Thread by @jamesdoleman

I did a phone hacking trial anacdote last week that was quite popular, a colleague who was also there reminded me of another one today, the tale of the office cat.
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Anyways, quite early on in the case, a witness, Dan Evans said phone hacking at the News of the World was so widespread, "even the office cat knew about it."
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It sort of became a comforting kind of meme in the 8 month trial, every witness would be asked about the office cat, and it sort of became real to us.
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.@peterjukes , I and others used spend dull moments in coirtvspeculating about the office cat, what would a News of the World cat be like?
Would he be a good cat, or perhaps the sort of cat who would accuse other cats of sexual "romps" in the garden?
Who knew

Anyways, about 6 months in former editor Andy Coulson was on the witness stand and counsel for the prosecution asked the inevitable question.
"Surely even the office cat knew about phone hacking?"
And we all smiled.

He responded
"We didn't have an office cat."

It was awful, he had just killed the office cat, our imaginary friend who had helped us get through this marathon trial with his cheeky cat ways and winning smile!
The jury and us looked at him like a mister, "how dare he," we thought

Unsurprisingly Mr Coulson became the only one of the 6 defendants in the case unanimously convicted by the jury, they remembered our beloved kitty.

Don't know what the lesson of this is, other than don't mess with imaginary cats in court
#Fin

*monster*