John Mullin: defended publishing the story about Andy Coulson's shareholdings
Lord Justice Leveson will not take further action against the Independent on Sunday for publishing a story about former Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson that appeared to be based on his witness statement to the inquiry.
The story, published last Sunday, included details that featured in his statement, but editor John Mullin insisted last week that three sources had already confirmed the story before the paper saw the document.
Leveson has ordered that no material to the Leveson inquiry should be made public before it has been heard and published on the inquiry website. He said he would publish a detailed ruling today on leaks.
He said today: "I do not intend to take any action under Section 36 of the 2005 [inquiries] act in relation to this matter but the ruling contains very detailed consideration of the circumstances.
"I strongly advise anyone who publishes material likely to emanate from our system to read that judgement with care whether they be a core participant or not."
Mullin told the inquiry last week: "I think it's human nature that if you're presented with something and you're a journalist you would read it. I think in retrospect it would be much better if all round if I had not read it."
He added: "The story stands absolutely on what we had. We didn't use the statement as a source. We have used nothing from his statement in our story. We had three sources for the story – none of them relied on Mr Coulson's statement. My view was that the order did not apply to our story."
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