• Simon Hughes: police did not act on NoW leads in 2006
• Jacqui Hames: NoW surveillance aimed to intimidate
• Met lent Rebekah Brooks retired police horse
2.32pm: Jay says the police leaking information to the press is only a disciplinary matter, and is not covered by the criminal law.
2.29pm: Yeates's killer, Vincent Tabak, was arrested on 20 January 2010 and then charged on 22 January after confessing to the murder.
However, Jefferies says his police bail was only lifted in March. He claims the police took so long because they wanted to give the impression that he had been arrested on the basis of stronger evidence than was the case.
2.27pm: Jefferies says his solicitor was puzzled by lines of questioning, and then discovered they came from stories in the press – for example that he had a "wild temper" and so on.
2.23pm: In his evidence, Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace apologised to Jefferies and told the Leveson inquiry that his judgment was affected by off-the-record briefings from the force in which they appeared confident that Jefferies "was their man".
In his witness statement submitted to the inquiry, Wallace said: "In the article of 31 December [2010], we reported that a source close to the police investigation said that it was believed Jo's murderer had tried to conceal her body.
"This information, to the best of my knowledge, came from one of the off-the-record briefings referred to above.
"The police also give more general guidance to the press. When Mr Jefferies was arrested on 30 December, the content desk informed me that off the record the police were saying that they were confident Mr Jefferies was their man."
Jay stresses that Avon & Somerset police dey there was any leak to the press.
2.20pm: The police admitted they "inadvertently" disclosed Jefferies's name after it was mentioned by a journalist.
2.18pm: At 7am on 30 December, Jefferies was taken in for questioning. The police released a statement saying a 65-year-old man had been arrested, but did not give further detail.
2.15pm: The following day, 30 December 2010, the Daily Mail reported that "Bachelor Chris Jefferies, 65, apparently told police he saw three people, ... 'I saw her leave with two others and talking in hushed tones'".
He says he has spoken to the only people who could have known this information and they did not give it to the press.
2.12pm: Jefferies says on 29 December 2010 it was reported that he had heard Yeates's voice on the night of her murder. He says the only way this information could have been released from his statement was through a leak from the police to the press.
2.07pm: Jay asks Jefferies about a News at Ten report on 4 January 2011 that criticised Avon & Somerset police's investigation into the murder of Joanna Yeates.
The force banned ITV News was from a press conference because of the critical tone of the report.
Jefferies confirms that he is aware of the report.
2.05pm: The inquiry has resumed and Chris Jefferies has taken the stand.
1.50pm: Our colleague Andrew Sparrow has this report on his Politics Live blog about Labour MP Chris Bryant's speech on phone hacking in the Commons today:
Here are the key points.
• Bryant predicted that the phone hacking scandal would eventually be seen as "the single largest corporate case in this country for more than 250 years".
• He said that the cover-up at News International extended to James Murdoch.
There was a major cover-up at News International which stretched right up to the very highest levels of the company, as we know even up to James Murdoch. And that, in the end, I suspect, will prove to have been the biggest crime.
• He said that all News Corporation directors were at fault for not preventing a cover-up.
Senior figures at News International ordered - we know this for sure - the mass destruction of evidence. The clear, incontrovertible evidence of corrupt payments to police, which News International had garnered together, they gave to lawyers and squirrelled away and only revealed to the public very recently - I believe that aspect is one of the things that the authorities in the United States of America should be investigating because I don't believe that a single member of the board of directors of News Corp took their responsibilities in this regard seriously enough to prevent the payment of corrupt officials.
• He said people did not appreciate how shocking was the revelation about the police giving information to Rebekah Brooks about the original phone hacking investigation.
We know from yesterday that Tom Crone, the News of the World's head of legal affairs, wrote to the then News of the World editor Andy Coulson on 15 September 2006 outlined what Rebekah - Rebekah Wade, now Brooks - told him about the information relayed to her by the cops. Relayed to her by the cops! This is like the FBI going to Don Corleone and telling him that he's got a bit of information on what his family has been up to. This is an extraordinary thing for us to be witnessing and I suspect that people are so punch drunk with all the different stories that there have been over the last two years that they almost failed to recognise the significance of this.
