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Index to News Releases concerning Hunt & Keith-Hill's investigation

This document is a press handout written by Hunt's publisher containing the main points of a news release which Hunt's PR firm has since disposed of.  It was included in a press pack which also contained copies of documents that the Guardian had submitted to Sir Gordon Downey’s parliamentary inquiry, which Hunt and Keith-Hill showed were forgeries.
    The Press Association refused to disseminate news about the conference on the grounds that it is part-owned by the Guardian.  Nevertheless, direct canvassing by Hunt's PR firm resulted in reporters attending from the Independent, Daily Telegraph; Evening Standard; Daily Express; ITN; BBC Radio 4; and camera crews from ITN and BBC News.  Five reporters attended from the Guardian.
    Despite its national importance and despite having sent camera crews, neither BBC TV News nor ITN broadcast the conference.  BBC NW reported it in the NW region only.  The only national news organisations who covered the launch were the Daily Telegraph and the BBC Online website.  However, the BBC Online bulletin - which the BBC has since removed from its website - referred only fleetingly to Hunt's allegations against The Guardian, as listed below, describing them as "nothing particularly new".
   To download the BBC's biased bulletin click here 

An ITN camera crew and a BBC Radio 4 political producer, Manisha Vadhia, both capture The Guardian's David Leigh disrupting the launch of Trial by Conspiracy. Sat with Vadhia in the foreground is The Guardian's Simon Hoggart, whom Vadhia's boss, Anne Tyerman, engaged to cover the event for BBC Radio 4's Sunday political programme.
    Though proof was produced at the launch showing that The Guardian had lied and submitted forged documents to the Downey Inquiry, both news organisations cancelled their coverage and have never mentioned Hunt & Keith-Hill's investigation (taken from item broadcast by BBCNW, 19.10.98)

• The Guardian has never produced any evidence to substantiate its original story that the lobbyist Ian Greer paid two MPs £2000 a time to table questions.

• The Guardian presented forged and falsified documents to the Downey Inquiry.

• Downey's "compelling evidence" punch-line was based entirely on the word of Mohamed Al Fayed's employees. There are ten witnesses who contradicted the testimony of Al Fayed's employees and The Guardian, nine of whom contacted Downey, none of whom Downey called to testify.

• The case against Hamilton ultimately rests on one person, Al Fayed's ex-personal assistant, Alison Bozek, who was the only person to claim direct involvement in processing "cash in brown envelopes". Her evidence was contradicted directly by four witnesses, three of whom contacted Downey, none of whom Downey called to testify.

• Fayed's allegations to The Guardian about Hamilton were made out of spite at the time of the European Court of Human Rights ruling (which rejected Al Fayed's appeal, to have the DTI report into his take-over of Harrods, quashed) in September 1994 and not in 1993 as The Guardian claims.

• If Neil Hamilton was being paid by Mohammed Al Fayed why did he never ask any questions on behalf of Fayed on the floor of the House?

• Neil Hamilton is suing Mohamed Al Fayed for libel and the case win be heard in Court 13 in the High Court some time during 1999.

News Release 29 October 1997

News Release 19 July 2000

This web page is situated in Guardianlies.com/Section One: The British media's censorship of Hunt & Keith-Hill's investigation

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