Gordon Brown gives evidence of row with Sun

Ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown says lessons cannot be learned about press standards unless there is honesty about how details of his son's cystic fibrosis were published by the Sun.

He said him and his wife Sarah were "presented with a fait accompli" by the paper, before it ran a story on their son Fraser's medical condition in 2006.

He denied that he or his wife had given permission for the story to be run.

Mr Brown is giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.

Chancellor George Osborne will be giving evidence later and Prime Minister David Cameron will enter the witness box on Thursday.

The inquiry is currently focusing on the relationship between the press and politicians.

The Sun's then-editor Rebekah Brooks had previously told the Leveson Inquiry she had the express permission of the Browns to run the story about Fraser's medical condition, but the Browns have previously said that was "untrue".

Mr Brown told the inquiry the NHS in Fife had apologised to him because they think it "highly likely" unauthorised information was disclosed by NHS staff about Fraser Brown.

He again denied consent had been given to the Sun to publish the story.

"I find it sad that even now, in 2012, members of the News International staff are coming to this inquiry and maintaining this fiction that a story that could only have been achieved or obtained through medical information or through me or my wife... was obtained in another way.

"We can't learn the lesson about what has happened with the media anything unless there is some honesty about what actually happened, whether payment was made and whether this is a practice which could continue."

He said through the Press Complaints Commission he had attempted to get newspaper editors to agree on limits of coverage about his children.

When asked why his wife had remained friends with Mrs Brooks, he said: "Sarah is one of the most forgiving people I know. We had to get on with the job of doing what is expected."

'Dishonoring troops'

Responding to Mr Brown’s evidence about NHS Fife,  its chief executive John Wilson said: "We now accept that it is likely that, sometime in 2006, a member of staff in NHS Fife spoke, without authorization, about the medical condition of Mr Brown's son, Fraser.

"With the passage of time it has not been possible to identify all the circumstances."

He said the trust did not think the child's medical records had been inappropriately accessed but were clear that "conversations about patients" were as much a breach of confidentiality.

Mr Brown also criticized other examples of Sun journalism during his time in office, including a claim he fell asleep at a memorial service when, he explained, he had actually bowed his head to pray.

"The Sun decides this is an example of someone falling asleep and dishonoring the troops," he said.

He went on to say media in Britain, at its best, is the "best in the world" but said one of the problems of the press is the conflation of fact and opinion - mirroring the views stated by his predecessor Tony Blair when he appeared at the Leveson Inquiry two weeks ago.

'Unbalanced'

The News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch told the inquiry in April Mr. Brown had phoned him in an "unbalanced" state of mind and threatened war on his media empire after the Sun newspaper had switched its support from Labour to the Conservatives in 2009.

The former PM later denied having made such a threat and repeated this denial to the inquiry counsel, Robert Jay QC.

"This call did not happen, this threat was not made. I couldn't be unbalanced on a call that I didn't have... and I find it shocking that we should get to this situation some time later when there is no evidence of this call happening at the time that he says it happened and you to be told under oath that this was the case."

Mr Brown also said that none of these dealings with Mr Murdoch were about politics. "I would rather have been an honest one-term prime minister than a dishonest two-term prime minister," he said.

He also told the inquiry that, while he was in government, he was the victim of a number of "phishing" expeditions, when private information about his financial and legal affairs was breached by the press.

"Someone sent me a tape which I passed on to the police where the Sunday Times Insight team reporters are talking to each other, I'm afraid, about how they're going to use these what I think are underhand and perhaps unlawful techniques and tactics - but there was no public justification for this."

Labour leader Ed Miliband, former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major and Deputy Labour Leader Harriet Harman will give evidence to the inquiry at London's Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond will appear on Wednesday, while Mr Cameron will be the sole witness on Thursday.

-BBC