Don't shoot the messenger

IT editor CHRIS BARTON found out how even a witness gets heavied in a hacking case.

The phone call from Detective John Love came at the end of March 1999. The tone was brusque, slightly bullying.

"I'm ringing about Andrew Garrett. You've got evidence against him in the case."

My mouth went dry. Surely journalists are protected from this sort of thing?

"No, I'm not happy about that. All the evidence I've got is in the story I wrote," I stammered, trying to sound tough.

"We've got you tapping into the lines. We can go to court and prosecute you. We're interested in him, not you," was the intimidating reply.

I felt sick to my stomach. Thank God for the Herald's big guns - the lawyers.

After they told me what I should have said, I rang back. "Has any complaint been laid against me?" No. "Are the police investigating me? No. "Herald journalists will give evidence related to stories they've written only under subpoena." OK.

With the antler-rattling out of the way, Love became polite and courteous. My "summons to witness" arrived in September 2000.

The wheels of justice do grind exceedingly slow, which gives plenty of time to ponder things such as journalistic ethics and whether I had done anything illegal.

When I first wrote about Garrett stealing internet users' access passwords, I had promised not to reveal his name. But after the Herald's front page story in November 1998, he revealed himself on Holmes and to other media.

The Otahuhu District Court is a grim place: the run-down building, the mean furniture and the graffiti on the toilet walls - a crime-processing factory. At the depositions it was emphasised I needed to speak slowly - so the court stenographers could type the transcripts. I took this on board a little too enthusiastically and ended up speaking in a monotone, sounding like a moron.

It was disconcerting when the prosecution asked me to look at "Tab 6" of the bundle of exhibits. The police had evidence I was on the phone to Garrett for precisely 23 minutes on November 21, 1998, starting at 1.31 pm.

I was not too surprised when I saw copies of e-mails between myself and Garrett - when he sent me samples of the passwords he had hacked. The police found them on Garrett's computer.

But I was shocked when the defence asked me to look at Section 9. There were records of phone calls from my home to Xtra and Clearnet. Didn't they need a warrant for that?

I was asked to explain why I made these calls. In my best village idiot voice I said: "I wanted to check whether Mr Garrett had given me real passwords or whether he was just making it all up."

The defence lawyer adopted an avuncular tone: "They are all calls you made, if you like, using another person's password." Correct. "I suppose it goes without saying that it was without that person's consent? "

I told him that at that stage I still didn't know if the passwords really did belong to someone - which is why I then sent them to both Telecom and Clear.

The wheels of justice turned a few more revolutions and my next summons to witness for the full trial was in July 2001. The Manukau District Court is an imposing building. Its fortress-like brick facade speaks loudly of crime and punishment. Sun streams into the concrete courtyard through an oval hole in the roof. It's not a place to linger - a prison exercise yard.

Outside the courtroom I chatted with the previous witness - a former Telecom employee now, ironically, press secretary to Paul Swain - the minister who's making new hacking laws. Two women pushed through the swing door in short skirts and dangly earrings, reminding us it was Christine Rankin day.

Inside the court the jury shuffled in. The foreman had dreads. This room was nice, with a view out to Rainbow's End - swings and roundabouts. Here you didn't have to speak slow.

I began with a speech about how I was not here voluntarily but was compelled to give evidence by subpoena. As a journalist it was not my role to assist either the accused or the police. The jury looked blank. I knew they were thinking: "What a tosser."

This time I was more confident. The defence came at me again about using the passwords just like Garrett did. I repeated my position. There was no intent to defraud on my part.

As I left I met the next witness going in - a former Telecom PR man, now doing the same for TVNZ. I remembered how he too had aggressively asserted that by checking out those passwords, technically I'd committed a fraud. Like Love he was trying to put the screws on.

It's also called shooting the messenger.