Sun Editor Defends Use Of Page Three Models

The Sun's editor Dominic Mohan has defended his paper's use of 'page three' girls after being recalled to the Leveson Inquiry.

He described them as "good role models" and "very healthy", saying the 42-year-old tradition had become a part of British society.

Mr Mohan told Lord Justice Leveson the women were not just models, describing them as ambassadors for the paper. "Some of them have travelled to places like Afghanistan," he said.

But he admitted one article suggesting that looking at the paper's page three models could make you brainier was "a cheeky interpretation of a scientific survey".

Meanwhile, The Times' editor James Harding, who was also recalled, has apologised to the Leveson Inquiry for email hacking carried out by one of the paper's reporters.

The editor was recalled to court after more details emerged on how the paper revealed the identity of "NightJack", a serving police officer who ran an anonymous blog.

Mr Harding told Lord Justice Leveson: "I sorely regret the intrusion into Richard Horton's email account by a journalist in our newsroom. On behalf of the newspaper, I apologise."

The editor said, if he had known what reporter Patrick Foster had been doing, he would have told him to abandon the story.

Mr Harding insisted he still believed it had been in the public interest to reveal the identity of NightJack, whose blog had won the prestigious Orwell prize, but not to the extent that it justified using illicit means to do so.

He continued: "If Mr Foster had come to me and said, 'I would like to seek unauthorised access of an anonymous police officer's emails,' I would have said, 'It's not in the public interest.' Clearly he did not come to me in advance."

The editor said he was not even told the paper's lawyers were going to court in June 2009 to try to overturn an injunction taken out by Mr Horton's lawyers to protect his identity.

Mr Harding told the inquiry he only became aware of the hearing when it was already under way.

He said he was distracted by a Cabinet reshuffle and had not informed the court what he had learnt by then about Mr Foster hacking NightJack's account.

When Peter Jay QC, the counsel for the inquiry, pointed out that there was a good chance that Mr Justice Eady might well not have lifted the injunction had he been aware of the hacking, Mr Harding said he had written to the judge to apologise.

"I have to own up to my responsibility and my failure here. I can see now we paid insufficient attention to the matter," Mr Harding said.

But he claimed that, having taken up the judge's time, the paper felt a responsibility to publish.

"When you look back at all this it's terrible," Mr Harding went on. "I hope you appreciate I know this as clearly as you do."

The Times editor said his paper took the inquiry "extremely seriously", saying "whenever we learn anything new we bring it to your attention".

Paul Dacre, the editor-in-chief of the Mail group, has also been recalled. He is expected to be quizzed on Thursday about why he chose to accuse Hugh Grant of spreading "mendacious smears" about his papers.