Witness Statement of Charlotte Church

8/3/2019 Witness Statement of Charlotte Church

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For Distr ibut ion To C Ps

The Leveson Inquiry

Witness Statement for Part 1 , Modu le 1

W itness statem ent of Charlotte M aria Church

I, Charlotte Church, c/o Collyer Bristow LLP, 4 B edford Row, London, WC 1R 4DF will say asfollows:

I ma ke this statement in connection with my rote as a C orePa rticipant in the Leveson Inquiry.For the purposes of this statement, I refer to a sm all pag inatedbundle of docum ents marked "C CI" and CC 2". W here I refer topag e numb ers in this statement, I am referring to pa ges in "CC I"and "CC2".

Background

Documentsreferred to

M y nam e is Charlotte Ma ria C hurch. For the ma jority of m y l ife Ihave featured in the tabloid industry in the UK. I started m yprofessional life as a singer w hen I w as an 1 1 year old g irl. Throughnumerous TV and rad io appearances, I becam e an internationallyrecognised musica l success, going from a typical schoolgirl to abanka ble comm odity in less than a year. M arketed by anagg ressive record com pany cam paign I was branded "The Voice ofan A ngel" before my 12th birthday. Litt le diql I know as a 1 2 year oldthat this description would b e used and distorted repeatedly to m ockm e in Catchy tab loid head lines.Since then, I have been under the med ias scrutiny. Through m ysuccess as a singer, I grew up in front of cam eras and reporters,and I wa s not allowed the tim e to learn and m ake m istakes inprivate as m ost children and teenagers do. W hilst I have beendetermined to not let the media c hange m e, the coverage ha s beenutterly horrifying at tim es and d evastating to those around m e.

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It will be easy to portray the fact that I am giving evidence to thisInquiry as m e being a w hingeing celebrity. I hope I can show thatthis is not the case and tha t the severity of the miscond uct spea ksfor itself. I am well aw are that there are m any journalists who do notpa rticipate in unethica l practices. I dont wish to sully their nam es.It should also be noted that I have always been extremely reluctantto engage m edia law yers to take a ction. There are countless tim esI could have sued, but I did not. I have alwa ys thought that therewa s litt le point in fighting the press as it would only mak e m attersworse, and the vast sum s that can be incurred in these cases w ouldbe a wa ste of money. In any event, once in print the da m age isalready done. H owever, my p osition has chang ed since I havebecom e a m other and I have been faced w ith the prospect that mychildren will grow up to read some of the false coverage of m e.Their m other is portrayed as som eone who is not me but aca ricature of me : the girl w ith the "voice of an ang el" that turned intoa "fa l len angel". Perhaps I am a l itt le cynical, but since the age of13 I have thought that the m edia w ere trying to ap ply thestereotypica l narrative of "the child star who g oes off the rails" tom e, willing m e to fulfil that narrative in the worst w ay. The reality isfar more m undane and whilst I dont want to pretend to besomething I am not, the fact is that my b ehaviour has followed areasonably typical pattern for a teenage g irl and then a youngwom an w ho would occ asionally go out with her friends and enjoyherself. I am not and never have been the "promiscuous ladette"that I have been p ortrayed a s but it is so easy for the tabloids toshow the w orld wha t they want you to see rather than the realperson.I t is often argued that as som eone in the public eye, I need them edia and that the intrusions into my p rivate li fe and the nega tivecoverage are, and have alwa ys been, a fair trade-off for success;that I need the press just as m uch as they need m e. How ever, Icannot see how this is actually the case. A s a singer, a newspap er,in particular, is a very bad m edium for promoting m y work. I knowfrom record sales figures that newspapers have never helped mesell any significant num ber of records but I have interacted with them edia on a num ber of occa sions, as is required of any signed