This showed that "the police effectively became a partly-owned subsidiary of News International".
• Bryant accused Lord Hunt, the new chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, of misleading the Leveson inquiry. Giving evidence to the inquiry, Hunt was asked if he thought politicians would use new media regulation to control the press. Hunt said that they would, and that politicians had actually told him this. Bryant said he did not accept this.
I simply believe his comments there to be untrue. I do not believe that members of this House or the other House want to control the press. That should never be our business. I think he's making that up and I think he should withdraw the comment. I note that he's gone native, because he's already using unattributed comments [which is what newspapers do].
• Bryant said the Press Complaints Commission needed to be replaced with a completely new body. It should be established by statute, so that it has the "teeth" it needs to enforce decisions, he said. But it should be independent of government and the newspaper industry. And it should be chaired by someone who is not a politician or a journalist.
• He said that 486 lies had been told to parliament about the affair. These came from News International, the police and others, he said.
• He said that the Press Complaints Commission had been "a toothless gaggle of incompetent crones" in relation to phone hacking. In particularly, he criticised Lady Buscombe, the former PCC chairman, for accepting the assurances given to her by News International. She should have asked more serious questions, he said.
• He called for tighter controls on the number of newspapers and TV companies that a single media company can own.
• He said that many members of the BSkyB board could no longer be considered genuinely independent because they had been in post for more than eight years.
• He said a small claims court should be set up to allow people to sue newspapers. Awards should be capped at £20,000 or £25,000, he said. And the system should enable people to use it without having to hire a lawyer.
• He said journalists should lose the right to claim a public interest defence if accused of blagging information. But, in return, the director of public prosecutions should have the power not to prosecute in media cases because sometimes journalists broke the law for good reasons.
• He said the "public interest" test should be replaced with a "public good" test.
• He said the government should not legislate to require select committee witnesses to give evidence on oath. Committees can already ask people to give evidence on oath. Bryant said this should happen as a matter of routine for all witnesses. But he said that he was concerned that the government was going to put this on a statutory basis by passing a parliamentary privileges bill. This would lead to the matter being tested in the courts, he said. It would be better for parliament to keep control of its own proceedings, he said. He also said that he was in favour of people being summoned to the Bar of the Commons for contempt of parliament. This last happened in the 1950s.
1.43pm: Here's a link to another article by Nick Davies with more detail on how Rebekah Brooks met Scotland Yard representatives to be told her journalists had spied on Hames and her husband.
1.38pm: Here is a lunchtime summary of today's developments so far:
• Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes has criticised the Met for not taking more action when they told him in 2006 that his phone had been hacked. He said police officers showed him Glenn Mulcaire's notebook with names of three News of the World staff who commissioned the private investigator.
• Jacqui Hames has said the NoW undertook surveillance in a bid to intimidate the Crimewatch presenter and her husband. She accused the paper of "collusion" with "people who were suspected of killing Daniel Morgan".
• It has emerged that the Met lent Rebekah Brooks a retired police horse from 2008 to 2010. The Met said the horse had reached the end of its working life and that there was nothing unusual in the decision to loan the horse, with Brooks being responsible for paying for its upkeep.
1.21pm: Jacqui Hames's witness statement has now been published on the Leveson inquiry website. In it, Hames states:
The News of the World has never supplied a coherent explanation for why we were placed under surveillance. In 2003, [Hames's husband] David, together with [Met press chief] Dick Fedorcio and Commander Andre Baker, met Rebekah Brooks to discuss the matter.
She repeated the unconvincing explanation that the News of the World believed we were having an affair. She agreed to look into [executive editor] Alex Marunchak's associations with [private detectives] Rees and Fillery but to my knowledge nothing further was ever said about the subject, indeed Mr Marunchak was subsequently promoted.
