Tom Crone is a British

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and givin ...

, last working for

News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp. It is the current publisher of ...

as Legal Affairs manager, before he resigned during the News International phone hacking scandal in 2011.

Career

Crone qualified as a barrister, and after five years of private practise joined Mirror Group Newspapers. In 1985, he joined News International, appointed as Legal Affairs manager. During his time at the group, acting for '' The Sun'' and the ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national red top tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling English-language newspaper, and at closure still had one ...

'', he won plaudits from both colleagues and rivals for his unerring journalistic instinct: "He is a unique lawyer in that he has great journalistic instincts. He is sort of 10% journalist and is incredibly streetwise." A close personal friend of the late

George Carman George Alfred Carman, QC (6 October 1929 – 2 January 2001) was an English leading barrister during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1979, he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murde ...

QC, Crone was one of the first media managers to use libel defence specialist John Kelsey-Fry QC. He also hit out at then

Attorney General for England and Wales His Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales is one of the law officers of the Crown and the principal legal adviser to sovereign and Government in affairs pertaining to England and Wales. The attorney general maintains the Attorney G ...

Lord Goldsmith for clamping down on media coverage of high-profile cases, such as the allegations of

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

made against a group of

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

footballers, before they go to trial.

Resignation

As part of his role at News International, Crone gave evidence before parliamentary committees in 2009, stating that he had uncovered no evidence of phone hacking beyond the criminal offences committed by the royal editor Clive Goodman. In 2011, within 10 days of the revelation of the hacking of

Milly Dowler Milly is a feminine given name, sometimes used as a short form (hypocorism) of Mildred, Amelia, Emily, etc. It may refer to: People * Milly Alcock (born 2000), Australian actress * Milly Babalanda (born 1970), Ugandan politician * Milly Ber ...

's phone, he resigned from his position at News International. He maintains that he did not see an internal report suggesting that phone hacking at the paper reached more widely than Goodman. Since police renewed investigations in 2011, 90 people have been arrested and 16 formally charged with crimes in conjunction with illegal acquisition of confidential information. Many of these people were employees or agents of

during the period that Crone was the legal manager there. On 30 August 2012, he was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and was taken to a local police station for questioning.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crone, Tom Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British barristers People associated with the News International phone hacking scandal Place of birth missing (living people)

Career

Resignation

See also

References