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recording artist. I have on occa sion also participated in photoshoots for which sums of m oney were paid to me and my p artner atthe tim e for doing so. I can sa y that I was a reluctant participant inthis process but in any event I do not think that b y agreeing to suchthings I have sac rificed m y right to privacy or the privacy of myfamily.W hen I wa s 13 I was asked to perform a t Rupert Murdochswedd ing in New York. W hen it cam e to the payment for my work,m y ma nagem ent at the time informed m e that either there would bea 100,000 fee (which wa s the biggest fee I d ever been offered) orif the fee for my performa nce w as w aived, I would be looked uponfavourabiy by Mr. Murdoc hs papers. Despite my teenage businesshead scream ing "think how m any tam ogotchies you could b uy!!", Iwa s pressured into taking the latter option. This strategy fa iled.., form e. In fact M r Murdochs newspapers have since been some of thew orst offenders, so much so that I have som etimes felt that therehas actually been a deliberate agenda. W hile newspap ers such asM r Murdochs have not helped m y career, they have certainlyhelped da m age it, as I will explain below. I do of course accept thatTV and Radio have been very significant contributors to my successand I have litt le compla int at the conduct of those mediaorganisations or the people they employ.

8. I can sum m arise my m otivation for giving this statem ent as follows:I want to help the Inquiry by providing an ac count of someof the coverage related to me, m y friends and m y fam ily asexam ples of press coverage a nd b ehaviour.Having been a "child star" I hope that my exa mp le will serveto raise awa reness to the need to protect young people andchildren who find them selves in the public eye because theyhave ac hieved success w hich the public recognises.

w ant to protect m y fam ilys privacy for the future.A t the time no-one involved could have im agined that m y fam ily andI would be subject to a tabloid press industry that would useblackmail, illegal phone call interception, 24/7 surveillance and


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tracking, car chases, door stepping and b lagging. A l l to report on ayoung g irl singer.

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New spap ers have justif ied various stories they have w ritten aboutm e as being in "the public interest". I find this argum ent absurd .How does it support the public interest if the tabloids simp ly focuson prurient stories, much of w hich are fab ricated using quotes fromanonymous sources, often named as "a pal" or "a close friend". Itwould b e easy to laugh off some of these quotes and anecd otes asridiculous and harmless if the falsities werent reprinted by a wholebevy of other tabloids and w eekly gossip m aga zines and quoted asbeing reported to be true, thus ma gnifying and lend ing credibility tothe lie and the character that it creates. E~ut it is not easy. A ndcreates real personal problems a nd a ffects my a bility to provide formy fam ily.I have attached to this statement some articles as exam ples butthey are only a m inute selection from the enormous num ber thathave been pub lished.The effect of publication in a newsp aper is further widened b yendless online sites, blogs and social med ia. The lie becom espublic fact and in the age of the internet, i t remains available for a llto see using a simple G oogle search from anywhere in the world. Italso rema ins archived for deca des to com e, for other writers to addto and c omm ent upon and for fam ily, friends and a udiences to seeand believe to be true.A s I have explained, I have rarely taken legal action aga instnewspa pers and ha ve generally been advised ag ainst it for fear ofupsetting the pow erful media organisations. I am also concernedthat there m ay be serious repercussions in giving evidence to theInquiry but I strongly feel that I have to speak out ab out the injusticeand b ad p ractices that happen on a d aily basis within the tabloidpress.Just a few da ys ago a defam atory and comp letely untrue article waspublished about m e which I feel cannot go unmentioned. ThePeople published a story about me drunkenly proposing to m ypartner whilst singing karaoke. It w as a com plete fabrication. It


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included a photo of m e singing (which w as in fact taken in 2007)and "quotes" from both m e and m y partner which were entirelym ad e up. I wa s not in the pub m entioned (or any pub) on the nightit was a l leged this happened. A t the tim e that I was a l leged to be"proposing" I was in fact p erform ing in a com pletely different townwith a large public audience. My m anag er checked and there wasnot even karaoke a t the pub I w as supposed to have b een at. It isyet another exam ple of the tabloid p ress inventing a story to fit withthe character they seem to ha ve given me. W ithin 36 hours of thereporting of this tale, it was picked up b y 70 outlets around the worldand presented as fac t. tt is upsetting to b e constantly portrayed inthis wa y. It is not who I am and the cumulative effect of Ihereporting is dama ging to my reputation and m y career. To me, it issimply unac ceptab le for a journalist to pluck a story out of thin airand for a newspa per to print something containing not one shred oftruth. It is perhaps ironic that w hen the tale w as first published Iwa s working on this statement. The article is a perfect exam ple ofwhy the industry needs to change.

