Leveson inquiry: Richard Desmond, Peter Hill, Hugh Whittow 2.40pm: Hill says the paper did its best to check the accuracy of the McCann stories it printed. He says: "We did the best we could do which was not very much. I'm not saying it was nothing but it was not very much. Jay puts it to him that he had one eye on the circulation figures. "One always has an eye on the circulation figures," Hill replies. Hill says he received estimates of sales figures on a daily basis. He adds that McCann stories boosted circulation "on many days." 2.38pm: Jay accuses Hill of "whacking the story" into the paper. Hill responds that Jay is putting him on trial. He is reassured by Lord Justice Leveson that this is not a trial. 2.36pm: Hill denies that, in effect, he accused the McCanns of killing their child. The former editor says: "I did not accuse them of killing their child. The story that I ran were the people that did accuse them and those were the Portuguese police. He adds that there was "reason to believe that they might possibly be true." 2.34pm: Hill is being asked about Express's coverage of the Madeleine McCann case. He accepts he was running a very high risk running the stories. This was an unprecedented story that in my 50 years of experience I can't remember the like. There was an enormous clamour for information ... it was an international story on an enormous scale. It was not a story you could ignore. You simply had to cover it as best you could. 2.32pm: Hill says he met with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown a couple of times a year "to exchange ideas and opinions." He says the politicians wanted to find out what the paper's readers thought. Hill says they never attempted to get him to switch the paper's allegiance. 2.30pm: Hill is asked about the Daily Express's switch of allegiances from Labour to Tories. He says he made the decision and that the "entire history" of the Express has been as a rightwing paper. "I considered it absolutely vital to return to its natural constituency," he says. The paper's owner, Richard Desmond, was a strong supporter of Tony Blair and did not back the Tories, "but he accepted that this was an appropriate thing to do." 2.29pm: Hill says he judges news stories based on his experience and knowledge, and takes the PCC code as read. 2.27pm: Hill, who became Express editor in 2003, says he is not aware of the information commissioner's reports, What Price Privacy? and What Price Privacy Now? He says he has "no idea" whether private investigators were ever used. "To my knowledge, we never used anything at that time," he says. He says he brought in changes when he became editor, and certain people on the newsdesk left. They were really changes in the way, in the tone, the newspaper was run. I would have expected the newsdesk to tell me if anything of that kind was going on. 2.21pm: Hill says he was not comfortable with the decision to leave self-regulation, "but I was comfortable with the decision to leave the PCC at that time." He says the PCC was not doing the job it set out to do. Complainants had also started to use PCC judgments to back up legal action. Hill adds that he didn't like the way the PCC was being run "by various people," but declines to expand. 2.18pm: Hill is asked about his time at the Daily Star. He won the What the Papers Say editor of the year award in January 2003. He says the paper recognised the popularity of reality TV, still relatively new at the time, and won more readers because of this. People were surprised that he splashed the paper on it 28 days in a row. "But that was right because that's what people wanted to read," he says. 2.17pm: Hill says that all the papers he has worked at are "extremely different" in their world view, which is part of the "marvellous variety" of the British press. Leveson inquiry: Peter Hill 2.14pm: Peter Hill, former editor of the Daily Express, takes the stand. 2.12pm: Whittow has finished giving evidence. 2.12pm: Whittow says he can tell from some of the inquiry's questions that there is some confusion over what goes on in a newsroom. He adds that laymen and journalists should be on a new regulatory body. "One thing that really does concern me is the internet," he says, before adding that he doesn't much use the web. "In the main it's quite well run," he says of the newspaper industry. Whittow warns that the press shouldn't be "shackled." 2.10pm: Hugh Whittow, editor of the Daily Express, is asked about the future of press regulation. He says he can see from past transcripts which way the inquiry is heading. Leveson intervenes and says he hasn't formed any conclusions yet. Whittow adds: "I don't think there should be any state or government regulation. I think we are responsible for sorting out or own business. 2.08pm: The inquiry has resumed after lunch. 