“It’s not the Steve and Hugh show,” said Steve Coogan as he finished giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry, explaining that “somebody has to represent all those other people who haven’t the stomach to be here.” He rightly pointed out that he had never claimed to be a “paragon of virtue” or a “model of morality” and that fame was merely a “by-product” of his profession.
His appearance, although not as newsworthy as that of Hugh Grant, still produced one revelation in the form of an alleged News of the World sting against him. Coogan claimed that he was warned by former NoW showbiz editor Rav Singh in 2002 that a woman in Andy Coulson’s office (Coulson was then deputy editor of the paper) was about to phone him in an attempt to entice him into revealing intimate details about his private life.
He told the inquiry:
Rav Singh, who I have counted as a casual friend, a friend of a friend, called me and said I was about to be the subject of a sting, I was about to receive a phone call, there was a girl in Andy Coulson’s office who was going to speak to me on the phone; the phone call would be recorded; she would try to entice me into talking about intimate details about her and my life.
I was told by Rav Singh that Andy Coulson would be listening to the call and I would have to obfuscate when I had that phone call without betraying the fact I knew I was being set up so to I didn’t land him [Rav Singh] in it
Coogan went on to allege that his confidence was subsequently betrayed by Singh, who he said orchestrated a successful sting against him in 2004. In a phone conversation that he said was secretly recorded by the NoW, Singh told Coogan, whose marriage was breaking down due to an affair, that he would leave out the “more lurid” details of the story if Coogan confirmed “certain aspects” of it. When Coogan did so, Singh gave him his word that the “more embarrassing part” would not appear.
Soon afterwards, Coogan claimed his manager received a phone call from Andy Coulson “saying that they’d recorded the whole phone call and they were going to put everything in the newspaper”. He told the inquiry:
Rav Singh giving me his word was just a ruse to get me to speak on the phone so they could record me – at the time I was in some distress – to record the whole phone call so they could cover themselves.
He added that the alleged sting was “not a malicious personal vendetta but a dispassionate sociopathic act”. Were such acts performed during Coulson’s editorship it would be further evidence of the sordid operation he presided over.
Coulson is yet to respond to the allegations.
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