1 5 . This is especially true given that there is a limit to how m uch anindividual can c om mit financially to taking on these pow erful m ediaorganisations. In m y experience, getting a m edia solicitor to attem ptto prevent an article from being p ublished or retracted usually costsbetw een 5 ,000 - 10,000. If the request is resisted, or you pursuea d efama tion claim the costs will escalate quickly to 10 or 20 timesthis figure. A nd w ith press defam ation laws as they are yougenerally dont even recover all of your costs if you are successful.Often I am not given an opp ortunity to address a story before it ispublished. It gets printed and even if you can get the pa per to takeit off its website, any c orrection is buried in the sm all printsom ewhere deep in the publication after the information has beendissem inated all over the internet. The dam age is already done.The huge pub lic headline that everyone read is never corrected w itha similarly sized and positioned retrac tion or with an equally ca tchyheadline dem onstrating how they w ere wrong.

16 . In add ition to the viral internet dissem ination, these stories rem ain inphysical print archived without correction and are immediatelypicked up b y other newspap ers, weekly maga zines, radio, and TV .


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A ll this incurs additional legal costs and ma nagem ent tim e. Its animm ense drain of resources and em otional energy trying to tack lethese problems and simp ly cant be done in every case.

17. I feel very strongly that there should b e a system w hereby theseissues should be ad dressed w ithout the im m ense cost burdenplac ed upon the individual. The newsp aper should be heldaccountable for the dam age they ca use and b e responsible for thetask of rep airing it.

1 8 , Unfavourable coverage has undoubtedly dama ged m y career. "IVappearances dry up because Of "public perception" problemsfollowing negative coverage. Sponsorship deals w hich were inmotion evaporate.

1 9 . A bove all, w hat has hit hardest is the effect that the tabloid p resshas had on m e, my family and friendships. The loss of trustbecause of leaked stories (some of which I now know to havederived from phone hacking) has had a m assive effect upon my li feand the lives of those who have becom e collateral da m age beca useof their relationship with m e.

Som e se lected examp les of the coverage:20. One of the most professionally damaging articles published about

me w as published not by a tabloid but by the Times. The articleconcerned the 9fl 1 terrorist atrocity. I was 1 4 at the tim e andspending a great dea l of time in New Y ork City. Although I was onlya young g irl, like everyone, I wa s horrified and sha ken by the eventsthat occurred that d ay and felt so m uch sorrow for the fam ilies thathad lost som eone. My current mana ger, John Vernile, is a NewYorker and at the time he w orked with me for the US recordcom pany. He k nows the extent to which m y experience of being inNew York during the attacks deeply affected m e and how keen Iwas to contribute to the local New York 9/11 benefit concerts andcommemorations, which I did. I also visited ground-zero andseveral of the fire stations.

21 . On m y return from N ew Y ork, my UK record comp any arranged form e to be interviewed by the Times. The journalist was J asp er


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Gerrard. W hilst it wa s usual for a record com pany ad viser to attendthese interviews with journalists, especially given my age, for somereason (possibly that they did not expect any hostility) there was norepresentative at this meeting. A central topic of his questioningturned to g/11 a nd, notwithstanding m y age, I answered MrGerrard s questions thoughtfully given m y recent experiences. Myansw ers were grotesquely distorted into a piece that portrayed m eas being horribly insensitive to the tragedy and generally ma de m eseem quite devoid of feelings or morals. The criticism I receivedremains on the internet, including m y W ikipedia pag e.I was furious when I saw the article. My answers and true feelingshad not been fairly or accurately reported. One of the most

-denigrating claims was the com ment I supposedly made ab out thecelebrity of som e of the 9/11 fire fighters. The com m ent I hadactually m ade w as not disparaging of them; it wa s the reverse. Irecall referring to their appearanc e at the British Television Aw ardsand explaining that I thought that it was in ba d ta ste for thetelevision producers to dem ean the fire fighters heroism by m akingthem present the award for "Best Soap". H owever, this wasdressed up a s m e believing that these m en did not deserve theirrecognition, and that they had only been doing their job. Iunderstand that a request wa s m ade for the tape of the interviewbut the Tim es refused to release it. In any event, I wa s only 14years old, and to be exposed b y a new spap er of this type to ridiculeand d erision upon such a sensitive subject was a terribleexperience. In particular the content of the article wa s thenrepeated in the New Y ork Post, also owned by N ews C orp,describing my comm ents as the "voice of an angel" "spews venom".This provoked an enormous backlash ag ainst me in Am erica.W hen I wa s touring A merica following this story, public reaction wa ssuch that the US record com pa ny found it necessary to hire arm ed,off-duty New York p olice detectives to protect me. The story alsohad a dram atic imp act upon my record sales in the USA and m ydesire to continue my ca reer there.This is just one exam ple of the treatment I wa s to receive as ayoung g irl and the effect it had on m e. A s I went through m yteensthe tabloids increased their interest in me a nd w hether it wa s