2.08pm: 2.07pm: Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted: Just bumped into Richard Desmond. Mogul not looking relaxed. 1.47pm: In her witness statement, Patterson states that the publisher launched an internal investigation in July 2011 to see if any employees had carried out phone hacking, corruption, or used private investigators. The investigation is ongoing. Patterson got her accounts department to provide a list of payments from search agents from the beginning of 2005 to date, with total spend per year for five agencies: Express Locate International, JJ Services (identified at the inquiry as Steve Whittamore's company), LongmereConsultants, Searchline and SystemsSearches. The total spend in 2005 on the above five companies was £110,700.69 out of an annual editorial budget of approximately £55m, a little over 0.2% of the budget. Patterson writes: ..." At present I have found no evidence, nor do I have any knowledge of computer hacking, phone hacking or bribery having taken place at any of our newspapers. I have not come across any information that has led me to believe that any of our newspapers have engaged in such activity. 1.41pm: The witness statements of Nicole Patterson and Dawn Neesom have now been published on the Leveson inquiry website. 1.09pm: Here is a lunchtime summary of today's evidence so far: Daily Express editor Hugh Whittow says the PCC's failure to stop papers including his own from repeatedly libelling parents of Madeleine McCann was one reason the paper withdrew from the commission. Express Newspapers used Steve Whittamore as recently as 2010, its head of legal says. Daily Star editor Dawn Neesom denies paper has an "anti-Islamic" bias. Neesom says that so-called "kiss and tell" stories have died for newspapers because of the internet. 1.06pm: The inquiry has broken for lunch, after which Whittow will resume giving evidence. 1.05pm: Whittow says the future vision of the paper is to "look after the readers." He says he has a good working relationship with the staff. "We've done many many crusades, as we call them ... those are the sort of things we'll continue ... We're doing a lot of good things," he says. He adds that the biggest priority is to keep the Daily Express "buoyant, popular and profitable." Daily Express EU headline 1.00pm: The second story is on the future of the European Union. 75% say: 'quit the EU now'. The YouGov poll actually found 28% were in favour of quitting the EU, 47% in favour of renegotiating the treaty. Jay asks whether the headline is misleading, but Whittow says the headline would be justified - or reasoned - in the body copy, which he cannot see from the photocopy. Asked whether the headline is misleading, Whittow says: "I accept from what you say, yes." Daily Express 'chip shop' headline 12.57pm: Whittow is taken through a series of Daily Express headlines. The first involves a ban on salt in fish and chip shops. Jay says the salt was left behind the counter rather than on it. Whittow says "it was an experiment." He adds: "If you couldn't have salt on your chips tomorrow, Mr Jay, you wouldn't be very happy about it." He describes the story as "a good talker," or talking point. 12.54pm: Cash payments to sources are not allowed at the Daily Express, Whittow says, adding that no one has ever drawn it to his attention. "I assume because no one has come to me that it hasn't happened," he says. Whittow adds: "I think systems at the Daily Express are better than any paper" he has ever worked on, including the Sun, Star and the Evening News. 12.53pm: Whittow says he'll be asking questions about why he wasn't told about Express journalists' use of search agencies. "I genuinely had no knowledge," he adds. 12.50pm: Whittow says that the Daily Express newsdesk has assured him that it doesn't use private investigators. "They assure me that they do not use the people you've been talking about this morning, and they have not been using them," he tells the inquiry. Whittow says no Express journalist has asked him whether they can use a particular agency. "I understand we've used search agencies, but not private investigators," he adds. 12.49pm: Whittow is asked about private investigators. He says: "I had no knowledge of it at all until it started appearing in the newspapers and on television. And that surprised me. Whittow says he cannot remember when he was made aware of the ICO reports. He estimates that it was about 2006, the year both reports were first published. 