David Cameron has explaining to do over apology for hiring Andy Coulson
LONDON - British Prime Minister David Cameron had a tough time Wednesday giving clarifications over how he had ignored warnings before hiring disgraced former tabloid editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief.
In more trouble for Cameron, the judge in the phone hacking trial has rebuked the British prime minister for commenting on the conviction of Coulson before the trial ended.
Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World newspaper who rose to be David Cameron's head of communications, has been found guilty of conspiracy to hack mobile phones and faces prison.
Old Bailey judge Justice Saunders expressed concern that the prime minister had issued an apology for hiring Coulson in 2007 while the jury were still deliberating over two charges against Coulson.
"I don't know whether it was done out of ignorance or done deliberately," Saunders said at the Old Bailey legal hearing.
Cameron in a statement, said: "I take full responsibility for employing Andy Coulson. I did so on the basis of undertakings I was given by him about phone hacking and those turned out not to be the case. I always said that if they turned out to be wrong, I would make a full and frank apology and I do that today. I am extremely sorry that I employed him. It was the wrong decision and I am very clear about that."
Justice Saunders said his intervention was "unsatisfactory" and set a bad example to the media.
Two further charges were still being considered and the prime minister did not seem to understand that his televised statement was putting material into the public domain that could have prejudiced the remainder of Coulson's trial, said the judge.
However, Saunders rejected an application by Coulson's defence team to have the charges thrown out because of the "maelstrom of commentary" by Cameron, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, and George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer.
The judge said he had asked the prime minister for an explanation on Tuesday evening as to why he had issued a statement while the jury were still out and was told by his principal private secretary: "The prime minister was responding to the guilty verdict on hacking charges that had been delivered in open court," said the Guardian.
Justice Saunders will hear on Monday whether the Crown Prosecution Service wishes to launch a retrial.
The British parliament session witnessed much chaos over the issue Wednesday. Cameron repeated his apology for hiring Coulson, saying he had done so on the basis of assurances he had received from the former editor and noting that a judge-led inquiry had made no criticism of his conduct.
The opposition Labour party has accused the prime minister of being so keen to cozy up to the influential media empire of Rupert Murdoch that he was willfully negligent in hiring Coulson.
"Today we know that for four years the prime minister's hand-picked closest advisor was a criminal and brought disgrace to Downing Street. We now also know the prime minister willfully ignored multiple warnings about him [Coulson]," Ed Miliband, the leader of the center-left opposition Labour Party, told parliament.
Miliband also noted that unlike his predecessors in the communications job at 10 Downing St., Coulson hadn't been vetted for the highest level of security clearance. The prime minister should have insisted on it, Miliband said.
Cameron denied the charges and said the Leveson inquiry had covered that ground and concluded that security clearance was a matter for civil service to decide, not the prime minister or Coulson.
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