I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation.
1.01pm: The inquiry has now broken for lunch and is due to resume at 2pm.
12.57pm: Here's a link to Nick Davies and Vikram Dodd's story on the Daniel Morgan murder case. Private investigator Jonathan Rees, who allegedly earned £150,000 a year from the News of the World for supplying illegally obtained information, was cleared of the murder last March.
12.57pm: Hames says Mulcaire's notebooks included her payroll number, her porevious police accomodation, her telephone, her address, mobile number, and details about her and her husband, Dave Cook.
She says the information shows the paper knew she was married to Cook and could not have been having an affair with him.
Hames suggests this information could only have come from the Met's personnel file, and she feels that someone must have "sold her down the line".
12.54pm: Asked about the impact on her life of this incident, Hames has to stop as she is close to tears.
Leveson says it was clearly very distressing and says she does not have to talk about it any more.
Hames, after recovering her composure, says:
It is very difficult. By coming here you stick with your head above the parapet. The impact on us is important because it is very easy to compartmentalise people because celebrities have clearly suffered, as have many others.
"It's easy to dismiss people because they should be able to put up with it. But no one from any walk of life should have to put up with it. The impact, which can be easily dismissed ... I would hate to think of anyone having to go through what we have had 10 years of.
12.52pm: Hames says her husband was unhappy about the surveillance and "finally a meeting was agreed" with his commanding officer, the Met's press chief Dick Fedorcio and Rebekah Brooks "in order to try and elicit what was going on and what she was going to do about it". She adds:
I understand she [Brooks] just continued along the line she was investigating we were having some sort of affair and nothing else was heard.
12.51pm: The Metropolitan police have now issued a statement on the loan of a horse to Rebekah Brooks:
When a police horse reaches the end of its working life, Mounted Branch officers find it a suitable retirement home. Whilst responsibility for feeding the animal and paying vet bills passes to the person entrusted to its care at its new home, the horse remains the property of the Metropolitan Police Service.
Retired police horses are not sold on and can be returned to the care of the MPS at any time.
In 2008 a retired MPS horse was loaned to Rebekah Brooks.
The horse was subsequently re-housed with a police officer in 2010.
12.49pm: Hames says she was put under surveillance, her email was tampered with, and people were trying to get financial information.
She says it was impossible not to conclude that there was "collusion between people at the News of the World and people who were suspected of killing Daniel Morgan".
12.46pm: Hames says she suspects the real reason for the surveillance was her husband's involvement in the Morgan case. She says the News of the World wanted to derail the case for some reason.
12.45pm: Hames says this is "absolutely pathetic".
I cannot think of one reason why that would be in any shape or form a valid reason to be us under surveillance. We had been together for 11 years, we were a well known couple, it wouldn't have taken much to completely refute the allegation.
12.40pm: The inquiry now moves on to surveillance of Hames by the News of the World.
Hames's husband Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook led the 2002 review of the 1987 murder of Daniel Morgan.
An email was sent to Crimewatch falsely suggesting Hames was having affair with a police officer.
It was later revealed that Hames and her husband had been placed under surveillance by News International.
Rebekah Brooks told Dick Fedorcio, the Met police's head of press, that Hames and Cook were put under surveillance because they were having an affair.
12.31pm: Talking about the Soham murders, Hames says no one was appointed to handle media enquiries for first 10 days of the inquiry.
She says newspapers and broadcasters do not pay attention to some murders because the victims are not the sort of people the public would have sympathy with.
"Some murders create a lot of interest in the press and public and you can be flooded with calls," she adds.
12.30pm: The Crime Reporters Association wields a lot of power, Hames says in her evidence. Asked to expand, she describes it as a "gentleman's drinking club".
"For many years it was known as a very close knit group of people who would have access to some information that some police officers don't have."
