The Max Mosley privacy case cost the News of the World almost £1m in damages and legal costs, editor Colin Myler admitted today.
Myler confirmed today that the News of the World footed a £900,000 legal bill on top of the £60,000 damages Mosley, the president of formula one governing body the FIA, was awarded when he won his privacy case in London's high court in July last year.
However, speaking before MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee today, Myler defended running the story about Mosley's encounter with five prostitutes, saying he was a public figure in charge of an organisation with 125 million members worldwide. Mosley is currently taking libel action against the paper and its owner News International over the same story.
Myler said the newspaper did not contact Mosley before publication to prevent him injuncting the story and held it back from the paper's first edition to keep it from rival Sunday titles.
"We knew that Mr Mosely would get an injunction and I felt very strongly that this was a story that should not have an injunction" he added, giving evidence to the committee's inquiry on privacy, libel and press standards.
Previously, the committee had heard evidence from Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre and Daily Express editor Peter Hill that they would not have broken the Mosley story in their publications because they ran "family newspapers".
Myler claimed today that all newspapers and broadcasters had followed up the story. He also said the News of the World was a family newspaper and that it was acceptable for parents and their children to read the Mosley story over breakfast. "I don't agree it was an unsuitable story for a family newspaper to run," he added.
Myler also said he was "surprised" that Mosely mounted a privacy case against the paper because the paper believed its evidence against him was "overwhelming".
Myler defended his newspaper as "a great institution that this country should be proud of" and said it had campaigned for eight years to get 14 different pieces of legislation through parliament as part of its Sarah's Law campaign to protect children from paedophiles, one of many campaigns the paper had run.
"It's not all about whether someone's run off with someone else's wife," he added.
Myler pointed out that News of the World investigations editor Mazher Mahmood had prompted the jailing of 232 criminals.
He also revealed that the News of the World did not run a story that a serving army sergeant was advertising himself online as a male escort because it decided that the man had been stupid and made a mistake.
Turning to the standards expected from his journalists, Myler said they had to be ambassadors for the newspaper and were not allowed to threaten subjects with exposure in order to get material for use in stories.
He added that the effect of the recent privacy rulings including the Mosley case had made the paper more vigilant than ever before.
"I probably spend an equal time talking to lawyers as I do journalists and that's not a bad thing. The level of proof for getting a story into the News of the World is higher than I have experienced in 40 years," Myler said.
He also said that in his journalism career he had had three adjudications against him from the Press Complaints Commission.
The News of the World editor said that his first job in journalism had been on the Catholic Pictorial Weekly.
"It's a very interesting journey from the CPW in Liverpool to the editorship of the News of the World. One of the proudest days of my life was being asked to be editor of the News of the World. I think it's a great institution that this country should be proud of," Myler added.
The committee also heard evidence from Tom Crone, the News of the World's legal manager, who talked about what he perceived as the problems with juries hearing legal cases and awarding large sums of money to celebrities.
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