UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE+++++++++
THE TWO PHOTOGRAPHERS REFERRED TO IN THE STORY BELOW – MATTHEW SPRAKE AND ANDREW STONE – HAVE BEEN CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES – SEE FOLLOW-UP STORY ON BYLINE INVESTIGATES FOR MORE DETAILS AND FURTHER INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS STORY
UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++UPDATE+++++++++
Two top journalists used by The Sun, the Mail, the Mirror and the Express charged with allegedly putting an ‘illegal’ tracker on a car
- CELEBRITY PHOTOGRAPHERS Matthew Sprake and Andrew Stone allegedly fixed tracker on a vehicle they were following
- THE SNAPPERS work for Splash News UK, one of Britain’s top paparazzi agencies
- THEIR PICTURES are published in The Sun, the Mirror, the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, Mail Online and the Mail on Sunday
- PRESS REFORM group Hacked Off have called on the new Labour government for tougher regulation.
- SPRAKE AND STONE were allegedly targeting Paula Vennells, the controversial former boss of the Post Office
- THE PAIR were allegedly observed near Vennells’ home in Bedfordshire.
- SPRAKE was arrested 10 km away after her husband John Wilson, who was driving the couple’s car, was allegedly followed.
By Graham Johnson | Editor, Byline Investigates & Expose News
TWO HIGHLY EXPERIENCED tabloid journalists have been charged with using an electronic device for unlawful information gathering.
The photographers were caught after a tracker was allegedly placed on a victim’s car in January this year.
Matt Sprake, 54, and Andy Stone, 57, were arrested by Bedfordshire Police after a GPS Electronic Tracker Device was allegedly installed on January 24.
However, Sprake is understood to deny that there is evidence linking him to the tracking device found on the vehicle.
The car is used by controversial former Post Office boss Paula Vennells.
Vennells was targeted by the tabloids in the wake of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office broadcast in the New Year.
The ex-Post Office CEO was blamed for covering up evidence in the latter part of the Horizon scandal.
The revelations have shocked press reform campaigners as tabloid newspapers have repeatedly claimed to have cleaned up their act following the phone hacking scandal 13 years ago.
There is no suggestion that Splash News, or its clients at the Mail, Mirror, Express and The Sun, were involved in the alleged offence, or knew about the alleged tracker.
However, Hacked Off – the campaign for a free and accountable press – told Byline Investigates that the allegations, if proven, show that ‘nothing had changed’ since the phone hacking scandal.
Hacked Off board member Emma Jones said: ‘Newspapers vowed they had cleaned up their act after Leveson, but todays news that veteran Fleet Street photographers – who supply The Sun and the Mail on a regular basis with big name pictures – have been charged with alleged illegal tracking shows that nothing has changed.’
Stone and Sprake have been charged ‘with stalking without fear /alarm/distress, contrary to section 2A(1) and (4) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.’
The alleged offences took place over a week, earlier this year between 17 – 24 January 2024 near Vennells’ grade II listed home in the quiet village.
Bedfordshire Police have accused Sprake and Stone of ‘a course of conduct which amounted to the stalking of Paula Vennells, and which you knew or ought to have known, amounted to the harassment of her in that together ….you took photographs of her address, placed a tracker on her car and followed her vehicle…’
Stone and Sprake pleaded not guilty to the charges last month on August 07 at Luton and South Bedfordshire Magistrates’ Court.
The next hearing is on 18 February 2025.
The pair have been bailed under the condition that they do not contact directly or indirectly Vennells or Wilson.
Both Sprake and Stone have had long and successful careers in the tabloids.
Sprake, of Grays, Essex, has photographed hundreds of stars including the late Queen, Katie Price, Tom Cruise, Meghan Markle, Ronnie Wood, Anthony Hopkins and George Clooney.
He sparked controversy at the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.
The long lens photographer told of carrying out surveillance on more than 300 people in a two-year period, almost always involving the use of covert methods.
Two of his targets were specifically mentioned during his questioning – Gerry and Kate McCann.
Andy Stone, of Southampton, Hampshire, is a veteran red top operator who is well-respected in the industry.
One source told Byline Investigates & Expose News that Vennells was alerted to unusual activity outside her home on January 24 which was caught on video camera.
The images were captured in real time and beamed to Vennells, her partner or her security company, who called the police immediately.
Officers arrived quickly on the scene.
Sprake was arrested the next day 10 km away at The Green, Marston Mortaine.
The police allege that Wilson had been followed to a supermaket and back.
The alleged offences took place two weeks after Vennells was depicted in Mr Bates vs The Post Office in which she was played by actress Lia Williams.
The four-part series sparked national outrage and Vennells has since been blamed for being involved in the cover-up, which she denies.
More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted for theft by the Post Office and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as the faulty IT system it used, known as Horizon, made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
Many were sent to jail and bankrupted, while at least four are believed to have taken their own lives over it.
Vennells was the CEO of Post Office Ltd during the latter part of the Post Office scandal.
Hacked Off’s Emma Jones added: ‘The highly-paid paparazzi were on the payroll of one of Britain’s biggest picture agencies, Splash News.
‘We need independent regulation of the press now, to restore trust and ensure these alleged abuses cannot go on.
‘This government has promised candour and change, and now Labour must act on its promises and deliver the promises it made to the victims of the press.’
Sprake, Stone and Splash News have been approached for comment.
A spokesperson for Bedfordshire Police confirmed the charges, and said: ‘We have nothing further to add at this stage.’