12.27pm: Hames says: "You can have a relationship with journalists and retain professional integrity. No reason why if you are open and honest about that discourse it can be of benefit to everybody."
Leveson says it depends on the nature of the relationship. "Police sources say ..." can be problematic, says Leveson.
12.22pm: The Evening Standard's story on the Met's loan of a horse to Rebekah Brooks is now live:
Scotland Yard loaned Rebekah Brooks a police horse, the Standard can reveal.
The 43-year-old former News International chief executive rode the retired horse for a year at her farm in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire before it was put out to pasture.
The loan, made in 2008 while Lord Blair was Met Commissioner, is likely to raise fresh questions about the close relationship between the police and the Murdoch media empire.
Most of the Met's police horses are retired with the Horse Trust charity in Buckinghamshire.
Brooks, a keen rider, is married to racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks. A friend said: "Rebekah acted as a foster carer for the horse. Anybody can agree to do this with the Met if they have the land and facilities to pay for its upkeep."
You can read the full story here.
12.16pm: Hames says the police service needs to be "much more open and honest" in its dealings with the media. Staff need to be trained how to deal with the press. "A huge number aren't." "If you aren't confident ... that discourse is going to be skewed."
Hames recommends in her statement enhanced training for police officers at all levels of the force.
12.15pm: The Daily Telegraph's Gordon Rayner has just tweeted:
Met Police confirm they "loaned" Rebekah Brooks a retired police horse from 2008-2010 #hacking
— Gordon Rayner (@gordonrayner) February 28, 2012
12.14pm: Evening Standard reporter Tom Harper has just tweeted:
Scotland Yard gave former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks a police horse, to be housed in Chipping Norton - see today's ES
— Tom Harper (@TomJHarper) February 28, 2012
12.13pm: Inviting one particular journalist or newspaper leaves police open to accusations of "favouritism", Hames says.
"It was well known that certain police officers had a prediliction for certain journalists and publications."
12.08pm: Hames uses the example of a raid on which a Daily Mirror reporter and photographer were invited to join the Flying Squad.
Hames says it was inappropriate for media to "tag along" in this way.
"Photographing a man who had just been arrested and hadn't been charged and put on the front page of a newspaper was inappropriate. We all live by the rule that people are innocent until proven guilty," she says.
"By any stretch of the imagination this puts him firmly in the second category. Judgment by a national newspaper is not appropriate."
12.06pm: Hames says the police had a bunker mentality towards the press in the 1970s and 1980s.
She said wrongdoing in the force was exposed by World in Action and "News of the World, bless them".
Hames adds there has since been a change in way the police interacted with the media, tried to be more open with the media.
11.57am: Hames says it was a "baptism of fire" when she first started presenting Crimewatch, which generated much press interest in her life. "Lamb to the slaughter," she suggests.
For a complete novice it was a role that was "fraught with danger" representing the police service, and the risk of saying something that embarrassed the police or the programme.
11.56am: Hames says she has taken retirement from the police force. "Very early retirement," quips Leveson.
11.51am: The inquiry has resumed and Jacqui Hames has taken the stand.
Carine Patry Hoskins, junior counsel to the inquiry, is doing the questioning.
11.41am: Hughes has now finished giving evidence and teh inquiry is taking a short break.
11.38am: The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh has tweeted:
Leveson seems interested in some kind of journalist licensing system, but judge acknowledges fact reporters exercising right to free speech
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) February 28, 2012
11.32am: Hughes says the industry should be ambitious with the successor to the Press Complaints Commission.
Leveson says he has no shortage of ambition, but how to fulfil it? Journalists, unlike lawyers and doctors, can't be struck off, he says; they are just exercising their right to freedom of expression.
11.26am: Hughes also makes a broader point about government appointments.
"Appointments of people to serve government who come from media backgrounds are in principle good things," he says.
"We need people in government service who understand the way the media works. It seems to me they should however by carried out carefully and mindful of the risks and disadvantages and it may be that they haven't always been so."