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smoking, going out, or putting on weight, their scrutiny was intense.One particularly distasteful feature was on The Sun website whichfeatured a countdown c lock to m e turning 16 , carrying w ith ilsexually charged and predatory innuendo of a young g irl passingthe age of c onsent.From the ages of 16 to 20 I had to endure the worst excesses of thepress. I had at tim es photographers stationed 24/7 by m y door. Onone occasion my m anag er found that a reporter had cut holes in ashrub on my property and installed a secret cam era near to theenlrance to my hom e so as to track and docum ent my m ovements.I ve been repeatedly been chased in m y car and had photographersforce open doors to try and photograph m e, W hen attending p ublicevents I had to suffer the indignity of pap araz zi trying to tak ephotographs up m y skirt and dow n my top. Photographs of myhomes w ere printed so that the security of m y fam ily wascom promised. On one occasion, a threat to kidnap m e, waspublished in The News O f The World and despite my pleading w iththe publication, where I lived was revealed. It created fear in myfam ily, a p aranoia that the m edia then sought to highlight andpub licise. If Im honest, I genera lly felt quite hunted for tha t periodof my life.W hen I becam e pregnant with m y first child the S un printed anarticle "Church Sober Shock" head ed as a n "Exc lusive". The articlereported that I wa s not drinking or smoking and had "p ut on a bit ofweight" and that this had ca used "rumours that she is pregnant". A tthe time of the article I wa s in my first trim ester, the most sensitivetime in a pregnancy, and even my pa rents didnt know I waspregnant. (The source, never cited, w as probab ly a hac ked voicem ail messag e from m y doctor or via other surveillance). Surely it isthe right of any w oma n to be a ble to tell her fam ily herself that she ispregnant at a time that she deems ap propriate. A com plaint wasma de to the Press Com plaints Com m ission which was upheld, butgiven that the article had already b een published and theinformation had already been disclosed, it was no help whatsoever.The sma ll correction that followed w as hardly likely to deter anothernewspa per from doing the sam e thing to someone else.


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W hilst the coverage ab out me could b e hurtful, it has been Ihecoverage about m y parents that has been pa rticularly painful Io dealwith. The events I am about to describe include: blackm ail, bribery,phone interception, innuendo a nd m ost importantly, the invasion ofthe privacy of private, non-public peop le. To my m ind it reveals thetabloids at their very worst. On 11 Decem ber 2005 the New s of theW orld reported that m y father was having an a ffair. The articlecontained a prurient and detailed interview w ith A nna God dard, w ithwhom m y father had had an affair. The front pag e headline read,"Churchs 3-in-a-bed Cocaine shock" with my picture beside it. Thefirst line of the article wa s "Superstar C harlotte Churchs M um triedto kill herself because her husband is a love-rat hooked on cocaineand three-in-a-bed orgies." Obviously this expos~ was devastatingfor my fam ily and particularly for my m other Maria. W hether thisstory wa s entirely or partially true, I cannot think of a ny justifica tionfor it. M y m other is a vulnerable p erson and shortly before thepub lication of this story she had b een adm itted to hospital after anattempted suicide. A t the very least this w as in part due to the factthat she was a wa re that this story was com ing out. New spapersoften try to justify such stories by sa ying that fam ilies have a right toknow about the facts. The story about m y father is an a cuteexam ple of the falsity of this argum ent - the tabloids could not c areless for the fam ilies. In fact, the only so-called justification for suchstories is the newspa pers desire to sell more copies of their paper.It is one thing for m y pa rents to be ab le to deal w ith such a problembetw een themselves, as ordinary peop le have to do; it is entirelydifferent and far m ore dam aging when the world at large knowseverything about it.In this case, the News of the World w as w ell awa re of m y mothersvulnerable state because on 27 Novem ber 2005 b efore the exposeon 11 D ecember 2005 they reported upon (wha t we now think w ere)illicitly obtained.private details of her hospital treatment. Then, notcontent with their coverage on 11 December, the News of the Worldput a p roposal to my m other. The proposal was that N ews of theWorld wanted an exclusive story of her breakdown, self-harming;and a ttemp ted suicide, in excha nge for not printing a follow-up storyabout m y fathers infidelity. My m other gave them the exc lusive