UPDATE
Electronic tracker Charges against news photographers dismissed
- ‘No case to answer’ finds judge
- Charges dismissed as non-criminal matters
- Matthew Sprake and Andrew Stone cleared and receive costs
- Mr Sprake was found to have had nothing to do with the tracker
- The GPS device was discovered on a vehicle – but the surveillance was below the threshold of stalking
- ‘Public Interest’ defence cited in court.
Byline Investigates can reveal that the two press photographers, referred to in the story above, have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Matthew Sprake and Andrew Stone were charged with ‘electronic stalking’ just over a year ago after a digital tracking device was found on a car which they had been watching in a bid to obtain photographs.
However, last week a magistrates’ court found that there was no case to answer.
The court accepted that Mr Sprake had nothing to do with attaching or monitoring the covert GPS gadget, and had been unaware of its use.
A judge found that the activities of Mr Stone fell below the threshold to prove harassment and instrusion.
The Crown Prosecution Service and Bedfordshire Police had brought the case against the two veteran newsmen whilst they were working for press agency Splash, now part of the world’s largest stock images company.
The allegations revolved around Paul Vennells, the ex-Post Office boss, who became the focus of frenzied press attention following an ITV drama broadcast in January 2024.
The court heard that Mr Sprake was an innocent party, who had not been expecting to cover the Horizon case at Ms Vennell’s property that day, but did so because his colleague was absent attending a funeral.
Mr Sprake said he had was responding at short notice to information about the location of Ms Vennells’ car disclosed, he believed, by someone from one of the TV crews stationed at Ms Vennells’ home.
“Had she gone to the post office for example it would have been the front page of any newspaper,” said Mr Sprake in comments to Bedfordshire Police read out to the court, which his barrister Tommy Dominguez suggested showed a legitimate public interest.
Mr Sprake made a “short follow” in his van of Ms Vennells’ husband John Wilson, who was driving his wife’s VW UP car on 24 January 2024 – three weeks after the broadcast and three months before her evidence to the Post Office inquiry – for the purpose of “intelligence gathering”, but had ceased as soon as he established that she was not the driver. He said he did not know who Mr Wilson was, and that he was working within professional industry codes of conduct.
The court heard that Mr Sprake had also taken a photograph of the exterior of Ms Vennells’ home from a public road; an image Mr Sprake’s barrister Tommy Dominguez said was similar to others taken and published in recent years in coverage of the Post Office Horizon scandal in The Sun and Daily Mail respectively, and which Ms Vennells said she found “intrusive”.
A lawyer for the second photographer, Mr Stone, defending his client for placing a tracking device on the Volkswagen, of which there was CCTV evidence, argued it was “unattractive and unreasonable” behaviour but not “oppressive” and did not, as a single incident, fall under the Stalking Protection Act 2019.
The Officer in the Case (OIC) for Bedfordshire police said they had not considered Mr Sprake to be involved in the tracker incident. Mr Sprake also strongly denied knowledge of its use in a recorded police interview.
Barrister for Mr Stone, David Osborne, said: “Step back for a moment and consider the role of the press. Context is everything. I would suggest that if this were being done to an ex-partner or even a love island contestant, you might take a different view.
“But this is a genuinely important, generation-defining scandal in this country and it is that the criminal law ought to allow a degree of consideration about what a journalist is entitled to do in order to pursue a legitimate and important story.
“This is hardly an example of torment of a person. Not a course of conduct. Not unreasonable.”
Mr Osborne added: “All of the mainstream media – all of them intruded upon Ms Vennells’ life and no doubt cause a great deal of anguish.. this was beyond a legitimate story – the courts in my view must protect press freedom.
“We live in the United Kingdom not Russia. I have no doubt that Paula Vennells was under enormous strain. No one would seek to justify the hateful letters she received.
“At the same time the ITV drama itself misrepresenting… it led to press interest for four months until she gave evidence at the inquiry. At no point did the police sweep them up and say they were causing distress.”
Solicitor Advocate for the Crown Prosecution Service Mark Fidler spoke of the impact on Ms Vennells, who said she had been left “hyper vigilant” and “alarmed and concerned” about being followed, adding “we are not prosecuting Ms Vennells here,” before resting his case.
After a night’s deliberation, District Judge Dodd found Ms Vennells to be a reliable witness but agreed that the trial should be discontinued and dismissed the charges without calling Mr Sprake or Mr Stone to the witness box.
In closing comments, the judge said she did not “condone the behaviour”, saying it was “unattractive” but that, though the fitting of the tracker was not acceptable, it could not “be described as oppressive”.
“The press has an important job which Ms Vennells acknowledged,” the judge said, adding that though the treatment Ms Vennells received “in total” following the ITV broadcast was, in her view, “approaching the criminal”, this was not the fault of the photographers.
“The conduct of others involved not here was disgraceful,” the judge concluded.
CORRECTION: The first edition of this story contained the following paragraphs:
Splash News UK is run by John Edwards, the former picture editor of The Sun who was cleared of corruption and misconduct in public office in 2015, after an investigation into payments to public officials by the newspaper.
There is no suggestion that Edwards or his clients at the Mail, Mirror, Express and The Sun were involved in the alleged offence, or knew about the alleged tracker.
Byline Investigates has been informed that John Edwards no longer runs Splash News. We are happy to acknowledge this assertion was innaccurate, and the association unfair to both parties. The information has been removed from the copy above.
In addition, an earlier version of this story stated that Sprake and Stone were arrested outside of the house of Vernnells and Willson. However, Byline Investigates understands this is innaccurate and is happy to point out that Sprake was arrested 10 km away.