Jay says what everyone else is thinking: "That was a very general comment."
11.23am: Jay asks Hughes about evidence of "subterranean" press influence on government policy and appointments.
"On policy? Yes," says Hughes. "The issue that has worried parliament most is dominance of any particular organisation in the market. The suspicion has been that News International has been seeking to make its case privately as well as publicly to have as little restriction on acquiring interests as it would wish for its own commercial reasons.
"That is an example I am clear where there has been both public and private lobbying. That is a really important issue that goes to the heart of a free and diverse media."
11.20am: Hughes says: There shouldn't be people going into Downing Street by the back door. We need to have a system where it is open and transparent and we know the score."
11.18am: Hughes says he does not accept the Met police argument that phone hacking was not pursued because of the pressure of resources being devoted to anti-terrorist activities.
"I don't think it would have been a resource-intensive activity," says Hughes. He says the police could have spoken to six witnesses without the need to talk to 500 potential victims.
"It looks as if it would have secured convictions even on what I saw them." he adds.
11.16am: Hughes says that during his time in politics he saw Tony Blair fly around the world to meet Rupert Murdoch and became aware of a "growing, unhealthy relationship between politicians and the press".
11.14am: Hughes says there was a "far too close a relationship not just on this issue but in relation to a whole set of issues" between the police and News of the World and other newspaper groups.
He says the police's decision not to pursue the phone-hacking investigation "needs to be looked at in the context of these other relationships, whether these decisions were affected by those relationships between ... News of the World and senior people at the Met".
11.09am: Hughes says public services and police officers must be free of buying and selling and acting illegally, such as taking money from reporters.
He adds that the Met police "lost their way badly and at a senior level. 'Corrupted' may be an unfair word but they were tainted and overly influenced by inappropriate considerations."
11.06am: The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted:
Hughes cites later Crone evidence to Parlt, when he said no other NoW journos were involved. Hughes says Crone words "clearly not true".
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) February 28, 2012
and
Hughes is building up a case about failure of police investigation + knowledge abt hacking at top of NewsInt in 2006.
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) February 28, 2012
11.04am: Here's more on what Hughes had to say earlier about the police failure to pursue the three other "first names" of News of the World journalists included in Mulcaire's notes.
It was clear from September 2006 at the highest level the News of the World knew about this and therefore it was in the public interest that the News of the World and their employees should be held to account.
It was not just a freelance agent employed on a contract basis. That's for me where the significant failure occurred and the police for a reason I don't understand decided not to.
I understand why it may not have been easy to bring charges ... but there was no prosecution against anyone other than Clive Goodman and Clive Goodman only because of his work with the royal family.
There was a whole range of people clearly acting in concert either directly or indirectly illegally and they were not touched. I find it impossible to find a good explanation for why that happened.
11.02am: Hughes says by August 2006, the police had more than 400 phone-hacking victims identified. In September, NoW lawyer Tom Crone wrote the email briefing Andy Coulson, apparently on the basis of information obtained by the police.
11.00am: Hughes's witness statement has now been published on the Leveson inquiry website.
10.59am: Hughes says there could have been a specimen count against GM and others on the basis of six public figures giving evidence, including him.
10.58am: The Guardian's Lisa O'Carroll has just tweeted:
#leveson court just shown table of payments to Mulcaire showing he got total of between £775k between £850k.details from 1999 shown
— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 28, 2012
10.56am: Mulcaire received bank transfers of £569,000 from the News of the World, says Hughes. The judge was told that a £104,000 retainer was all for legitimate work, and this was not disputed at the time of the court case.
10.51am: Hughes points to the email read out yesterday from News of the World lawyer Tom Crone email to editor Andy Coulson, which stated "the only payment records they found were from News Int, ie the NoW retainer and other invoices; they said that over the period they looked at (going way back) there seemed to be over £1m of payments".
He says when the Glenn Mulcaire case came to court, reference was made to only £12,300 in payments in the sentencing.
