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Jonathan Boyd Hunt &
Malcolm Keith-Hill

In the last days of September 1997, some five months into their investigation into the 'cash for questions' affair, and prior to the release of their interim report, Jonathan Boyd Hunt & Malcolm Keith-Hill made several requests, both written and telephoned, for interviews with the three Guardian journalists whose articles of October 1994 had prompted the controversy.  No response was received.  Keith-Hill, an ex-pat, returned home overseas to Brazil in December.
    A few weeks later in January 1998 Hunt wrote again to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, requesting interviews with him and several other journalists.  Rusbridger stonewalled.  After Hunt made two more requests, both of which Rusbridger rebuffed, The Guardian's head of Legal Affairs threatened Hunt with legal action to stop him publishing his research (for extracts from this correspondence see Guardian lie No.10 in Section Three).
    After Hunt spurned this intimidation, The Guardian began investigating the two freelances' backgrounds in order to find something with which they could be smeared.  Hunt subsequently chronicled The Guardian's activities in his book Trial By Conspiracy.  Reproduced below is an adapted extract, beginning at the conclusion of his bristling correspondence with The Guardian.

I arrived back at the office on 23 March [1998] to find another missive awaiting me from The Guardian's Head of Legal Affairs, Siobhain Butterworth:

   Thank you for your letter of 11 March, which arrived on 13 March.
   The purpose of my letter of 9 March is to put you on notice that The Guardian denies the original defamatory allegations made by you and that it does not consent to the repetition of these allegations or the publication of any further defamatory allegations.
   The letter also puts you on notice that The Guardian requires you to put any further allegations you intend to publish in writing so that The Guardian and the journalists concerned are given the right to reply.
   You refuse to put your allegations in writing because you believe that Alan Rusbridger and certain of his staff 'will concoct all manner of false explanations to [your] questions if [you] were to do so.' But you want to interview them. The position you have adopted is not credible and we take it as a further indication that you are not acting in good faith.
   There is little point in our litigating this matter by correspondence. You are now fully appraised of The Guardian's views about the allegations you make and the way you have conducted your investigation.
   
   Yours sincerely,
   
   Siobhain Butterworth
   

This was getting bothersome.  It took me a few days to collate the necessary material and then off went a blistering broadside to silence their guns once and for all.

   27 March 1998
Siobhain Butterworth
Head of Legal Affairs
Guardian
Farringdon Road
London  EC1R 3ER

Dear Ms. Butterworth,
   
   Thank you for your letter of 20 March 1998. 
   Thank you for notification that The Guardian denies the allegations contained within our report (of October 1997), and that The Guardian does not consent to the repetition or publication of these allegations.
   With regard to your request that I put in writing all further allegations to The Guardian, the most serious allegations I make are listed in my letters to Alan Rusbridger, dated 3 and 5 February 1998, and in my letter to you, dated 11 March 1998.  I may make other allegations in due course, but the nature of these will be dependant on whether The Guardian gives interviews, during which satisfactory answers are provided to my questions...
   You continue to contrive to establish that I have not acted in good faith on the single issue of the notice that my colleague and I gave to The Guardian, prior to the release of early versions of our report.  As I have pointed out many times, my colleague Malcolm Keith-Hill requested interviews with The Guardian by fax on 29 9 97 and thereafter twice by telephone shortly after.  However then, as now, The Guardian stonewalled our requests. 
   Keith-Hill made our requests over two weeks before our earlier draft report was first presented to the Select Committee by Neil Hamilton on 14 October 1997, and over four weeks before we released a later version at our press conference in Westminster on 29 October 1997 -- which was attended by Guardian journalists David Hencke and David Leigh...
    So, given that we requested interviews two weeks prior to our report first being released to the Select Committee, and given that The Guardian possessed a copy of this report in advance of our notice of its release to the Press, it is pure tosh that you assert that we have acted in bad faith...
   You attempt to justify The Guardian's refusal to grant interviews, by attempting to undermine my credibility ... by questioning the adequacy of the notice we gave The Guardian prior to releasing our report last October.  But your posture is destroyed by the fact that The Guardian gave substantially less notice to Ian Greer and Neil Hamilton, and contrived to couch its 'warnings' so as to amount to no notice at all.
   This contrasts completely with my own notice now of the nature of the allegations that will be in my book 'Trial by Conspiracy.'  The stark fact is, I am now giving Alan Rusbridger and his staff ample opportunity to answer my questions months in advance of any allegations about them being widely disseminated to the public.  This is totally unlike The Guardian's own disgraceful behaviour. 
   After nearly a year's examination of all the evidence before Downey, plus other evidence from the libel trial, I have identified countless gross anomalies in The Guardian's evidence and reporting.  Therefore, once again I formerly request that I am provided interviews with: David Hencke; David Leigh; John Mullin; David Pallister; Peter Preston; Alan Rusbridger; Michael White and Jamie Wilson. 
   If Alan Rusbridger has nothing to fear, then the opportunity I am giving The Guardian to answer my questions is surely something he would welcome.
   
   Yours sincerely,
   
   Jonathan Boyd Hunt.
   

Interview with UK Pol Magazine

Continues overleaf

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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