Documents .referred to

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interview w hich was pub lished on 18 Decem ber 2005. She felt shehad no choice other than to play b y their rules. The follow-up storyof m y fathers sex-li fe was then p ublished in The P eople the nextweek anywa y. This sequence of events drove my m other toadd itional self-harming and had a dram atic impac t on her mentalhealth. The havoc that the press have created within my fam ily hasbeen devastating. W hilst I have learnt to cope, to some extent, w iththe scrutiny of being in the public eye, they ha ve not and it isunforgivable that they have been deem ed a ppropriate targets forsuch intrusive scrutiny. They should b e allow ed to live their privatelives as they see fit and w ithout med ia intrusion.it has recently been revealed to m e that the police have sub stantialinformation demonstrating that m y phone m essages and thoseclose to me were intercepted and m onitored by Glenn M ulcaire whoI understand w as contracted to the News of the World. Theinformation I have seen relates to 2003, 2005 a nd 2006 andcontains m any pa ges of nam es, numbers, notes, addresses, pinnumbers and the fact that m y mother and I were each a "project",which I take to m ean that w e were specifical ly targeted. Theearliest of the inform ation reveals that I wa s hack ed w hen I was just17. It is clear that we w ere targeted in particular d uring the period inwhich the stories concerning m y fathers affair and m y mothersil lness w ere published. It is utterly sickening to read the informa tionand to k now tha t the police have be en sitting on this for five years.How can someone have thought it right to listen to privatem essages at a time l ike this - or indeed at any tim e? t have oftenfelt that inform ation about me w as being leaked to the press andhave shunned friends suspecting them of being the source, Irecently had a d iscussion with someone I was very close to who toldme how upset she was that I had cut her out from m y circle offriends, but I felt at the time that I had no choice but to reduc e thenumb er of people I spent tim e with and as such limit the risk offurther leaks to the press. I have seen articles that have ma de m every suspicious about w here they had com e from.The m eeting w ith Operation W eeting is not the only experience Ihave of being contacted b y Scotland Ya rd in relation to a privatedetective. When I wa s 19, I w as contac ted by the p olice in relation

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to Operation Motorman. I am aw are that this wa s the investigationinto the private detective Steve Whittamore w ho wa s emp loyed by avery large num ber of newspa pers to obtain personal da ta. In themeeting I was shown an enormous book w hich included transcriptsof telephone calls as well as ad dresses, car registration details, andinformation from criminal records. There wa s a huge a m ount ofinformation, and I a m not sure w hat beca m e of it. I hope that thisInquiry w il l help find out wha t happ ened to this ma terial and thatthose responsible for comm issioning it can b e held to account.Both the phone hacking and O peration M otorman m aterial alsocontained information about previous boyfriends of mine. Like mostwom en I have had relationships that have not w orked out. Althoughmy relationships have been characterised in a w ay that m ake m eseem prom iscuous, at the age of alm ost 26, I have in fact onty everhad four boyfriends in my l ife. Sadly I have been unab le toexperience the highs and lows of relationships w ithout unwa ntedattention and, it seems, i l legal surveillance. S uch w as the c overageI was m ade to feel like a c riminal sim ply beca use I had a boyfriendwhen I w as 16 . Two of m y former boyfriends have sold their storiesat the end of our relationship. I understand that one w as pa id1 00,000 for his acc our~t of our private relationship and sex life.This is obviously a huge am ount of money, pa rticularly for anunemp loyed teenager from C ardiff. It is wrong for newspa pers tooffer money and tem pt people to reveal private information andintim ate asp ects of your relationships. The accounts areemb ellished a nd exag gerated to m ake it al l the m ore sensational. Itis acutely embarrassing for me and for those around me to read. Inparticular I feel for m y grandm other who has to deal w ith theignominy of her granddaug hters reported antics being read by thewhole c omm unity. People b elieve that if i t s in the pap ers, it m ustbe true, that they could not print if it wasnt. A nd that is the crux ofthe problem. There is an assum ption by the public that amec hanism is in place and a set of proper standards of reportingare ad hered to but sadly this is not the case.A s I have explained, my circle of friends diminished at a tim e as Iwa s concerned about the leaking of inform ation. My friends havealso had to endure the publicity that is often around us when we see


