Watch the latest episode of our exclusive interview between actor and comedian John Cleese and private investigator turned whistleblower Daniel “Danno” Hanks.
Danno recently hit the news for coming clean about targeting Meghan Markle and Prince Harry for the tabloids, and in our exclusive new interview series goes into detail about some of his most high profile targets, including John Cleese himself!
In this episode, John Cleese discovers that, despite Mail Group boss Paul Dacre telling the Leveson Inquiry on oath that the use of private investigators had been banned in 2007, Danno himself claims to have been used by Mail on Sunday Managing Editor John Wellington for five or six year after that.
If it is found to be the case, under the 2005 Inquiries Act, Paul Dacre could face a jail term of up to 51 weeks.
TRANSCRIPT
John Cleese: I’m talking to Danno about the the tabloids and how the tricks that they get up to get dirty information. Now we had a Leveson inquiry and one of the people who spoke to it was Paul Dacre, who was in charge of the Mail Group.
[LEVESON ARCHIVE] :
Paul Dacre: In 2007 we brought the shutters down and banned absolutely the use of all these of Whittamore enquiry agencies.
Paul Dacre: All I’m trying to tell you is when I did know the extent of it, I moved decisively and ruthlessly to stamp it out. Other newspapers didn’t, and we did.
Robert Jay: And that was in 2007, wasn’t it?
Paul Dacre: Precisely.
John Cleese: They said that they had stopped using any private investigators after 2007.
Robert Jay: We know from other evidence that there was a ban on the use of inquiry agents in 2007. That was two years before your arrival.
Liz Hartley: Yes….We don’t use private investigators or inquiry agents.
John Cleese: But did anything stop?
Danno Hanks: Well, I answered to John Wellington, who was under them, and he continued to use me for maybe five or six years after that. So maybe they could say we stopped using them, but everybody else underneath them with a wink and a nod. You know, they give these subtle orders. Like, “We need to know this information, but we don’t need to know how you got it.” So that they can have what the feds used to call ‘plausible deniability’.
John Cleese: So when Dacre said they had stopped using PIs, they didn’t. He might have done, but everyone working and everybody else working for them actually did.
Danno Hanks: Yes
John Cleese: Well, that’s very comforting because you can go to jail for a year for that.
Danno Hanks: Well, you know, I would love to see that.
John Cleese: So would I.
