Andy Coulson tells court Tommy Sheridan tape is real

Downing Street's director of communications gave evidence at the perjury trial of former MSP Tommy Sheridan today, telling the trial that he believed a video tape of Mr Sheridan 'confessing' was genuine.

• Andy Coulson arriving at Glasgow Sheriff court today

Andy Coulson, 42, was editor of the News of the World at the time of Sheridan's successful defamation action against the newspaper in 2006.

The action followed the newspaper's claims that the former Scottish Socialist Party MSP was an adulterer who visited swingers' clubs.

Sheridan and his wife Gail, both 46, both deny lying under oath during the action, following which he was awarded 200,000.

Mr Coulson denied that he "micro-managed" the Scottish edition of the newspaper, whose editor was Bob Bird.

However, he said he came to Scotland to view a video secretly filmed by George McNeilage which shows a man alleged to be Sheridan making admissions about his private life.

He said he believes the man in the tape is Sheridan.

The former MSP, who is defending himself, asked whether he was one of the "Wapping two top men" regarding the purchase of the tape.

Mr Coulson replied: "It came to Bob Bird first. He alerted me to its existence and I travelled to Glasgow. I viewed the tape and I suggested to Bob he should do all he could to verify the tape, though I believed it to be authentic on my first viewing and the tape was published."

Sheridan asked whether he believed it was authentic and Mr Coulson replied: "It was you."

Asked whether he saw the defendant's face, he replied: "I heard your voice.

"We've matched it against other recordings of your voice and it seemed pretty authentic to me."

Mr Coulson told the court that he stepped down as editor of the News of the World after four years in 2007 after one of his reporters, Clive Goodman, was convicted of phone hacking along with private investigator Glen Mulcaire, and he felt he should take ultimate responsibility.

He denied there was a culture of such practices at the newspaper.

He told the court: "I don't accept there was a culture of phone hacking at the News of the World."

The communications director said he had never heard of Glen Mulcaire until the Clive Goodman affair started.

Mr Coulson also denied that his reporters practised the so-called "dark arts", which he said have been described as meaning illegal work.

He said: "As far as my reporters were concerned they were to work within the law and to work within the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) code."

Sheridan also asked Mr Coulson whether he operated an "atmosphere of fear" in which staff were under pressure to produce stories, to which he replied: "Certainly not."

Sheridan denies making false statements as a witness in the defamation action on July 21 2006.

His wife denies committing the same crime on July 31 2006 after being sworn in as a witness at the civil jury trial.