12.46pm: Charlie Beckett has just tweeted: Whittow appears to be making an argument for much more interventionist regulation of newspapers. Not sure his boss wants that. #leveson 12.44pm: Whittow says there are certain standards that you have to judge as and when they arise. He says he abides by the PCC editors' code of conduct and the law. "I will always talk to the lawyer," he says. Whittow says that a footballer is "fair game" if they say something explicit and that is found to be undermined by something they have done in private. I have to consider it on its merits on the day. There is no other way of doing it," he says. 12.42pm: Ben Fenton has just tweeted: If Whittow is taken seriously, #leveson may draw conclusion papers left unrestrained have no boundaries.Argument for statutory regulation. 12.40pm: Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted: Robert Jay is stunned by this argument; he is right to be. 12.37pm: Whittow is asked about the Daily Express's decision to withdraw from the PCC. He points out that he was deputy editor, not editor, at the time. But he says he agrees with the decision. He says one of the reasons for withdrawing was because it failed to stop the paper publishing defamatory articles about the McCanns. Because of the McCanns I think that was a huge problem for us and I think they should have intervened ... no one was intervening at all. Everybody had too much leeway, it just went on and on," he says. Jay asks Whittow if he is seriously putting that forward as a reason for leaving the PCC. "I don't blame the PCC," Whittow says. I just think in hindsight they might have been able to intervene and perhaps this will reflect in the body that you set up. 12.34pm: Whittow says that about 20% of Express journalists are freelancers, adding that the standard has improved dramatically because of journalism courses. "Everyone wants to be a journalist, believe it or not," he says. 12.32pm: "We don't always write to please readers. We present the truth. Hopefully," Whittow says. Jay asks Whittow to agree that the Express in fact puts forward one version of the truth. "I won't put anything in the paper unless I think it is true ... at the time of writing," Whittow replies. 12.31pm: Whittow says a good editor is one that knows "almost everything about what goes on." He says that the Daily Express "crusade to get Britain out of Europe" came from within the paper, possibly a senior political commentator. Whittow says it was tested with readers - via the letters page and phone-ins - and they appeared happy with it. 12.28pm: Whittow says journalists are told to get a reaction or comment from the subject of the story. It's a necessity, I insist on it. If in doubt check it out; if in doubt, throw it out," he says. Whittow says nothing happens to journalists who don't bring in stories. Most stories these days are not brought in by journalists. We hear a lot of stories just on the wires, on the TV, on the radio," he tells Leveson. 12.26pm: Whittow is asked if an editorial line is laid down for journalists, or whether they just "absorb" it. "They absorb it," he says. He tells the inquiry: We don't twist anything. We just present the news of the day. 12.24pm: Whittow says he has control over the front page, which is the main focus of the day. Jay makes the point that angle you put on a story and the headline defines the tone and direction of paper and creates impact. Whittow says: "I accept that, yes." 12.23pm: Whittow says he heard Kelvin MacKenzie's evidence and says he can't remember the Sun being of the "lob it in" school. "It wasn't 'lob it in' at all," he says. Perhaps he thought it was being lobbed in, but journalists didn't think it was being lobbed in. Journalists would be told "in no uncertain terms" that they'd messed up under MacKenzie, he says. It was a very professional, tight-run ship. 12.20pm: Whittow says there is a "big difference" between his Daily Express and the newsroom at the Sun under Kelvin MacKenzie, where he used to work. "There are some characters," he says. It's not a church. He adds that computers have made the biggest difference to newsrooms since the 1980s; papers are tightly run and everyone works two or three times as hard. Leveson inquiry: Hugh Whittow 12.18pm: Hugh Whittow, editor of the Daily Express, has taken the stand. 12.16pm: Asked if she has any further recommendations, Neesom tells Lord Justice Leveson: "You're far more intelligent than I am so I know you're going to come up with something very good." Neesom has now finished giving evidence. 12.15pm: Neesom says she agreed with Richard Desmond's decision to withdraw from the PCC. "I agreed with the board's decision to withdraw from the PCC and felt it had lost its way somewhat," she says. Asked what suggestions she has for the future of press regulation, Neesom says that self-regulation can work, but that it is a "dangerous area" when editors rule on each other "because people have agendas." 