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each other. One exam ple of the coverage is w hen I went on holida yin June 2004 w ith five of my friends, to celebrate my 1 8th b i r t h d a y .The Daily Ma ils double pag e spread read "Vice of an A ngel" andset out a detailed, disparaging a nd distorted a ccount of ourm ovements and b ehaviour. It stated that one of my friends w asgiven a nicknam e by us, a pun on her nam e that cruelly mad e fun ofher weight. I have never referred to m y friend in this wa y nor have Iever heard a nyone else refer to her using that na m e. The journalistsimply decided it was ok to m ake fun of a 17 year old girl. Itw asdeeply em barrassing for her to be p ortrayed in this way b y anational newspap er particularly given that unti l then she was not inthe public eye at a ll. It should not be a cond ition for friends of m ineto have to endure this brand of c ruelty.A benefit of being w ell known is the abili ty to help charitable ca uses.In my time I have worked w ith a num ber of charities such as TheNoahs Ark A ppeal, NSP CC , Chi ldren in Need, Topsy and theHollies School and I have been ha ppy for these charities to try anduse my supp ort to draw a ttention to the work they are doing. It hasbeen frustrating to find that w hen I do engag e with the m edia inrelation to a c harity, the journalists are rarely interested in theimportant work they do and w ould rather focus on me and m yprivate life.Just as a very recent examp le; I was ask ed to pa rticipate in anevent by Literature Wa les to encourag e young people in Wa les toread and enjoy good books. The motive behind the scheme w as tohelp reverse the trend of failing literacy rates a m ong the youngpeople of Britain. I gave several interviews and spoke ab out myow n love of read ing. I agreed to these interview s under the provisothat I wa s only answering questions related to that topic. Thema jority of the resulting tab loid p ress coverage and use ofphotographs taken that da y, focused on a m atter that did not relateto it. For exam ple the Da ily M ail used the event and p ictures topublish an article including fabricated quote from a c lose "friend,"(whose identity is a m ystery to me) c om m enting on my relationshipwith my former partner, which w as then picked up by other tabloids.The whole focus of the event and the important goa l of LiteratureW ales wa s relegated to the very end of the Daily Mail article and the


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ctl~er publication, s entirely ignored the Li,erature W ales event andjust regurgitated the m isinformation. No fa cts checked; no sourcescited

Conclusion34 . W e have al l heard the recent tabloid claim s that they have chang ed

and have learned from m istakes such as phone hacking and otheruse of pdvate detectives. But my recent experiences mak e it clearto me tha t these newspap ers wi l l not change unless they are forcedto do so by proper regulat}on which c ontains effective prote~ion forprivacy rights and serious financial and lega l sanctions forwro ngdoi r~g.

3 5 . The free press is a fundamental and vital part of our society. Its roleis crucial to our da ily lives. I hope tha t this/nqui,y can ~nd thebalance beb.~,eel~ protecting the freedom of speech that journalistsneed to do their jobs whilst protecting the huma n dghts ofindividuals.

36 . My particular hope-is that w e can protect our children and youngpeople from the vicious, unhealthy and da ma ging practices of atabloid industry that hides behind the essential principle of freespeech. To sanction lies and stodes that are so beyond w hat faltswithin the true pul~ic interest makes a mockery of the principle.

3 7 . I feel extremely s trongly , having exper ienced what I have, thatchildren, and their families ---that p eople - need to be protectedfiom the exploitative, unethical, end tinancially driven practices ofthe soul-less corporations who contro l the t a b l o i d i n d u s t r y .

,~ocumentsreferred to

Statement of T.ruthI)e~,eve that ~he facts stated in this w itness statement are true_

DATED the i~)~/~day of Novem ber 2 0 1 1SIGNEr