Mr Mulcaire was sentenced on the basis of activity that he received £12,300. The fact the court did not have before it information that was clearly known, known to the police because they told Rebekah Wade, known to Tom Crone, Andy Coulson, that was not in the court's knowledge is a serious failure which meant the court was asked to do a job on the basis of incomplete evidence.
It was evidence that was known to the police and they did not bring it to court. It is unforgivable and a completely unacceptable failure."
10.48am: Hughes says the police were guilty of an "unforgivable" and "completely unacceptable failure" by not bringing to court full extent of News of the World payments to Glenn Mulcaire.
10.46am: Hughes says he was "surprised and disappointed" that the police did not pursue investigation against News of the World employees other than Clive Goodman.
10.41am: The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted:
None of these 'three names' who allegedly commissioned hacking were Clive Goodman. And he wasn't shown any of these names in 2006.
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) February 28, 2012
and
So cops had evidence Hughes friends and associates targeted and three potential commissioners, but didn't show him for 5 years.
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) February 28, 2012
10.40am: Hughes adds: "The police showed me the pages, they asked me to identify what I could. They indicated there may be in this book some names of other people with whom Mr Mulcaire was working ... They opened the issue without leading me to the answer."
10.39am: Hughes says there were "three names" of people employed by the News of the World that featured on different pages of Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks on which his name also appeared.
Three "first names", he says. "I would need to check if there was a surname anywhere."
10.38am: Police did not "open the books" to Hughes until last year, he says, including transcripts, call data, and details of friends numbers, addresses, and names of people he didn't know.
"It looked to me a pretty general trawl of anything that might lead to a story," says Hughes.
Jay asks whether Hughes expressed concern he wasn't shown this information in 2006.
Hughes replies: "I think I expressed disappointment and frustration I hadn't been shown it earlier. I didn't vent much of my spleen on them. It wasn't their fault."
10.33am: Here's a link to the Sun's story on Hughes's private life from August 2007, written by Trevor Kavanagh.
10.32am: Hughes says now the police have "opened the box" it should "complete the task fully".
He says: "If there had been robust action in 2006 a lot of the illegal action might have been shut down and a lot of the people who are now known to be victims might not be victims or might not have suffered as much."
Leveson says he takes that on board. "There are several witnesses whose lives have been very dramatically affected by that delay," the judge says.
10.29am: Leveson interjects: "Whether it did or did not continue is an interesting issue. Now what is happening is probably far broader or wider than anything than might have been contemplated then. That might be a good thing or a bad thing. People clearly have different views about that."
Hughes says he's keeping an open mind but says what is happening now is a "good thing".
10.28am: Hughes continues: "I am frustrated even now that there wasn't comprehensive action taken then, that was the window of opportunity, a lot of pain and grief could have been spared. Police ... could have prosecuted those who were clearly in the frame ... We lost three or four years in which illegal activity continued."
10.26am: Hughes told the police he would collaborate with any Glenn Mulcaire trial. But as Mulcaire and NoW royal correspondent Clive Goodman had pleaded guilty, the politician's evidence was not needed.
10.25am: Hughes says he was given "very limited information" by police, including that Mulcaire had other phone numbers of Hughes, and also names and addresses and phone numbers of his friends.
"I had very limited information given to me," he adds.
10.25am: Hughes says there was a "complete failure" by to investigate whether it was "appropriate to bring charges against the other people".
It struck me as fairly obvious once everything was revealed if you had seen the names of the other journalists from the same paper you would at least have asked some questions and got them in for questioning and investigate what their role was. You would also have pursued Mr Mulcaire and potentially other people and ask them what his relationship was with the other people.
10.24am: Hughes says he wasn't told that the evidence showed that "other people who were journalists at the News of the World were clearly involved. Their names featured in the same place as Mr Mulcaire's name. Had I known that I would have been more robust in continuing my line of inquiry."