12.12pm: Asked what she wants to achieve for the Daily Star, Neesom says: "There's a lot of work to be done ... systems can always be improved. It's a very difficult time for the industry ... I think the Leveson inquiry is a brilliant opportunity for us to move on.' She says she has tried to make the Star less laddish, and is a "fair, accurate and entertaining" newspaper. Her number one priority is to "stay in business" and "move on from where we are today in a positive way." The competition from the internet is huge, Neesom adds. 12.10pm: Jay describes the McCann stories as "extremely wounding and damaging," and asks Neesom about her thought process. With hindsight, I honestly don't recall what my thought process was. It was huge story, which everyone was talking about at the time," she says, adding that she thought the stories were coming from a reliable source. "It was a huge huge story and mistake were made, for which I am truly sorry," she says. 12.08pm: Neesom is asked about the Daily Star's coverage of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. She confirms that she was involved in some of the stories but "not necessarily all." Asked how the libellous stories ever saw the light of day, Neesom says: "The source of the stories was entirely coming from Portugal ... and we were being fed stories by the Portuguese police and press." It was a risk and to this day I regret what happened in the McCann case and all I can do is repeat the apology on page 1 for the hurt and distress we caused them. She says she is not sure the paper's coverage increased its sales. 12.06pm: Asked about whether it is true that the Daily Star is obsessed with the Daily Mail website, as Richard Peppiatt claimed, Neesom replies: We don't just lift stories from the Mail website and put them in the Star without at least checking them. 12.06pm: 12.05pm: The Daily Star makes sure mistakes such as the Christopher Jefferies incident do not happen any more, Neesom assures Leveson. Leveson says he is interested that "most of the top people" at newspapers might have been on holiday at the time the offending Jefferies stories were published. It was a bad mistake. Newspapers, all newspapers, make mistakes," she says. 12.02pm: Neesom is being asked about litigation brought by Christopher Jefferies, the Bristol landlord, against the Star and serveral other titles over its coverage of the murder of Joanna Yeates. Neesom says she was on holiday over the New Year period and did not know about the articles until she returned to work. She says she personally agreed that the apology to Jefferies should be on page 2. "I was annoyed that we messed up ... I discussed it with the people concerned," she says. Asked about the nature of the discussions, Neesom says: "They weren't cuddly." 11.59am: Neesom says that the Star doesn't do appraisals, but replies on the experience of her editors to promote younger journalists. Asked about a whistleblowing policy, Neesom says the Star doesn't have a whistleblowing policy but has an "open door" policy. Journalists with concerns can go to human resources, or the managing editor, or the finance director or Neesom herself, she says, adding: "I've never had a whistleblowing experience, to be honest with you." She says the Star is not the kind of paper that would sack a whistleblower. 11.57am: Jay asks Neesom whether the Star uses PR material in stories. Neesom agrees a substantial amount of stories in the title are PR-generated. "I didn't think there was a problem with PRs - although some of them are a bit bad," she says. How often are staff journalists fired for failing to achieve, asks Jay? Neesom says: "I don't ever remember firing staff journalists, to be honest." 11.54am: Neesom says readers would be "fine" if the Star ran more positive stories about Muslims. "We do have a balanced agenda and we've never had a problem with our readers," she says. Neesom tells Leveson that the poppy-burning front page got readers worked up. "Regardless of who did the burning, they were angry about it," she says. 11.51am: A lawyer for Northern & Shell interjects to say that Neesom has not had "fair notice" of the stories she is being asked about. Jay puts to Neesom that a blog called Tabloid Watch accuses the Daily Star of an anti-Islamic bias. Jay asks Neesom to provide the inquiry with examples of the Star's "positive Islamic stories." She says she would be delighted to. Daily Star front pages 11.47am: Neesom is asked about a front-page story headlined "Muslim thugs aged just 12 in knife attack on Brit schoolboy." Jay says it was a Facebook threat, not an actual attack. Jay says: "You've got an uncomfortable juxtaposition and a tendencious message coming across." Neesom says: "We are not biased against Muslims. This is not a story I was aware of. I didn't write the headline. I will address the story when I get back to the office. 