympathy for Mr Goodman. Any sympathy for him has been forfeited by his admission that he hacked Kate Middleton, Prince William and Prince Harry, which was a shameful thing to do," said Spens.

"It's all to do with maintaining high standards of journalism – respecting anyone's right to privacy, not just Kate Middleton.

"Mr Goodman had recognised he had fallen below those standards," he added.

The jury has previously heard Goodman started hacking her phone in December 2005 and had even eavesdropped on her voicemails on Christmas Day and Boxing Day of that year.

In his closing speech Spens reminded jurors that Goodman had not been jailed for hacking royal aides in 2007 and that he was not now on trial for this "extra hacking".

Spens told them Goodman was given a guarantee on 11 May 2014, midway through his trial, that he would not be charged over Middleton and the princes and invited them to consider why he had held this "shameful" episode of hacking from the court until three days after received this assurance.

They would have to consider if it was "a white lie" or "a really serious lie", he said.

Spens suggested that he held this back "because he was fearful of being charged" and after being released from jail in 2007 he had had no reason to believe he would ever be charged with hacking again.

"He was falsely stigmatised as a single rogue reporter ... He had put hacking, and the directories and the News of the World behind him and he was leading a wholly new life, principally as primary carer for his daughter born in 2005, minding his own business and getting on with his life ... then came the knock on the door," said Spens.

Spens challenged the evidence of Coulson and that of the paper's former managing editor Stuart Kuttner about their response to his arrest in 2006.

"Do they remind you of the three wise monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil?" Spens asked.

He accused Coulson of "skulduggery" and, separately, said Kuttner's claim he wanted to put a supporting company arm around Goodman after his arrest was a "charade". He went to visit him "to pump him for information" about the police's investigation, said Spens.

Spens said Goodman did not think he would be back in court in relation to 15 internal royal phone directories that were found in his home during the police searches in 2006.

"That whole chapter of his life was over," he said.

Goodman has been charged with conspiring to cause misconduct in public office after a second police inquiry, Operation Weeting into hacking, was opened in 2011.

The Crown Prosecution Service brought the charges after Weeting detectives found emails from Goodman to the paper's editor Andy Coulson asking for money to pay a palace police officer for the royal phone books.

Spens said the charges related to something that was "no more than a storm in a teacup" and were based on exaggeration by Goodman in his emails to his boss.

Goodman has said he did not have any police contacts and that he only pretended he did to make sure his real contacts – one of them a journalist on another paper - would be paid.

Two types of books were found at Goodman's home – "green books" and internal telephone directories – but none had come from police, Spens said.

The green book was described as "a sort of posher version" of the royal internal telephone directory because it contained the telephone numbers of officials such as the chief pilot of the royal helicopter and the Queen's racing adviser.

Spens told jurors that only one green book was delivered to royal protection officers at St James's Palace but there was never any report that it had gone missing.

"That may tell you this book did not come from a St James's Palace police officer," said Spens.

He also told jurors that the content of the directories, while helpful to Goodman, were not that sensitive and his own claim that one of the books contained the direct line to the Queen was untrue. "He was exaggerating, no doubt about that," said Spens. "All you find in the green book are just switchboard numbers."

He said "exhaustive efforts" were made in 2012 by police who were "perhaps wishing to atone for that superficial inquiry" in 2006 when Goodman was first arrested on suspicion of hacking into the voicemail of royal aides. The police had left "no stone unturned" in their quest to find a corrupt police officer who might have been responsible for selling the royal books, but none was found.

Operation Weeting officers had found 112 unidentified fingerprints on the 15 books found in Goodman's home and could not match any of them with royal police officers.

He said there was "no forensic link" – no fingerprints, banking records or telephone records – between Goodman and police.

Goodman and Coulson and their five co-defendants deny all charges against them.

The trial continues.