10.22am: Financial Times media correspondent Ben Fenton has just tweeted:
[Nick Clegg won that election. Would Hughes-led party have entered Lib-Con coalition?Did this Sun story change course of UK politics?]
— Ben Fenton (@benfenton) February 28, 2012
and
Hughes, a former prosecuting barrister, said he was sure police should have asked more questions of Mulcaire about extent of hacking.
— Ben Fenton (@benfenton) February 28, 2012
10.19am: Hughes says he was told by police that they had "incontrovertible" evidence his phone had been hacked.
He asked whether other political colleagues were also the subject of interference.
"I was told they were [but] other colleagues were not willing to go public about it.
"Secondly I asked whether other people were involved. They said we were just proceeding against Mulcaire."
10.17am: The Guardian's Lisa O'Carroll is at the inquiry and has just tweeted:
#leveson. Order today: Simon Hughes, Jacqui Hames, Chris Jefferies, Nick Davies
— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 28, 2012
10.17am: Hughes says he later went from "odds on favourite" to not winning the Lib Dem leadership. He adds:
There was apparently a direct impact between that revelation and the consequent press coverage and my political reputation and chance of winning the election.
10.16am: Hughes says the reporter did not explain how he came about the information.
Although it was a hugely important and difficult matter I was in the middle of an election campaign. I admitted straightforwardly the nature of the calls, I did not think there was any reason not to do so, as a result I gave an interview to the Sun explaining that. They did not entirely accurately represent the key content of that. That is a separate issue.
10.13am: Hughes says his office received phone calls from somebody at the Sun who wanted to talk about a "private matter" during the Lib Dem leadership campaign.
Hughes agreed to meet them and the reporter shared said the Sun had "come by" information – "records of telephone calls made by me".
10.11am: Hughes says he believes his phone was hacked in 2005 and 2006. He was unable to access messages, and there were occasions when messages were stored in the system and were not displayed as "new messages" and yet he had not heard them.
10.08am: Simon Hughes, Lib Dem MP and deputy leader, has taken the stand.
10.05am: The inquiry has begun. Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, says several more statements are to be taken as read.
Leveson says "difficult decisions" have had to be made over who to invite to the inquiry because of time constraints. "No one who is not asked to come should feel their contribution is any less significant," he says.
9.54am: Welcome to the Leveson inquiry live blog.
After yesterday's damning evidence from the Met's Sue Akers and the explosive News of the World email revealed by counsel Robert Jay QC, today offers another lively lineup.
Of key interest will be Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who has been central in exposing the level of phone hacking at the News of the World.
Davies revealed in 2009 that the paper had secretly paid nearly £1m to the Professional Footballers Association chief executive Gordon Taylor and two others in relation to phone hacking. Davies and Guardian colleague Amelia Hill also revealed in a July article that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked, giving hope to her parents that she was alive.
Davies previously gave evidence in November, when he described how he broke the phone-hacking story, and he is expected to give evidence today on links between the press and the police.
Also returning to the inquiry today is Chris Jefferies, the Bristol landlord wrongly linked to the murder of Joanne Yeates. In November, Jefferies described his vilification by the press and said he will "never fully recover".
Today, he is expected to speak about allegations he made in January that the police leaked information about him to journalists following his arrest on suspicion of her murder. Jefferies said evidence given to the Leveson inquiry confirmed his concerns about the way Somerset and Avon police handled his arrest in December 2010 and in particular about leaks to the media. He was responding to evidence – disputed by Avon and Somerset police – that the Daily Mirror editor, Richard Wallace, gave to the Leveson inquiry.
Also appearing is Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes, who settled his phone-hacking claim with News International for £45,000 earlier this month. In a statement, Hughes said "Sadly the deficiencies of the original police inquiries, which failed to investigate the clear evidence of much of the criminal behaviour at one of the most important businesses in our country, are also all too apparent."
Finally, Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames, the former police officer and wife of a detective put under surveillance by the News of the World, will also give evidence.
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