Matt Weaver
Thursday May 19, 2005

A BBC reporter today expressed his outrage at being duped into revealing a source who had blown the whistle on Westminster council's slow progress in recovering money from its disgraced former leader, Dame Shirley Porter.

Mr Hosken supported Mr Dimoldenberg's claim that he was acting in the public interest by passing the information to the BBC.

He said the story had helped "put a rocket up the council" in its flagging efforts to recover a ?42m surcharge imposed on Dame Shirley for her part in the homes for votes scandal of the 1980s.

Mr Hosken explained how he offered to help Westminster lawyers Stephenson Harwood to recover the money by allowing the firm to see documents revealing that Dame Shirley had control of assets worth significantly more than the ?300,000 she had told the courts she was worth.

The hearing heard that Emma Green, a solicitor from the firm, had gone through Mr Hosken's files to get evidence against Mr Dimoldenberg.

Mr Hosken said: "They had quite wrongly used the information to finger Councillor Dimoldenberg as a source. That was absolutely outrageous."

In his witness statement to the panel he added: "I thought Ms Griffiths was there to gather information which may assist her company recover monies from Dame Shirley, not to pry on behalf of Westminster council and attempt to discover my sources of information."

"I would not have given the documents to Stephenson Harwood if I knew they could be used for anything other than to assist in the recovery efforts," his witness statement said.

He added that leaked emails from Mr Dimoldenberg had been "vital" in exposing Westminster's tardy efforts to recover the funds.

Mr Hoskens said he could not trust the council to give out truthful accounts of the recovery process because the council leader, Simon Milton, and the chief whip, Robert Davis, were close associates of Dame Shirley.

He said that before the Today programme story the council had made little progress in recovering the money, and in particular had failed to "go after" Peter Green, Dame Shirley's financial adviser.

"Within 10 days of the report, Peter Green's computers had been seized. Within six months of the broadcast the council had frozen assets relating to Dame Shirley and her family worth ?34m," Mr Hosken said.

The hearing, in central London, was attended by a handful of Mr Dimoldenberg's supporters including Karen Buck MP, now a junior transport minister.

Under cross examination Mr Hosken admitted that he had been passed information that was subjected to a high court gagging order.

"We were doing a story in the public interest. Of course technically we should not have had that information. But I think we should have had it, and we made good use of it."

Mr Hosken admitted breaking an understanding with Mr Dimoldenberg not to broadcast material passed to him by quoting from one of the emails in a two-way interview with a Today presenter.

"It was a mistake for which I have apologised to Paul Dimoldenberg and the BBC," he said.

Referring to another mistake made by his then Today colleague Andrew Gilligan, he added: "It was early in the morning, and we all know about live two-ways."

Today programme editor Kevin Marsh said in a witness statement that Hosken's mistake was a "genuine oversight".

It added: "There was a clear public interest in Andrew Hosken's report because it raised very serious questions about Peter Green's and Shirley Porter's honesty. The report also raised serious legitimate concerns about the effectiveness and vigour of the recovery process itself."

The panel hearing continues.