11.45am: Robert Jay quotes from a summary of Daily Star front pages - X Factor 12 days, Price/Andre six days, Muslims three days. Neesom says: "It's not a fair representation of [Star front page] every month." Jay asks if Neesom can give any example of positive Muslim stories. She gives an example relating to the summer riots. Erm... Yes there was the story of the recent riots in the summer and the very very brave man who spoke out to the Islamic community about his son's death. It was a very moving story," she tells the inquiry. Daily Star Big Brother headline 11.43am: Neesom is asked about a story headlined "Sex tease Amy gets BB boot" but is not familiar with it. Jay asks: "You don't accept this is a titillating headline designed to attract readers?" "It's certainly a titillating headline and the aim was to attract readers, yes," says Neesom. 11.41am: Neesom is asked again about Richard Peppiatt's evidence on the Daily Star's "agenda." Neesom says the Star writes stories "to be as accurate as possible, they're written in Daily Star style, certainly." She denies that the Star has an anti-Islamic agenda. 11.38am: "Systems can always be improved and this is one of them," Neesom says, adding that she will discuss it with the group's legal and finance executives. 11.37am: We're back and Neesom is being asked about search agents. Neesom says the use of Steve Whittamore or other search agents has never been drawn to her attention. She says she has never heard of JJ Services, Whittamore's company. She says it does cause her concern and doesn't know why it hadn't been drawn to her attention. 11.35am: Richard Peppiatt, a former Daily Star reporter who gave evidence to the inquiry in November, is contesting Neesom's evidence on the EDL story. He has just tweeted: Day before EDL headline 98% of readers agreed with EDL policies. Dawn wanted more stories on them. #Leveson Peppiatt says the leader column published alongside the EDL story was "hardly condemnation." 11.27am: The inquiry is now taking a short break. The Daily Star's English Defence League headline (click for full cover image) 11.25am: Now on to a Daily Star story headlined "English Defence League to become a political party." Neesom says it was not fabricated, and that it was published after a member of the EDL went on a TV programme and said that the long-term ambition was to become a political party. "We are a Jewish company and we were quite concerned about that," Neesom says. We were worried by this development and we still are. The Daily Star's ash cloud headline (click for full cover image) 11.22am: Neesom is asked about a front-page Daily Star story, headlined "Terror as plane hits ash cloud." The story resulted in copies of the paper being removed from newsagents' shelves over fears they could cause panic among travellers. It was taken from a TV documentary... It was a grab from a TV programme," she says. As far as the headline, that was referring to the terror in the TV programme... It would be fair to say it was taken from the TV programme, that did do that. Neesom says it "maybe over-egged the pudding, occasionally headlines go too far and this was one of them." She adds: "Occasionally we do cross lines, as do every newspaper. We do have standards. Daily Star: Simon Cowell headline 11.20am: Neesom is being asked about a Daily Star story, headlined "Telly king Cowell is dead." Jay says: "It could be said someone reading this would say 'Oh goodness, he's died.'" Neesom replies: "The nature of the daily Star is we are very young tabloid newspaper ... we do rely on people picking up the paper at the newsstand." Neesom says that the headline was taken from a quote from Gary Barlow. But, yes, it was designed to be an eye-catching headline. Jay again: "If one was going to be pernickity about it - or pompous - it's wrong isn't it?" Neesom replies: "It's eye-catching." 11.16am: The Daily Star "always takes note" of privacy, Neesom says, "serious note." "It gets expensive if you don't," she adds. 11.15am: "We judge each story on whether it appeals to our [Daily Star] readers," Neesom says. 11.12am: Neesom says that the internet has played a large part in the death of "kiss and tell" stories as a big draw for newspapers. She adds that celebrities will publish their own stories on Twitter. Taste for these stories has not dwindled, she says, but the papers are beaten to publication by the internet. I don't think public tastes have changed given the popularity of certain internet sites and stories about certain celebrities ... It's just that people are reading it online now. 11.09am: "We are looking at how we can tighten up how our journalists work ... because I think there have been mistakes in the past," Neesom says. She adds that in future junior reporters will be given a seminar about standards and ethics on the title. "That's one thing we are going to put in process quite soon," she says, adding that there are no other plans in the pipeline. 