... connected to-

Somehow dodgy.

I don't know.

Um, so yes, you could imagine that if you're the insurance company that's agreed to, uh, underwrite them, um, that's not the sort of behavior that, um, they're gonna thank him for.

Um, the arguments in court have been around, uh, whether, uh, the way that the claimants behaved, um, was so egregious that, um, they deserve to have what's called indemnity costs imposed on them, which means, uh, going a- you know, above and beyond what the judge had previously said would be the limit of, uh, their liability.

Um, for the claimants, um, uh, Nicholas Bacon QC has been on his feet, uh, today.

Uh, he's been saying that these were very serious matters, that, uh, there was, you know, there was every reason to, to have this, uh, this fight in court, and he's also arguing that, um, the Mail group had said earlier that their costs would only be maximum twenty million- They've then got up to 34 million.

What is the Mail's argument here with regards to Harry and his behavior?

Morning to you.

Yeah, morning, Nick.

Uh, well, yes, we, um, we were contacted by somebody who pointed out to us that, uh, Devon and Cornwall Police, uh, were hiring a diversity officer, um, for sixty-four thousand pounds.

And I thought, well, let's see if other forces are doing the same.

And, um, unsurprisingly, it turned out they were.

Uh, we found out that the, the Met was looking for a senior culture lead, uh, on sixty-two thousand pounds.

Police Scotland were looking for a equality, diversity, inclusion, and human rights professional, uh, starting on seventy-five thousand.

Tell the listeners about that, Gordon.

That is remarkable because that opens up a whole new dimension to this drama, which is the question not just of why they let Scott Mills go now, but why they didn't act sooner on information that we can show they were provided with.

Yes, I think the BBC will probably, if they're asked about this by others, they will try to play up the idea that the information that was in that email that I just read out from Anna didn't contain a specific allegation of, you know, he did this to this person or he did this with this person.

But it's very clear in that email that she has information which would be worrying to any employer if they were made aware of that.

She talks about safeguarding, she talks about harassment.

Any sort of switched on employer would look at that and think, hold on a minute, we need to check this out.

She is a journalist.

She's

How do you think this will reflect on the state broadcast on the BBC? Whose inbox is this land in? Tim Davey, the outgoing director general, or the incoming director general, Matt Britton?

And do we have any idea what kind of messages might have been on those phones?

Well, it's conceivable that he was using both or all three phones to make phone calls, WhatsApps, texts to people.

We just don't know.

Obviously, the thing that the Tories and a lot of Labour MPs want to know is, were there messages on those phones that were potentially compromising in terms of the Mandelson appointment? Obviously, it's important to remember that Mandelson had been sacked as US ambassador by the time that this phone was stolen.

And at the time, the Tories were sort of pushing for all the messages between McSweeney and Mandelson to be disclosed.

Obviously, then his phone goes missing.

That means it's much harder to get hold of that information.

What's the police reaction to this? Why is Scotland Yard reopening this?