11.07am: Jay says that the inquiry heard earlier that the Daily Star had used search agents four times in recent years. Neesom says she wishes she had known that the Star employed search agents. In my day on the road we didn't do that sort of thing. 11.06am: Robert Jay QC raises evidence given to the inquiry by Richard Peppiatt, the former Daily Star reporter who complained about standards on the title. Neesom says that some celebrities - mentioning Katie Price - "don't need any help embroidering" details about their life. 11.04am: Asked by Jay about whether the Star "weaves around the edges of stories" to make them more entertaining, Neesom replies: "The Daily Star has a "certain style of writing which appeals to the readers." 11.03am: Neesom tells the inquiry that celebrities will sometimes leak stories about themselves. She says that journalists will strive to contact the subject of a story for comment before publication. 11.01am: "I have been known to pass comment," Neesom says, before telling Lord Justice Leveson: "My husband looks at me like that as well." Leveson quips: "I'm usually responsible for the jokes." 10.549am: Neesom says not being a part of the PCC "hasn't made much difference" because the editors' code of practice is still adhered to by staff. It is enforced by "people not being very happy with [staff] when they mess up," she says. 10.57am: Robert Jay asks Neesom about the Daily Star brand. "It's a very small staff, we are all sitting on the same news floor ... I think you know what the Daily Star is about," Neesom says. 10.58am: The Daily Star has 80 staff. Neesom says about half of the newsdesk are full-time staff and half are casual staff. She says that most stories published in the paper are by staff journalists; "We don't have a big freelance budget." The Star doesn't have a training scheme and most of the reporters have journalism qualifications, she tells Leveson. 10.57am: Neesom says having so few staff "focuses your mind" and has a lot of young, talented journalists who are recruited from regional papers. She denies that a lack of staff compromises accuracy, adding: "We always try to employ people that prize accuracy above all else." 10.53am: Neesom describes the Sun as a "fantastic paper" with a more "full-on environment, with more staff, it's quite a scary place to work, I thought." Neesom says she has attempted to "tone down some of the more masculine, laddish" elements of the Star, without losing its core readership. Asked if the Star could be described as a rightwing tabloid, Neesom says: "We are a tabloid newspaper. We're not the Guardian, that's for sure. Leveson inquiry: Dawn Neesom 10.49am: Dawn Neesom, editor of the Daily Star, takes the stand. 10.49am: Patterson has now finished giving evidence. 10.47am: Robert Jay QC begins to ask Patterson about the Express's Madeleine McCann stories, which resulted in legal action. However, he says he cannot ask Patterson about her advice on the McCann stories because it is covered by legal privilege. 10.46am: The Express titles have an in-house internal complaints committee, Patterson says, because they are not part of the PCC. She adds that she is strident enough to simply say "don't" if a story appears too risky to publish. 10.44am: Patterson says that the Express and Star titles "just don't do" kiss and tell stories any more. Her legal advice is that "kiss and tell" stories are private information. 10.42am: More detail is filtering out of people named on Express Newspapers invoices in relation to searches by private investigators. Ben Fenton, the FT's media correspondent, has just tweeted: Few recognisable names, but one was in 2007 by SystemSearches for [Lt Col]Jorge Mendonca, frmr CO of Queens Lancs Regt #leveson [Mendonca's soldiers were involved in the fake pictures row with DMirror in that year. We also saw ref to "girl in mask"] #leveson Whittamore seems to have been paid £174K by Express News. One search (not sure by whom) was on subject of Mark Thompson DG of BBC #leveson 10.36am: Asked about Glenn Mulcaire, Patterson says "the name never came up" when she questioned news editors about use of private investigators. "No, because I was told we'd never used anything in connection with Glenn Muclaire," she says. 10.36am: Patterson says that the total spend on these kind of searches was about £15,000 over 10 years, pointing out that the group spent £9m over pictures last year alone. There is no suggestion that any of these searches used illegitimate methods. 10.35am: The Hacked Off campaigner Thais Portilho Shrimpton has just tweeted: More names appeared on our screen and a total value of approx £174k for Whittamore services #leveson 10.32am: Ben Fenton, media reporter at the Financial Times, has just tweeted: The detailed entries on Whittamore's bill to the Express include £2,150 entry for work on a 2005 project described as "Rothermere" 10.31am: Reading from a "lineage sheet," Jay says that targets in 2005 included John Birt and Davina McCall. Patterson mentions a "search in relation to Robert Murat," the man falsely arrested in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Leafing through documents, Jay says: "It looks as if your internal inquiry is not getting very far, thus far." 10.30am: Robert Jay QC mentions that in a long list of invoices the name Jade Goody appears, along with Charlotte Church, listed next to the acronym "STR." Petterson says that could be New and Star magazine, not necessarily the Daily Star. Jay says the earliest date of payments to Whittamore's firm is 31 January 2005 and he was still carrying out services for them in 2010. Jay asks her whether Express Newspapers is still using Whittamore's services. Patterson says: "The last entry was 2010 ... I don't know the answer to that." Jay asks why she doesn't question the recent employment of Whittamore, given that there is a "cloud hanging over him." It's a matter for the news editor and the editor. It's not a matter within my remit, I'm afraid," she tells Leveson, adding that she has raised the issue with the news editor. 10.25am: Patterson says that it was "almost impossible" to relate the searches carried out by Steve Whittamore to stories that appeared in the newspapers. According to the internal financial search, Patterson says most of the payments were for a similar amount - usually below £100. "It did appear from the financial searches that there were a lot of similar amounts, so I took it from that that it was a similar type of particular search," she says. 10.23am: Patterson repeats that the payouts to search agencies were "very small." "More often than not it was £75, £80, £100," she says. It's very little money compared to our total spend. 10.21am: Patterson says journalists would use search agents to find contact details or addresses for people they wanted to get in touch with. "Until we started looking at this I didn't even know we used search agencies," she says. She says "you expect" when you employ a company they would carry out their work within the law. The Express titles used Steve Whittamore about 65 times, she tells Leveson, and the Star only four times. 10.19am: The inquiry does not involve formal interviews, Patterson says, but she asked news editors for names of private investigators or search agents that they might have used. They found a reference to JJ Services, the private investigation firm run by Steve Whittamore. Patterson says she doesn't know if Whittamore is still being employed. She tells Leveson that the largest unexplained payment at the group was £1,500 or £1,600, adding that was "very very small" in terms of the group's overall spend. 10.16am: Robert Jay QC asks Patterson about an internal investigation still being carried out by Express Newspapers into phone hacking and other unlawful newsgathering methods. "We haven't found any evidence to suggest anybody was doing any phone hacking or anything of that nature," Patterson tells Leveson. The internal inquiry went back to the year 2000. 10.14am: Patterson is asked about a Sunday Express story on baggage handling. She told a reporter who was preparing to go undercover as a baggage handler for a story: "If you apply for the job as a baggage handler you have to complete the application for the job as it is." She says she doesn't know if the reporter eventually applied for the job. Leveson inquiry: Nicole Patterson 10.10am: Nicole Patterson, head of legal at Express Newspapers, is the first witness of the day. Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, confirms that Richard Desmond will be the final witness. 9.47am: Welcome to the Leveson inquiry liveblog. The fourth day of the week devoted to the press focuses on Richard Desmond's newspaper empire, Northern & Shell. Desmond, proprietor of the Daily Express, Daily Star and OK! magazine, will be the star witness of the day and is expected to be heard this afternoon. Desmond and his executives and editors are likely to face questions on editorial interference by owners, the decision to quit the PCC, and the £550,000 libel payout to the parents of Madeleine McCann. Although they will not necessarily appear in this order, the full line-up today is: Dawn Neesom, editor of the Daily Star Hugh Whitlow, editor of the Daily Express Peter Hill, former editor of the Daily Express Paul Ashford, editorial director of Northern & Shell Robert Sanderson, finance director of Northern & Shell Nicole Patterson, head of legal at Express Newspapers Richard Desmond, founder and owner of Northern & Shell